PCT Day 114 – California Anti-Climax

Campsite at mile 1637 to Seiad Valley (mile 1656)

The road walk into Seiad Valley is demoralizing—there is no other word for it. Except maybe frustrating, that’s apt too. For six miles the PCT follows the shoulder of a two lane road as it makes a long u-turn around the Klamath River. If there were a magical bridge where the trail bisects the river, you’d save yourself four miles of road waking. You can actually see into Seiad Valley where you’re going to end up, and were the river less formidable and the locals were to post fewer ‘No Trespassing’ and ‘We Don’t Call 911’ signs with silhouettes of hand guns, you might say screw it and ford the river. But they do, and the longer you look the sketchier the river appears, so you simply wall the four miles grumbling as the heat from the road rises up through your shoes and begins to cook your feet. Four miles walking under a baking sun along the non-existent shoulder. Four miles of double-X State of Jefferson signs and cars roaring past at speeds that make your entire body tense, just in case you need to dive off the road into the bushes. Ahead looms the 7,000 foot climb that will take you out of this desolate, baking valley with it’s secessionist locals, and northward to the Oregon border—the end of California, the first and biggest state on the PCT.

By the time we arrive in Seiad Valley I already hate this place. My feet ache and burn from waking on the minuscule shoulder of the road, my adrenaline is coursing from being passed by cars who can’t or simply don’t want to give us any space as they scream past, and my lungs are itching from the thick smoke in the air—courtesy of the two forest fires burning just to the north. Inside the blessedly cool general store I buy a Gatorade, a soda, a V8, and a peach before flopping down in the shade under a tree at the neighboring RV park. Timber and Coins are here, so are Detour, Honey, all three members of the Backstreet Boys, and a half dozen other hikers we don’t know. The only conversation is how awful that road walk was, and once we’ve complained ourselves into silence: the fires.

According to the general store owner the trail is closed north of us. According to the PCTA website the trail is still open but will probably be closed soon, but if you’re in Saied just hang out and wait. But how long? Nobody knows. We just talk ourselves in loops, hashing out the same limited information via the same slow wifi. What to do, what to do. Nobody wants to be the first to make the call. Nobody wants to have hiked almost to Oregon only to have the rug pulled out from under them. We are so close, we all want to cross that border no matter how arbitrary and irrelevant it is, we want this. Don’t take it away now. Please.

My mom texts me to say that she’s contacted the Klamath forest and that a closure is imminent. It’s just a matter of time now. And even if it wasn’t, the fire is burning a mile north of the trail, which is such a small buffer as to be laughable, or rather, lethal. I relay this information to the group and one hiker hops to his feet, he’s going to make a run for it. Maybe he can make it to Oregon before a official closure goes into effect. However, 35 miles at hiking pace, his odds aren’t great. Or maybe they are since nobody knows what the fire is doing, when or if it might hit the trail. The rest of us stay put until the owner of the RV park comes by to say it’s time to pay up or pack out. But still, nobody wants to make the call so we all head back to the picnic table by the closed cafe and talk in even more loops as more hikers arrive.

35 miles to Oregon. A fire only a mile from the trail with 5% containment. Twenty hikers in Seiad Valley with more on the way. Rumors of closures, instructions to stay put. Smoke so thick the sun is red and we can barely see the ridge right above us. Keith and I are finally the bold, or perhaps just sensible, ones and we tell the others we’re hitching to Ashland. The danger, the smoke, it’s not worth it. Growing up in Colorado I leaned that you don’t mess with fires, that they can move faster than you know and will destroy everything in their path until there is nothing left but a ruined black husk. Pogo and Mirage join us and after an hour spent overheating on the side of the road we’ve got a hitch to Yreka near I-5. The other hikers cheer as all four of us cram into the back seat of the Jeep—I’m the only one who bothers with a seatbelt.

Our saviours are two young women, river guides just heading back from a multi day trip on the Klamath. They blast the Cranberries as we fly towards the highway, we are a laughing jumble of nylon-clad limbs and backpacks, the wind from the open windows swatting at my face. Within an hour we’re tumbling from their car in a gas station in Yreka. In another 30 minutes Keith and I are heading north on I-5 towards Ashland. We’re across the Oregon border in the back of a Nissan with no photo op, no tears or excitement or much of anything.

We arrive in Ashland to the news that the trail between Saied and the border is closed, those still hiking are being evacuated, and everybody else is being told to head north. So we made the right choice, but what of it. On the PCT there are so few meaningful landmarks – the halfway point, Oregon border, Washington border, northern terminus/Canadian border. That’s it’s. Due to our flip the halfway marker was meaningless, and now due to a fire we won’t cross onto Oregon on foot. It’s hard not to feel saddened, to feel like I’m missing out. Embarrassing as it sounds, I’d even thought of the photo I would take at the border—I’ve been thinking about it for days. I just wanted some tangible evidence that all of this walking was getting me somewhere. That I was doing anything at all.

Maybe the trail is simply teaching me to let go of attachments to ideas and plans. That you can still succeed even if it doesn’t look anything like you imagined it would. And no lesson comes without discomfort, there are no adventures where everything goes to plan. Acceptance. Moving on. That is all I can do.