Five simple miles to the trailhead and Fran with the RV. Good trail and little up or down. Yippee.
We bang out the short miles and ... no Fran. We had reviewed the plans enough that a misunderstanding is unlikely. We wait a few minutes, eat our last snacks, and consider options. Perhaps the road is blocked, or impassable with the RV. There could be worse options, such as a breakdown, but those are less likely.
We had planned this section for four days, but the overgrowth challenges stretched it out another half day. I had texted a couple of days ago to let her know to expect it us in five days, but don't know if she got the text.
Our best bet is to start walking the road. We are out of water and waiting here doesn't accomplish anything.
The road goes steadily uphill for a couple of miles, then starts down. We begin the slog uphill, fill up water at a creek, and climb.
At the top of the hill, we find the RV! Fran had driven up these roads and was concerned about overheating the brakes on the downhill. She had not received my text so drove up higher this morning to get a signal, and was able to pick up my text, albeit a little late, and then return to where we met her.
Typically, Fran does not worry too much about me if I'm tardy coming into a checkpoint. Actually, I was only late once on the PCT. She knows that I will not make foolish decisions and if I am late it is probably for a good reason. She has talked about that before. But this time she is worried since she knows there is no one else on this trail. If I have a problem, there is no one coming up behind me to help. Given that, and the trail conditions of this section, she is already considering calling Search and Rescue. She was pretty worried. Fortunately, she received my text message first.
After a nice afternoon break, we slack-pack on down the road to the Stevenson bridge over the South Fork Smith River and have a nice swim.
12 miles to South Fork Smith River, to mile 335.
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