Trail Day 100: Scott River Road/Highway 96 to tentsite (1682.0)

4.3 PCT miles, plus 19 miles road walk detour

I did not wake up this morning very happy. Seiad Days ran very late. They were blasting music until 2 am. It was Beldon all over again, although at least Seiad Days didn't go until 4 am.

I ended up packing up around 6 am. It was later than I had wanted to get up, but just about all I was willing to sacrifice on time. I was at a low elevation in a valley and had a lot of miles to do. I had to get them in while it was cool, especially since I had a huge elevation gain to look forward to today.

As I headed out of town, I would stick my thumb out at cars as they passed to see if I could get a ride to where I had left off yesterday. They were mainly pick up trucks driving fast and angry. They did not stop.

I also passed several “No Monument” signs. I know there was controversy over a National Monument in the area. I would have loved to know the reasons why. I know when the National Monuments issue was brought up on the PCT FB page, there was some anger that people would support monuments and something about how the people of Seiad Valley would disagree. There was even a nasty reply to someone's comment in support of monuments that read “Another misinformed voter” without any rationale about why they were misinformed.

Where I live the monuments are a great idea, especially the San Gabriel Mountains Monument, and they get a lot of support. I would have loved to hear the reasons the residents here are so against it, but I got the feeling that the residents tend to be anti-government regulation of any kind. The RV park I stayed at declared itself to be in the State of Jefferson as opposed to the State of California.

I walked past the No Monument signs and passed a house with several dogs that started barking at and approaching me. They were not tied up. I ignored them and hoped the would stop at the end of the property.

After that, I approached a bridge and had my second official bear sighting. It was a smaller bear than last time and was coming up from the creek to cross the road. As soon as it saw me, it bolted across the road and up the slope on the other side before I could even take my lens cap off.

As I was looking at where the bear had run off too I saw movement at my side. The big white dog who had been barking at me earlier had caught up. It was looking up at me patiently,  wanting attention. I gave it some head pats, and told it that it was a sweet pup. That may have been the wrong thing to do because then it started to happily follow me as I walked down the road.

This made me nervous because it was also running in the middle of the road. It would run ahead, wait for me to catch up, then start going again. Sometimes I would walk past it as it was sniffing around, then it would come and walk by my side again. We were definitely “together.”

I was really hoping that I got a ride soon so that the dog would go home and stop running around in the street. I knew the people driving by thought I was being an irresponsible dog owner.  One of the cars was going slow enough to avoid it that I was able to shout, “Not my dog.”

Finally, I had a car pull over to give me a ride to Scott River Road. It was a nice fire fighter from Colorado who had been in the area for the past month helping out with the forest fires. He was heading back to Reno to catch a flight home.

After I was dropped off, I finished the last 4 miles of Highway 96 and turned onto a road in the town of Horse Creek.  I filled up on water in a creek I had found, seeing both elk and deer tracks, then walked passed several ranch properties. I waved at the residents as they drove by, trying to be as friendly as possible so that they think positively about the hiker trash that roll through the area.

Highway 96 near Horse Creek (and next to the Klamath River).

I hit the junction with the forest road where there was a cool, old house and started up. There was a sign that warned it was also a logging road. It did seem to be used more than other forest roads I encountered.

A forest and logging road.

More logging.

The forest road was really boring and hot. I listened to my audiobook to try and pass the time as I climbed uphill for hours. Eventually, I bumped into a man and his dog. He was a very friendly man from Etna who was harvesting logs. One of the private properties was allowing people to harvest the wood from the dead trees they had cut down.

I talked with Mike for a little while. He felt the need to be defensive about logging since I probably “don't like it,” comparing it to farming. I told him that I have no problem with logging in general, just over-harvesting. He also had a little bit of venom in his voice when he mentioned the forest service and their regulations. I empathized with him but also lamented that it is a difficult balance to strike between maintaining the health of a forest and setting the amount of trees that can be harvested at a time.

After Mike wished me luck and told me to be safe, I continued up the never ending labyrinth of forest roads for several hours. I was excited when I hit a spring because it was a listed water source on the Guthook map, meaning I was finally close to getting back on the trail.

Forest road lunch break.

I found the spring. This means I'm close. 

I filled up on water and headed towards the trail when I heard a car behind me. I moved towards the side of the road and was surprised when Milkshake stuck her head out the passenger side and waved to me. I had given her Songbeard’s detour plans when I saw her in Etna and she had somehow convinced someone to drive her all the way up the dirt road labyrinth to the trail.

The man that dropped them off came back to offer me a ride too, but I was really close to the trail by that point. When I finally got to the trail junction, Milkshake and her crew explained the man lived in the cool, old house right at the bottom of the forest road and had offered to drive them up after they had talked to him for awhile.

They were going to camp right at the trailhead, waiting for the rest of their crew to arrive. I wanted to get a few miles of trail in today, since it had been so long.

The trail! I'm back!

It felt really good to be back on the actual trail itself instead of walking the road. It felt safer for some reason. I did a couple more miles, passing several cows, before setting my tent up in a treed area as I was losing light. I could hear the soft jingle of cowbells in the distance. Tomorrow I will finally hit the Oregon border!

Hmm...did you know there is a forest fire here?