Island Fire detour

Again, the trail refuses to give up miles easily. The six miles to the RV include faint trail and a 2,000-foot climb over the ridge. But we arrived by late morning.

Fran was all set up in a great campground next to a 220-year-old Sugar Pine. Hot showers! Chilled watermelon!  Iced tea!

We spent the afternoon re-planning the hike. I reviewed all of the maps through the end at Crescent City. There are still plenty of opportunities for the trail to bog us down, including climbs and descents through the most overgrown stretch of trail just a few days from the end.

We face a detour a few miles up the trail. The Island Fire has been burning for a couple of weeks, and while it is not a threat, the Bigfoot Trail is closed for a section ahead. The detour is to cut over to the PCT just before the fire. In fact, the Bigfoot Trail joins the PCT about 21 miles farther ahead anyway and follows it for 42 miles past Seiad Valley. As we study the maps, the detour on Right Hand Fork trail looks dubious. It may be yet another faint, unmaintained trail, and the PCT and Bigfoot are rather far apart where it connects them. We start looking for alternatives.

The irony is that the closed section of the Bigfoot Trail is said to be well maintained and follows a gentle river valley. Arg! We're skipping some of the few easy miles on this blasted trail!

A new plan emerges. The Bigfoot Trail momentarily touches the PCT just three miles past the campsite. Jumping on at that point raises our total on the PCT to about 71 miles instead of the 63 for the detour route, and eliminates the uncertain Right Hand Trail. That also might gain back a half day which would allow us to reduce the incessant push for miles.

The bonus is that this section of the PCT was one of my favorites along the entire PCT in 2004. I'm jazzed!

We set off on the climb in the evening, trying to get most of it out of the way.  We toss our sleeping bags on the ground and cowboy camp about two-thirds of the way up, by a stream.

8 miles to Trail Creek Junction, to mile 163

Another day, another climb

Today is the third of four consecutive climbs. We are again a few miles short of being perfectly lined up, but we are taking all the miles that the trail and our bodies give us. It feels like a hard push more than a recreational walk. I wish we had more spare days and didn't have to push so hard.

Today there is a choice on the climb. The more intense route is up Packer's Peak, while the less intense route is the Lady Gulch trail. Both are big climbs, but going over Packer's Peak adds about 1,500 feet more and is steeper. WILDCAT doesn't yet have his full speed climbing, so we opt for the less strenuous route. That is unusual for me, and I had been planning to hike over Packer's Peak, but the pressure of time is real. The Lady Gulch trail is faint and climbs 2,800 feet, so it is still slow going.

Since water is sometimes infrequent, I start soaking my hiking shirt every time I fill water bottles. I figure that the evaporative cooling is just as good as sweating, and eliminates the need for my body to drink, absorb and then sweat the water. Besides, the cold shock of putting on a damp shirt is fantastic.

My feet continue to blister. I drain them morning, noon, and evening. The blisters on the pads might be getting tougher, as is one inside my little toe. New blisters have started on the top of my foot, just before the big toe. Weird. I've never had blisters there before.

I pretty much put on the knee brace mid-morning every day now. I start each day without the brace to strengthen the knee and then brace it at the first sign of pain.

Fran is waiting with the RV at the base of the next climb. We hoped to get there tonight, but come up about six miles short. We have used about 1.5 of the three pad days, not as bad as it looked at first, but still, that leaves little cushion for the next 200 miles.

13 miles to Trail Gulch Junction, to mile 155.

Scary Snow!

We were warned by another hiker yesterday that the deer here are aggressive and crave salt. Sure enough, WILDCAT woke up this morning to his shirt dripping with deer slobber and two buttons missing. I thought it was stinky before, but now it is truly yukky!

Today's climb is extremely steep, 2,500 feet in just two miles (since we came up short yesterday, it will be 3,000 feet in three miles).  For reference, the Pacific Crest Trail is designed for a maximum 12% grade, while this section is 24%.

We get an early start and begin the climb. With little shade and no water sources, it is still a hot, slow trudge with our packs full of food and water, but we get it done.

Near the top, we meet a family on their way down. Their leader quickly queries if we know about the snow. We stare back with blank faces, asking what snow.

This is one of the areas of the trail that I worried about because of a steep northern slope that would retain snow. A couple of months ago it had nine to eighteen feet of snow. I was quite concerned, so WILDCAT and I both packed our ice axes and crampons. But the melt was very rapid, and so far we had only crossed little snow drifts around 8,000 feet elevation. I had dismissed concern about snow and forgotten all about this area.

