PCT Day 117 – Welcome to Holo-deck 2650

I-5 at Callahans (mile 1718) to Little Hyatt Reservoir Outlet (mile 1741)

I love this picture because it looks like we’re sitting in a camping-themed hologram. It’s a good visual metaphor for what thru hiking feels like sometimes. Actually, a better analogy would be that my memories of thru hiking feel like the highlight reel for a thru hiking hologram experience. You know, the sort of thing that sells you a movie, or any automobile that bills itself as an adventure car. There are certain experiences from the trail that have formed clear recollections. These are the memories that have been edited one after another into this exciting trailer for the experience I’m having. While other memories have been ferried away on the current of the river which is constantly pulling towards the dark part of the brain we can’t reach. Without aid it is impossible to recall a trip this long with day to day detail; this is one of the best reasons to keep a record on the trail, and consequently why so many PCT blogs exist.

Today was our first day in Oregon, and I wonder how much of it I’ll remember by the end of the trail. How about by the end of next year. Will today, like so many of the days in our life, fade into a colorful blur of faces and moments that is the visual shorthand our brain represents a trip, or a week, or your childhood.

I don’t know. Of course I don’t, but it was a good day. Perhaps not astonishing, but good.

Keith cooked us a nice breakfast at the hostle, which gave me time to drink a cup of coffee while I emailed my grandmother and read a bit of my book. The food was kinda bland since you can never count on there being spices in a hostel kitchen. But mine had spinach in it and that made me happy. A nice man named David gave us a ride to the trailhead. He owna a coffee roaster in Ashland which is named after his son, Griffin, who is hiking the Oregon section of the PCT this year as his senior project. The first part of the day was characterized by a series of short but steep rollers as we climbed away from the highway. The sharp little climbs had my calves screaming, which should serve as a good reminder for me to stretch after writing this.

Once we got into the trees a little the smoke wasn’t too bad, though the sun shone a neon red, giving the entire day the feeling of early evening. Like walking through a ten hour sunset—this somewhat made up for the fact that everything beyond 50 meters was blurred with the haze of smoke, rendering all efforts in landscape photography useless.

This area is so so dry, a local man told us there might be lightning tonight. Looking around our camp is a full enough explanation of what he means. The grass is brittle and yellow, the breeze a moisture sucking whisper. The trail today was cracked like a dry desert river, only inches deep into a compact mud. They believe lightning started the Hendrix Fire, so why not here? Southern Oregon is a tinder box. Yet, despite the heat, five days of food and the longer water carries, we arrived at camp early. Time just to sit and enjoy the view while eating ramen. It was good, nice. And now I’ve done a little something for future Kara, so she may come back and recall a nice day in southern Oregon if she ever feels the need to.