Sunday, June 17, 2018 – 12.80 miles

I mentioned several entries ago that I was switching up my food selections to hopefully reduce the force-feeding nature of my meals. Here’s the consensus:

Hard chocolate = improvement

Different nuts = improvement

Almond butter = pretty much the same

Dehydrated potatoes = I like them, though I can see myself getting sick of them quickly. I make half the package at a time and it’s a lot of potatoes.

Oats for breakfast = I neglected to mention this one. Granola was getting too sweet so I decided to try plain oats instead. I chose a package that said ‘steel cut’, thinking that was just a snobby name for normal oats, but each oat is like a tiny pebble and eating them cold with milk was like eating the half-cooked rice. I decided to try cold soaking them in a baggie and tried the results this morning. They were… strange tasting. They did absorb the water but also a plasticy flavour. I’m going to have to cook them or nix them and I know which option is more likely. Unfortunately they’re in my Seiad Valley resupply box as well.

The long descent towards Seiad Valley began today. I met a sweetie named Lars who warned me about a large group of women planning to camp at Cliff Valley Creek. He had been talking to hikers about where we were planning to camp in order to ensure we all had a site. A camp coordinator, if you will. Unfortunately I had planned to camp at Cliff Valley Creek and didn’t have enough water to camp at the dry sites before then, but the photos in eTrails showed two large camping areas at the creek, so I figured I could squeeze in somewhere.

Down into Grider Canyon. I saw a grouse with babies (so cute) and a deer that was headed towards me along the PCT and bolted off as soon as it saw me.

I kept an eye out for ticks since Lars had relayed the info that one of the women had picked up several, but saw none. Perhaps she was the human sacrifice in order to ensure that the rest of us remain tick-free. 

When I arrived at Cliff Valley Creek, I found the group set up. Our conversation went like this:

Me: Hi!

(Long pause)

Woman 1: Hi.

Woman 2: There’s another campsite down the trail, you know.

So no friendliness awards were won, but I suppose they just wanted their privacy and viewed me as threatening it. Locating the second camping area, I pitched my tent. Cliff Valley Creek is a major creek and was flowing strong, flanked by clouds of mozzies.