The leader said that the north face is covered in snow so travel is extremely dangerous. He spent the prior day scouting out and marking a safe route to the west that weaved around the snow.

Still, we were stunned when we crossed over the top and looked down towards Caribou Lake. An unbroken snowfield dropped about 600 feet directly from the top. Without our ice-axes and crampons, that would be absolute suicide. We began searching to the west for the route that the other hiker had described. The snowfield was contained in a bowl so the slope to the west had a little more sun exposure and less snow. We very carefully picked our way along the jagged rock ridge, occasionally seeing the tracks of the group that came up. For a couple of hours, we slowly progressed down, following narrow bands of rock between the snow, and crossing smaller, safer snow fields.

I couldn't help but wish I had my ice-axe. With that I might have glissaded straight down the snow chute, having a blast and getting down in no time at all.

To get lined up for tomorrow's climb in the morning, we now need to make some serious miles. The climb up and the descent around snow were both very slow going, netting under four miles by early afternoon. The trail out from Caribou Lake is good and well maintained as this is a popular overnight hike with locals, so we circle the lakes and then bang out eight miles to the Big Flat Campground.

As we begin to doze off, just sleeping under the stars in our sleeping bags, I hear a noise and sit up. Just 15 feet away a startled small black bear hurries away in a panic. He obviously thought the camp was abandoned since there were no tents and he came in for a look. He doesn't return all night.

The reality of the challenge of this trail is settling in. The level of skill and fitness required is well beyond any trails that WILDCAT or I have encountered previously. It is fun but in a perverse sort of way.

13 miles to the Big Flat campground, to mile 142.

Climb!

Today starts with a 4,000-foot climb in just 5.5 miles!  It takes us six hours to get to the top.

Just over the top, the conifer diversity explodes. Without even stepping off the trail or searching hard, I identify a dozen different species, including pines, firs, hemlock, spruce, and cedar.

The trail down is overgrown and slow going. It is not clear how many miles we will make today, but the plan was to reach Portuguese Camp at mile 126 so that we are lined up for a major climb in the early morning tomorrow. We might not make it that far, but we want to push hard to line up that climb as best we can. We are in the first of a four day series of stiff climbs, usually with hot southern exposures, so we really want to keep to the plan to avoid hot afternoon climbs. But we can only make whatever miles the trail allows us to make.  As the sun sets, we halt at Stewart Creek, about 1.5 miles short of the target.

13 miles to Stewart Creek, to mile 128

Swim!

We hike the seven miles on paved road into Junction City, a tiny hamlet. We eat our lunches in front of the forest fire crew station and chat with the crew. The lead had vaguely heard of the Bigfoot Trail and mentioned that there was going to be some presentation or talk to learn more about it. He hopped onto the internet and explored the Bigfoot Trail Alliance website, so we have done a little work as trail ambassadors.

The fire crew lead mentioned that there are several great swimming holes along the Canyon Creek road that we will hike. Michael's guide says the area is private property with no trespassing signs, but we made mental notes to find the swimming holes.

The road was hot, paved and uphill. Once we found the first swimming hole, we ambled off the road and headed to the river on a well-used local trail. The concerns about private property seemed misplaced - they refer to gold prospecting claims, and indeed there are flecks of gold in the sandy creek bottom. The road has a nice pull out so I sent a text to Fran to meet us there.

Swimming and relaxing in the river was far more enjoyable than hiking the hot road. We spent the afternoon, and then I had a great idea!  On the second day of our hike, we had logged five bonus miles due to missing a junction and having to backtrack. I proposed that we redeem those five miles now, and skip up to the Ripstein Campground at the end of the pavement!  WILDCAT loves the logic of it. So after a nice swim, we ride up the hot road in the RV to the forested campground for a nice dinner of chili and cornbread with fresh berry pie and ice cream for dessert!

This was our last chance for slack-packing. The next section is road-less again, so we go back to hauling our backpacks.

20 miles to Ripstein Campground, to mile 112

The elusive Margarita

City roads transition to a gradual climb up a gravel forest road. Water is frequent, and shade is ample, so the hike quite enjoyable. We cross over the top and part way down the other side until we reach pavement and the trusty RV.

The RV is about seven miles south of Junction City, a tiny hamlet. Since WILDCAT had his heart set on a Margarita, Fran researched and found a Mexican restaurant in Weaverville another ten miles to the east. She drove us over, despite slow road construction. But the Mexican restaurant had a sign on the door saying it was closed because the waitress didn't come to work today! Skunked again! We decided to try the Chinese restaurant instead, but it was inexplicably closed despite the posted hours. We headed to the pizza place and placed our order. Next door was the only bar in town, so we checked in for the elusive Margarita. The owner/bartender promised she could make a great Margarita, though she didn't have a blender. She just shook the Margarita with ice and poured it into a glass to serve. That's not a real frozen Margarita.

