PCT 17 - Ashland

PCT 17 - Ashland

Sometimes a town just takes you in an makes you feel welcome. Those old haunts of music, good food, new people and just the ability to take in some culture lure a hiker in. Our stay in Ashland has been truly relaxing. It started when we arrived at a bookstore and a woman who had just rafter the Colorado River for 18 days offered us a place to stay near downtown Ashland.

At 75, she was the most intellegent and active traveller that I have meet. Her stories worth pages of adventures. Her home overlook the whole of the Upper Rouge Valley a view that told us we were not in California any more. So we settled in before she was off to preform in a Taiko Drumming Group in Lithia Park near Ashland Creek.

Soon we found that her youthful spirit was the norm for this fountain of youth in Oregon. As we walked through the park later, it was filled with music, people, dancers and outdoor plays. After all this was the home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and we were hiker walking through the high season.

We went to a replica of he Globe Theater from London, and watched a group of Spanish Flamingo dancers flow through the music of the mistro behind the guitar. To watch these beautiful women weave their hands and body to the rhythm the notes as their swirling dress followed behind the lead of their hips. Compared with the towns that we zeroed in before, it was like landing in another world. It was nice to enjoy a some of the haunts of the city.

We came back and talked wellinto the evening about our hosts travels around the world. It seemed that she had been a local college professor in the Arts, and she had taken up painting locals that she meet along her travels. Tales of Tramping around New Zealand and sailing through the Sea of Cortez seemed to inspire the thoughts of life after the trail. Yet for us Oregon and Washington was calling us, so we started to prepare for walking again.

Half way through town the sound of Celtic fiddle music drew us into the Black Sheep Pub, and with another free concert of Latin music in the park this evening we were sold on another night at a local hostel. It is the lure of good town stops, this is a place I will definitely find myself at again.

From the backcountry mile
Ridgewalker
山武士
Http://ridgewalkernw.blogspot.com

PCT 16 - Fires of California

PCT 16 - Fires of California

Smoke has filled the air pretty much since we left Lake Tahoe. Each
day we walk north another section of trail closes as new fires are
found benieth the haze of old ones. The first real fire that we saw
was the American River Complex just west of the trail at Donner Pass.
That fire was burning about 10 miles away yet causing the sky to turn
an orange haze that covered most of the Tahoe Basin. Luckly we passed
that fire high above along Squaw Valley Ski Resort.

The next fire was actually a complex of seven fires, called the Butte/
Canyon Complex. This one was more of an impediment. When we arrived in
Sierra City, about 130 miles of trail were closed, with the towns of
Belden and Bucks Lake on fire. It was then that the full impact of the
California fires could be felt. It was not so much that there were
fires, this is a normal part of Western Wildland Forests. But that
there were soo many all started on the same day, summer solstice. That
storm hit while we were on Muir Pass (11500'). A dark cloud growing in
mass as it hit the Sierras, in the end only snow came of it for us.
Yet for the rest of California, it hit like Thors Hammer.

We had to hitch and take a bus to get around that complex of fires.
Along the roads and towns we saw the small armies set up to attack the
blazes. Schools and roads filled with the green forest service
engines. Finally we were back on trail after Chester. Behind us that
evening the smoke was thick in the air and we could see the orange
glow from the fire behind us. We were back on trail at the half way
point heading into Lassen.

Three days later we have decided to jump the last of California 250
miles. Smoke has moved in from the Coastal and Kalamth Fires. Most of
that length
Is closed to a series of fires just discovered that have gone un-
noticed due to the high amounts of smoke from the Shasts-Trinity
Complex. It is best to take the out to Oregon and call the 1377 miles
hiked in California good. We after all have still about 1000 miles
more to walk for Oregon and Washington. On to the Cascades and thier
snow.

-- Ridgewalker
山武士

From the backcountry mile
Ridgewalker
山武士
Http://ridgewalkernw.blogspot.com

PCT 15 - Drakesbad & Cinder Cone

PCT 15 - Drakesbad & Cinder Cone

There are special hidden places along the trail that seems to lift the
hikers spirit. After the last week of being ill and having to deal
with a complex of 8 fires that closed the trail, we have finally made
it to the half way marker and Lassen National Park. Its a small
unknown park to many, filled with mudpots, geysers, boiling lakes,
lava flows and cinder cones. This is the start of the Cascade Mtns and
of course the home of Drakesbad Guest Ranch.

This is a special place because of the people that run this epicurian
getaway. Ed and Billy from Baveria, run it much like a Swiss Chalet.
They are welcoming and have wonderful stories of their own. For 19
years the have run Drakesbad getting the best consessionair award in
the Park Service. Before that they ran huts in Austria where hiker
would come in off the Trans-Alpine trail. So they understand the
hikers, and that they constantly hungry. The food here is great and a
good soak in the hotsprings relieves the sore aches from the trail.
Great way to celebrate the halfway mark (MP 1354).

After three meals and one good long soak in the hot springs waters, we
pushed out along the trail. Through a young forest and a few lakes, we
made our way out towards the lava plateau. Sand was the order of the
day, and we found huge cinderfields. The trail weaved its way through
the stand of trees and lava crags. As we turned the corner a large
black and red lava flow stood before us, with a black cone looming
over us.

The hiking was slow going, it seemed like. For every step forward you
would slide back some. After working our way around the different
crags, we set up our tent at the base of the cinder cone. The with the
coming sunset, we took the trail up the steepside of the cone. In all
directions the light of sunset was shining beautifuly on the smoke
from all the local forest fires. Lassen stood magesticly above the
lava plateau 10'000 ft in to the evening sky.

