And I Was A Bad.  Ass.

Day 54

PCT Mile Marker 1668.24 – 1693.58

Miles Hiked 25.34

The moon was going down, orangy-yellow in the hazy smoke and early morning light. The wind was cool, flowing over my skin like water. So refreshing and clean.

I followed paths around trees which had fallen across the trail. It was nice that others have gone before me on the trail. I had fewer and fewer things which needed problem-solving. I didn’t have to figure out how to get around every obstacle. Fifty people already established the easiest path, and I could easily identify how to get over this log or around that fallen tree. I could kind of zone out and let my mind wander.

I realized I crossed the 500 mile mark yesterday. I-walked-five-hundred-miles. To PCT hikers who started at the border of Mexico, it’s like, ‘Oh that’s sweet honey, I remember a looooong time ago when I hit my own 500 mile mark’.  

But it was a big accomplishment for me. I felt pretty darn good about it.

It seemed the seasonal streams marked on my maps were starting to become unreliable. Many were no longer streams…just damp earth. Trodden by many feet.  

I’ll need to keep a better eye on the water report. Carry enough water to make it through two water sources.

Water is heavy, though.

The terrible climb that began yesterday ended within an hour an a half of starting today. There were still plenty of steep climbs, but not brutal ones.

They say Oregon is a moving walkway compared to what I’ve already done. They say it’s mostly flat. That the climb out of Seiad Valley is California’s last big hurrah before the level state of Oregon.

The trail was good. Short climbs with long rolling downhills. A roller coaster.

I was so hungry I felt sick. I kept eating but couldn’t seem to get full. So I took a long lunch and cooked the extra dinner I’d been carrying. A huge pot of wild rice soup with TVP.

Felt a bit better after that.  

Passed through hillsides of nothing but buckwheat pocked with stands of super tall trees. No underbrush. Super interesting-looking.

More views of Shasta. Will I see Shasta all the way to Canada? I’ve seen it for soooo long now. Once it goes away, maybe I’ll feel like I’ve made serious progress.

Met a super nice lady named Janet gathering water near a spring. She had a black lab named Nelson. That’s our dog’s name! I had never met another dog named Nelson, so I hung out with them for longer than I should have. I got a lot of doggie hugs, and I felt my heart swell to two-and-a-half times its usual size.

I trotted down the trail, all happy and in tune with the Universe. I rounded a switchback and saw a blue cooler. A blue cooler! Trail Magic? 

Sure enough, written on the top of the cooler – the contents were for PCT hikers, courtesy of a group called S.O.B. Who were putting on a 50 mile foot race on the trail the next day.  

I opened the cooler, and to my utter delight…beer! Good beer! On ice! Ice Cold Beer! From a local Ashland brewery! I sat right down in the dirt and opened my beer.

Another hiker, Trout, showed up right then, and he sat right down in the dirt next to me.

We drank our beers and headed back on trail.  

He was faster than me and I struggled to keep up, but I needed the motivation, so I made it happen. I needed water and was just filtering it from a tiny trickle in a meadow while Trout checked out an old cabin nearby. He found a water cache there and hollered at me.

I took one liter of water. We headed out again, and we were at the border.

The Oregon Border.

The Glorious and Wonderful. The Beautiful. The Happy and Sweet Oregon Border. I just walked from Truckee, California to Oregon!!! I was a ninja warrior. I was a full-fledged bad ass.

So we sat in the dirt and ate some stuff.

But there wasn’t any water or anywhere to camp.  

So Trout and I headed back into the wilderness for another 4.4 miles. I was exalted, elated, exhausted, and so-so-so hungry.  

We stopped again and sat in the dirt and ate more stuff.

Finally, when I was ready to fall down I was so tired, we found a piped spring with water aplenty and a large space that was only slightly sloped.

Some hikers from Sweden that I’d seen several times before were already set up and going to sleep.  

Congratulations. They said. Your first 25 mile day. Congratulations. Good night.

I cooked a ton of food and ate all of it.

And it was really really cold.

And I wore my gloves to bed.

And I was in Oregon.

And I was a Bad. Ass.