Hmm. The Margarita hunt will have to continue.

19 miles to Soldier Creek, to mile 92.

Hayfork

We leave the RV and hike up a remote forest road, enjoying the leisurely stroll and learning the conifers. Just five miles in, we turn a corner onto a better road and find Fran and the RV again. Instant rest break! Iced Tea!  WILDCAT says I'm ruining his reputation with the slack-packing but he seems very enthusiastic. I didn't slack-pack on any of my three Triple Crown hikes. In my mind those National Scenic Trails are different, and for me, it was important to connect all of the footsteps and hike with a full pack. But somehow slack-packing parts of the Bigfoot Trail seems okay.

Heading into Hayfork, we have a choice of a direct walk along Highway 3 into town or a longer remote walk on dirt forest roads. We opt for the latter, both for safety and enjoyment. Part way up a local person stops to query where we are hiking to and insists that we are going the wrong way to reach Hayfork. He is unaware that the dirt roads lead over the hills and drop into the town.

As hikers head into town, the talk invariably moves to food. Knowing there is a Mexican restaurant ahead, WILDCAT is fantasizing about a frozen Margarita. Unfortunately, we soon discover that the Mexican restaurant is closed.  No Margarita today!

12 miles to Highway 3, to mile 58.

Section One finally ends

We hike another five miles on the South Fork Trinity NRT, including our first sustained climb of about 2,000 feet. The miles go easily, other than a few steep parts on the climb. When navigation is easy, and the trail is well maintained, it turns out we can actually hike a good pace!

The NRT ends on top of a hill at a gravel forest road. While hot, it slopes downhill to the north, so the hiking is still easy. The last couple of miles is along Highway 36 to the junction with Highway 3 where Fran awaits with the RV parked in the shade.

We reflect on the first section. It was much more challenging than we expected. Despite the cautions that Michael Kauffmann includes in the trail guide and detailed planning that revealed the challenges, it was still more than we expected. Partly, we just need time to get into hiking shape. But mostly the trail itself is going to be slow. We are glad we finished in five days since for a while it looked like it could go on to day six. But time is going to be a concern, and we will have to push harder than we might prefer if we had a few more days to spare.

As part of the plan to ease into hiking, the next few days will take advantage of having Fran for support. We have several days of travel before the next wilderness area, with frequent road crossings. WILDCAT and I will meet Fran each evening, so we can "slack-pack" and just carry little day packs with lunch, water, and a few essentials. That will allow our bodies to rebuild a little after the rather intense past five days.

Fran bought WILDCAT a camp chair to go with the two that we carry in the RV. He's sitting in it, sipping a Guinness beer, dipping chips in guacamole, and looking quite relaxed. Showers with real soap and shampoo follow, enchiladas for dinner, and we feel nearly human!

12 miles to Highway 3, to mile 58.

Easy miles and a swim!

By the end of the hike last night, my right knee was hurting. Today I pull out my knee brace and pop an ibuprofen. I'm also getting blisters on the top of my left foot just below the big toe. That's weird; I've never seen blisters there before.

The hiking today is easy, half on the shaded forest road and a half on the maintained South Fork Trinity River National Recreation Trail. Water is frequent, so our packs are light. I'm getting my hiking legs, though WILDCAT still slows down on the climbs. Curiously, the South Fork Trinity River Trail stays up above the river. We can see some inviting swimming holes, but they are not accessible due to rocky cliffs or private property. We are stuck on the hot trail looking down.

When Michael Kauffmann created the Bigfoot Trail, he wanted hikers to experience the diversity of conifers along the trail. Over the past few days, I've enjoyed watching for and identifying various trees as the ecozones change. I have copies of Michael's tree identification pages on my phone and a little cheat-sheet in my pocket. I used to know many of these trees (I was a teaching assistant for a field ecology class in college), but my memory is weak. I joke that I like having a bad memory because every time I relearn something, it is fresh and exciting!

We need 28 miles between today and tomorrow, so we hike 15 today. We stop where Smokey Creek flows into the South Fork Trinity River and discover an amazing swimming hole in the creek with water over my head for perhaps fifty feet, so I get to swim a little, though the cold quickly persuades me to hop out. It feels so refreshing to get clean and rinse out my clothes!

