Day 94 - Friday, July 30

Tenting at the Wildwood Cafe (mile 1656.4). Walked 27.4 miles today.

We woke up after a decent night of sleep and packed up. We were on the trail just after 6 am and started the day with a very steep climb through a burned area.

After reaching a ridge, we walked through a forested area before climbing gradually. After reaching the top, we began the very long descent down to Seiad Valley.

It's about 15 miles of downhill to get there. The downhill started out with a ton of fallen logs to crawl over (also called blow downs). This whole region is a burn area so there are plenty of burnt trees to fall down. These blow downs would continue for the entire descent, but would become less numerous as we got farther toward town. We switchbacks our way down, foraging for thimble berries and raspberries as we went.

At one stream crossing, we ran into Ping who was relaxing in the water.

We continued on and began the bushwhack. The trail here was overgrown. Complicating the process was a ton of poison oak all over the place. This meant that I had to play a game of "name that plant" as I pushed through the brush, taking care to avoid the bad ones. After about half a mile of this tedious game I'd about had it. This was the first time I'd really considered quitting the trail. It was just overwhelming to deal with it all. Finally, the brush lightened up enough so that it wasn't so overwhelming.

We continued to make our way down the trail until we reached a national forest campground that was closed due to all the burned trees around it. We washed our arms and legs of potential poison oak and then sat for a snack. While we were eating, the thunder started. We packed up after a few minutes and began the road walk into town in light sprinkles. The gravel road lasted about 2 miles and had ample blackberries for eating. After 2 miles, the road became paved as it ran next to the Klamath River.

Along the road, we were passed by a gentleman in a car who offered us a ride to town. We declined as we're trying to walk the trail and not skip sections. Frank called Ping and the other hiker who had already gotten rides "cheaters" and they got a kick out of that. Shortly after, we reached some stones along the road. They read 1000. This was our signal that we only have 1000 miles to go until Canada...an exciting number!

We turned off of this road and onto a much busier highway that runs through Seiad Valley. After crossing the Klamath River, it started to rain a but harder and finally started pouring. I donned my rain jacket and we met up with First Class and Atlas who had just put their jackets on too. We walked into town together, past all the "State of Jefferson" flags and signs and went to the general store as the rain stopped.

We got some food and while we were eating outside the store, Dirty Knuckles rolled up. She, Frank, and I walked to the Tavern where we ate some food and got a couple of milkshakes. Rambo, Microbe, Sure Foot, and Wow were also here so we caught up with them before they rolled out to do a few miles tonight. They're doing the road walk instead of the trail which is two miles shorter and avoids a bushwhack and lots of poison oak (Frank and I are going to suffer through the trail).

Frank and I paid to camp on the lawn and that also allowed us to get showers. We took advantage of that and set up my tent in the grass. We went back inside and hung with Matador, Dirty Knuckles, and Burps (who is now going by his new trail name: Prime). Frank and I squeezed into my tent again as the threat of rain still looms. It was so uncomfortable with the high humidity. Before we went to bed, she pulled up a video on how to set my tent up properly, so now I'll hopefully have a better pitch from now on.