When we reached the summit of the black cone, one of the most
aweinspiring sights lay before me. The cone was two concentric circles
of crater within crater. Caught in a wave across the rim, the lines
seem to draw the eyes in as the skies become more and more brilliant
with the passing hour. We walled the rim looking down to the painted
dunes below. It was a magical place to be at, and well worth the hike
off the main PCT.

On towards Old Station and the Hat Creek Rim, the trail just keeps the
imagination rolling and my feet moving forward.

-- Ridgewalker

From the backcountry mile
Ridgewalker
山武士
Http://ridgewalkernw.blogspot.com

PCT 14 - Two Asses Passes

PCT 14 - Two Asses Passes

We had just rounded the third bend in the canyon, when we came upon
the upper meadows. For the next three days we were again off the Pct
into the spine of the Sierras, this time it was along the Matterhorn
Ridge. The plan was to avoid Yosemite's mosquito infested north
country. On my last time thru, these vengeful creatures had broken my
spirit with the hord that attacked day and night. Now the plan was to
stay above 9000' until Sonora Pass when the Geology of Basalt flows
would bring salvation.

The approach to Burro Pass walked along the ascending meadows of the
Matterhorn Canyon. The flowered filled meadows seemed to reveal a new
color around each bend, giving life of color to the granite white
walls with lupine, columbine, and paintbrush. The views of the
Matterhorn, Sawtooth ridge and Whorl Peak were a climbers dream.
Smooth white and tan spires held aloft into the 12000' skies, urging
the dreamer to go higher. We made the top of the pass to find a small
little tarn that stood below two chutes of Finger Peak.

We left the Burro Pass area and began to work our way towards Mule
Pass the second of the Two Asses Passes. It was here that we began to
follow the tracks of a mountain lion. Every time the trail crosses the
snow so to did the feline's a couple of times as we walked through the
steep granite chutes, the lions tracks were perfectly inside the
tracks of a climbers boots. We knew that after turning two trail
junctions, he was headed towards Peeler lake on the otherside of the
Yosemite Divide. That day ended with us bellow the spite of Crown
Point above a chain of jewel like lakes in the Hoover Wilderness,
wondering if the cat was in the same valley.

The morning sunrise across the Eastern Sierras was glorious. It was
like the beginning of a symponey as the light cast across the valley
with the desert in the distant horizon. That day we continued to
follow the tracks of the cat that finally turned uphill near the
popular Peeler Lake. This was our last encounter with Yosemite as we
slipped in and out it's backdoor at Buckeye Meadows. After this we
followed our blueblaze down the Buckeye to an old Snow Survey Cabin in
a meadow. Of had a few ruins around of other cabins, and by the looks
of the sulfur rich hillsides and tailings, it once was an old mining
village. But now all that was left was a small wooden cabin overgrown
with grass and wildflowers besides a creek woods. Idillic!

One more pass to go before the blueblaze was over, Kirkwood. This I'd
where I meet my advisary, mosquito! They came like waves when you
stopped. Many times if we just keeps moving they would just follow
behind. It was a great ascent to the pass. We came to some bear tracks
crossing the pass into the long fields of the Piute Meadows below.

The last of the trail before the PCT was a huge back meadow ofthe
Waller River. Tower Peak stood like a King's Thorn over the meadows,
and at the far end an old Forest Service cabin. We took the evening
and pitched out near the cabin, having dinner on the porch. It was a
well loved cabin with a great view of meadows and the peaks of the
upper Walker in the fading sunset. A mosaic of rocks of colors and
shapes had been layer down in a wheel in front of the cabin and it
seemed a good place to wish the Yosemite Blueblaze good by. In the end
we never saw the cat and I only saw the black bear as he wondered dim
light across the meadow, but it was a good blueblaze and well worth
leaving the trail for, and should be the "offical" PCT route north of
Tuolumne Meadows.

Ridgewalker

From the backcountry mile
Ridgewalker
山武士

PCT 13 - The Yosemite

PCT 13 - The Yosemite

Towering cliffs of granite and thundering veils of waterfalls. These
bring millions of visitors to the park each year. Each with cars,
tents, bicycles and motorhomes. To serve all these people there is a
crew of thousands, mostly in the confines of one valley, the Yosemite.
Every now and then a ranger passes by in the classic grey shirt, green
pants and old Stetson hat bearing the leather marks of the giant
sequioa cones. Yet they seem as out of place as the rest of us
backpackers huddled in a remote camp in the park. All like church mice
on a crowded Sunday revival.

After three weeks in the relativle solitude of the High Sierras, the
valley was a sort of system shock. I had grown up with Wilderness
Parks such as the Olympic and North Cascades, yet those I have always
regarded as special. Yet to see the city brought to the Temple was
hard to swallow.

As I sat there below Yosemite Falls, moved like a great force in awe
at the falls above, I wondered what old Muir would have thought. Would
he shake jos cost at the wave of commercialism that covered the valley
floor. is hard to say. He had the full range of the Tuolumne and
Merced to explore alone. Yet he lived long enough to see the park
grow. Yet this is Olmsteds park too. Where society meet nature along
planned avenues. These cliffs and waterfalls still inspire people to
leave the confines of city comforts of Camp Curry or the Awhanee
Lodge. To walk the footpaths up the valleys past those first few
miles, to find a little of the Muir in each of them.

Would Muir understand his valley was given up for a greater cause?
After following the trail that bears his name and watching new faces
in amazement at the mountains that surround, I suspect he might have
some hope. So as we eat our ice cream sandwich from the trailside
stand we head towards the wilderness, just 6 miles north of that
Tuolumne Trailhead. There is were we find home again, back to the long
thin line we call the crest.

- Ridgewalker 山武士

From the backcountry mile
Ridgewalker
山武士