15 miles to Smokey Creek, to mile 46.

Yolla Bolly Wilderness

Again we hike in a hot, dusty burned area. My notes from previous hikers blogs say that the first four miles are a rough trail, but then there is good trail after that. We haven't seen good trail since the first mile or two on the first day, so we are looking forward to it.

I've been assiduously taking care of my feet, taking off my shoes at every break and rotating to dry socks. This morning I was less careful and blisters showed up on the pad of the forefoot. My feet blister easily and I haven't had a hike yet without some challenge so this is nothing unusual. I start taping the blisters and resume rotating socks, keeping one pair hanging on the back of my pack to air out and dry.

I have new shoes on this hike, Altras Lone Peak 3.0.  I think I am going to really like them. They are lightweight trail runners, and the mesh upper will dry quickly. The unique feature I love is the enormous toe-box. I'm hoping that helps limit the blisters.

After the first four miles, we watch for the trail to improve. Instead, a nasty prickly bush has grown thick in the open burn areas. We spend the 100F afternoon in a burn with exposed southern exposure, pushing through the overgrown brush. At first, it is just annoying but mile after mile takes a toll on our legs as the scratches mount. Eventually, the number of scratches is impossible to count and the skin becomes hypersensitive to even slight pressure.

Neither WILDCAT nor I have personalities that experience many emotional highs or lows. We just accept whatever life tosses our way, so here's the conversation that ensued.

     "WILDCAT, I know you don't do grumpy, but if you did this might be a good time for it."
     "Yep, I could imagine feeling grumpy here."

We finally pushed through the last prickly bush and exited the Yolla Bolly Middle Eel Wilderness at the Low Gap trailhead onto a remote Forest Road.  The road is a very welcome upgrade from the burned, overgrown wilderness trail. Since this is a wet year and some unreliable creeks have been flowing, we banked on getting water at one of the three streams in the first mile of the road. We were a bit concerned when the first one was dry, but the second was flowing well.

It was now late afternoon, and we have hiked just nine miles. We are getting pretty anxious about the slow pace of the hike and WILDCAT's fixed completion date. We have an itinerary for 24 hiking days with three extra days to insert as needed. We have already burned one of our three extra days and do not want to burn another one so early in the hike. WILDCAT has a good idea. Let's rest in the shade by the creek, cook our dinners now, and then hike on in the cool evening. Water is uncertain from here for the next ten miles, so this lets us avoid lugging enough water to cook tonight.

Rested, fed, and cooled we make quick work of six miles on the forest road. There is no traffic, so the hiking is enjoyable. After a few miles we discovered why there is no traffic - a massive down tree blocks the road. We just toss our sleeping bags on the side of the road and sleep.

14 miles to the creek just beyond Low Gap trailhead, to mile 31.

Navigational Challenges

Frying Pan is a pretty camp with ample water. We load up with three liters of water each and hike the half mile back up to the Bigfoot Trail.

Once again, the trail is faint and frequently blocked with debris. We navigate to The Knob pretty well, but then the trail just follows along a ridge with few navigational clues to watch for, such as creeks, junctions or turns. The area has been burned, and the trail is mostly obliterated and frequently missing. Again we find ourselves walking on a side slope, testing our ankles. We are fully exposed to the sun and 100F heat, scrambling up and down along the ridge. WILDCAT is frequently stopping to rest.

I like to follow navigational clues and stay found. I'm nervous just hiking blindly. The trail just doesn't seem right, so eventually, I flip on the GPS. Sure enough, we are 2.5 miles off-trail, climbing up Lazyman Butte. We are already tired, drinking up our precious water, and now we need to go back 2.5 miles. The trail is so obscure that even in the areas in which we found it before, we cannot locate it now, and vice-versa. We make it back to The Knob, flip on the GPS and search for our trail. After crashing around in the brush for a while, we find faint signs of the trail.

We have made just one mile of progress with seven hours of strenuous hiking. I'm worried about the implications. First, this section will now be five days long, not the planned four. It might even be six We have sufficient food, but the concern is that Fran will be stuck at a road junction for two days. Even more concerning, WILDCAT has a fixed completion date and airplane to catch. At this pace, we will not finish the trail.

Despite being low on water, we need to keep pushing. The map shows a tarn on the trail that might provide water. In the Sierras, a tarn is small alpine lake nestled in a granite bowl, with incredible cold, clear water, so that's what we both picture. Instead, this tarn is a murky pond ten foot across. Yuk. We take a liter each and treat it. A couple of miles later we reach Robinson Creek with excellent cold water, and with great joy, we dump out the tarn water and restock with ample cold fresh aqua. Neither of us usually treats our water. Instead, we seek out springs and cold clear creeks such as this one with excellent, safe water.

