Took first break at 8 miles in, next to a small creek. Met Crawdad (previously known as Dirt Bag for not showering from Wrightwood to South Lake Tahoe. He tried to engage hikers in a competition to see who could make it to Canada without showering. He laughed as he told us he got no takers). We sat upwind from him and had a lovely chat. ;)
The views were again interesting, it's nice to be walking along ridges. This is after all the Pacific Crest trail. We thought we'd take a nice long lunch at the 17 mile mark next to a creek. The bees/wasps thought otherwise. We were there only long enough to remove shoes n socks, wash feet, make salami cheese wraps while squealing about the bees, grab some water, then leave. One of us must have dropped a bit of salami in our haste to leave. See pic below of carnivorous bees tucking in.
During this far-from-restful lunch we briefly met Wagon Wheel and Sting. Sting had been given this trail name only half an hour earlier, when she accidentally peed on a bees nest and got 9 bites.
The next water source after this was 10 miles away. We decided to take it easy and dry camp, taking 4 liters of water with us, for another 3 miles and have an early evening for a change, stopping at 4:30pm.
We spotted a camp spot on the edge of a ridge. Perfect. Tracy wanted to cowboy camp. I relented. Then we set up, got the ground sheet and sleeping bags out to enjoy the evening. We met two hikers passing by, first Skip, looking for a camp spot, and then Five Star who told us about the intense smoke all over southern Oregon, from Ashland all the way to Crater Lake. We will need get more info and do a bit of forward planning once we get to Etna on Saturday.
So, have we been relaxing in our sleeping bags since our arrival here at 4:30pm? No. Not long after we arrived we heard thunder and could see lightning and rain streaks mark the sky across the valley. We put up the tent. We watched the clouds. We considered moving. A ridge with little tree cover is not the ideal place to be in the event of a storm. We decided to first eat the dinner we'd already cooked. Then we decided to stay. We believe the storm won't reach us, the wind direction is in our favor. The sky directly above is blue. However, the loud sound of thunder keeps us from fully relaxing and neither of us has fully unpacked, just in case. Could be a long night.
Newsflash: now 8pm and all signs of storm have dissipated. 😊
P.S. Amazingly, I forgot to mention in yesterday's blog entry that Tracy's crown fell out in a toffee incident during a break. If anyone knows of a good dentist in Ashland, Oregon let us know.
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