Stripped to our shorts, we rinse off our bodies and our clothes. A bath and laundry!  Gorgeous orange lilies line the creek, and we are careful not to trample them.

We hiked ten hard miles to get five. But we are getting better at trail finding. We now categorize trail as "imaginary trail", "possible trail", and "faint trail". The latter is indeed very exciting to find. We haven't found a use for the term "good trail" yet, and sometimes our "possible trails" turn into game trails.

In some perverse way, I'm really enjoying the navigational challenge.

Five miles to Robinson Creek, total 17

The easy start that wasn't easy

Since Fran is justifiably nervous about the road, I drive downhill with her about two miles until we reach acceptable roadbed, and then walk back up to the trailhead where WILDCAT waits with the packs. Starting hikes with walks to the trailhead seem to be a habit of mine:  I walked about ten miles to start the Continental Divide Trail and a thousand to the origin of the Appalachian Trail. Two bonus miles is nothing, and Fran is spared driving the dodgy road alone.

We can see just a little snow on South Yolla Bolly Mountain. At 8,000 feet high, it represents the limit of how high we will hike on this trip, so we likely will have little or no snow to deal with. We both brought ice axes and crampons, but it appears we will have no need for them, so we leave them in the RV.

Reviewing the map last night, it looked like today's trail would be gentle with just a few climbs of a few hundred feet. We're two guys in their sixties and both out of shape, so a few days of easy hiking is a welcome plan. Unfortunately, the map study was quite misleading. What we couldn't see was that the trail was constantly going up and down rather than flat.

We take a little detour to Square Lake. Actually, we were trying to figure out which faint trail to follow and arrived at the lake by accident, but it was well worth the extra tenth of a mile. The crystal clear lake is nestled against towering rock walls and softened by a dense forest of Western White Pine and Sugar Pine. One fisherman is on the other side of the lake enjoying the solitude.

We made plodding progress, partially due to being out of shape, but even more so because of the condition of the trail. Since the trail has little use, it is not maintained. Years of windfalls have blocked the trail with debris. The tread is faint, disappearing under the forest floor of pine needles and cones. We typically follow the trail just 20-50 feet before we lose it under a brush pile. By lunch time we have made just four miles, a fraction of our usual pace. The maps show trail junctions at mile 4.6 and 6.9. We see neither one, which is concerning because there is no reliable water on the trail for fourteen miles. We need to find the faint side trail to Frying Pan creek for water and camp.

By afternoon our trail finding skills are improving, and we are spending a little less time hunting for the trail. The trail generally follows the ridgeline, just off to one side or the other, so when it disappears walking on the side slope is rough on our ankles. Sometimes we just walk on the ridge until we spot the trail again.

Today's plan was for 12 miles, to camp at Frying Pan. That seemed like a short day when we reviewed it, but the trail condition conspired to make it quite challenging. Given the water situation we really had to make it to Frying Pan, so we hiked eleven hours and are quite tired. So much for the easy start!

12 miles to Frying Pan Creek

Trailhead

We buy supplies for 30 days in Sacramento and then drive to the trailhead. The highway becomes just a simple road, then a gravel road, then a very heavily rutted and steep forest road. Fran is very nervous about the last couple of miles on the road since she will be driving out alone tomorrow morning.  We stop short of the backpacker's trailhead and pull off at a horse trailhead instead.

We lay our sleeping bags out under the trees, breathe in the fresh air, and drift off to a pleasant sleep.

We are the beginning of the Bigfoot Trail. After three years of dreaming and two years of planning, this is really going to happen.

Sacramento

We picked up WILDCAT at the Amtrak train station in Sacramento and holed up in an RV park.

We rarely stay in RV parks, much preferring the wilderness. In towns, we often prefer a simple Costco or Walmart parking lot to an RV park. We have no need for RV hookups, with our self-contained tanks and ample solar electricity. But sometimes we are forced into the cramped, paved places called RV campgrounds, especially in cities where overnight parking is not allowed at Walmart.

We pick up WILDCAT at midnight and need to buy some supplies in the morning for the hike. Parking at Costco and Walmart is not allowed. So here we are at an RV park in Sacramento. So be it. It will get us through the night just fine.

Tomorrow we will buy supplies in Sacramento and get to the trail head.  I can handle one day in town. Tomorrow we will be in the wilderness.