PCT Day 120
August 28, 2021
Mile: 2163.1 to 2183.2 (20.4 including .3 mi side trail)
Start: Three Corner Rock epic campsite
Finish: Tropical Rainforest tentsite near Panther Creek
Overnight the calmness of sunset disappeared as the wind whipped up and blew clouds of fine red grit everywhere. We woke up to a thin layer of orange sand covering the floor, the sleeping bags and our skin that had blown through the mesh of our tent. My mouth felt dry and as I ran my tongue across my teeth I could feel my saliva wet the sheen of dust turning it to a muddy paste that ground noisily on my molars. Not exactly the breakfast I was hoping for but it was the breakfast we got as we quickly tore down the tent in the stiff gusts of wind that blew up wicked clouds of stinging sand. The rocky outcropping of Three Corner Rock certainly was a beautiful overlook in calm weather but certainly was exposed to the blustering winds coming from all directions. It had been a restless early morning with sleep coming fleetingly in between the tent rattling and shaking so roughly that I thought we were going to fly off the mountain.
The sunrise was pretty but it seemed like all of us PCT hikers were ready to get off the mountain with the wind whipping and the sand grit blasting us as we purposefully packed up. Mr. Wobbles was heading south to the town of Cascade Locks, Oregon and hoping to make it to the Sierra Nevadas 1,200 miles away by mid-October before the big snows came. I think with the wildfire closures in southern Oregon and northern Cali that he’d be forced to skip many hundreds of miles of trail which would get him through the Sierra Nevadas in the next 6 or 7 weeks. We rationed our remaining .5 liters of water for the next water source which was 4.5 miles away but all downhill thankfully. For a little extra water, I chowed down on whatever juicy huckleberries I could snag off the bushes next to the trail as we quickly hiked through the forests and descended off the mountaintop.
Shannon hiked ahead of me as I was stiff and grumpy this morning, having not slept so well in the mini sandstorms atop Three Corner Rock this morning. When I arrived at the flowing clear water of Rock Creek, Shannon was already pulling out his water bladder from his backpack and chatting with a tall friendly hiker named M*A*S*H who was sporting his namesake TV sitcom on his hat. I recognized another hiker camped by the water named Cooper who had been a forest firefighter and we hadn’t seen him since the deserts of California. I pointed out to Shannon it was our old buddy Coop but I must not have said it loud enough because he kept asking me what I was saying. I yelled it so he could hear me and both M*A*S*H and Shannon looked at me like I was crazy. M*A*S*H excused himself politely, disappearing into the woods maybe to never be seen again by us. Shannon’s shoulders heaved with a big sigh as he turned around from his potential new friend and asked what was wrong with me. Defensively, I replied nothing was wrong but knew better than that. I was grumpy from lack of sleep, thirsty from rationing water since the previous afternoon and definitely Hangry with a capital H. Basically I was an angry hiker and terrible hiking partner right now scaring away potential new backpacking friends and needed to chill out and recharge.
I scooped water from the clear limestone creek and let the gravity filter do its thing as I chowed down on a double helping of snacks, watching the glorious creek slowly carry bits of leaves and debris downstream. Shannon reluctantly grabbed some riverfront property next to me, stretching out his legs on the smooth cold pebbles as I sheepishly apologized for being a grumpy hiker this morning. We sat in silence while I grabbed a teal blue piece of smooth limestone from the creek and used it as chalk to draw a heart on a nearby dark gray rock. I gave the impromptu valentine rock to Shannon who said thank you and smiled slightly. We chowed down on snacks in silence until another hiker showed up to grab water. It was Eli who had also dry camped atop Three Corner Rock and we talked about how awesome it had been last night to see the huge elk herd at dinner time and how not so awesome the sand storms this morning had been. Eli quickly grabbed water and said he’d see us up the trail.
Our 4 liters of water finished filtering after an agonizingly slow 50 minutes and I made up my mind that we were going to lose this 12 ounces of water filtration gear ASAP. We’d been carrying this 4 liter capacity water filter because in the desert water quality was questionable at best and we couldn’t rely on drops or tablets to get rid of the chunks of dead animals and livestock feces that required filtration. We also didn’t want to be spending tons of time agonizingly hand-squeezing liter after liter through the super popular Sawyer Squeeze filter so we opted for a gravity-fed filter that you carefully hung up on a tree or sign post or cactus (only did this once) and let the water be pumped by gravity instead of by hand. I had ordered a replacement filter cartridge since the 1.75L/min advertised flow rate had decreased over time to 1.75L/20 min which meant we were spending sometimes upwards of an hour for our clean water to be filtered. Filters naturally get clogged with dirt or debris as you use them so part of the maintenance of your water filtration system is regularly flowing clean water the opposite way to dislodge any particles. This is called “backflushing” and every time we used our filter we’d sacrifice about .25 or .5 liters of clean purified water to backflush. We’d done some serious backflushing in town with purified tap water, letting 4, 8 or even 12 liters flow through to clear out debris blocking the 2 micron wide filter pores. Unfortunately I think we were nearing the end of the useful life of our Platypus GravityWorks filter which the company recommends as using it for filtering 1,000 liters of water before the filter quality becomes questionable (newer versions of the filter are rated for 1,500 liters). We’d estimated on average we filtered 10L/day of water which means we could use it for 100 days of hiking. With days off in town for rest or illness, we were getting pretty close to 100 days of use or the max useful life of the filter cartridge and going to need to replace it.
Unfortunately, a couple days after we had ordered the replacement filter to a hotel in central Oregon, a wildfire had sprung up in the area growing so rapidly that the residents of the town where we had mailed our gear to had to be evacuated. All of the surrounding forests and about 100 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail had been closed to anyone except firefighters and emergency personnel. We weren’t sure if we were ever going to see the replacement water filter but maybe this was a positive thing if we spun it as an opportunity to reduce our pack weight. Typically when we hike back east we’ve used Aquamira Chlorine Dioxide drops for backcountry water purification which weigh only 2oz (57g). Our PCT water filter system weighed in at a hefty 12 ounces (340g). As the backpacking saying goes about keeping your gear tidy, lightweight and minimalist:
“Dirt adds ounces,
Ounces equal pounds,
Pounds equal pain.”
When we were planning the Pacific Crest Trail trip, we didn’t realize that since California has extremely strict state regulations about chemicals that local retail stores are not allowed to sell Aquamira drops or ship it to addresses in California. It was a wake up call when we showed up to a gear shop in Julian, CA a week into the PCT and they informed us that it was illegal to sell Aquamira in California. This is unfortunate because the Chlorine Dioxide in Aquamira is the same chemical that is used to treat municipal water supplies so it likely is already being used to treat public drinking water in California. Who the heck knows? Anyways, if we were going to use Aquamira we’d have to illegally import it through murky means and just decided that the complicated logistics weren’t worth the effort. Luckily, we had already decided to go with a water filter for the desert section of PCT instead of Aquamira as the purifying drops would keep us from waterborne illnesses but wouldn’t get rid of “the crunchies,” or the mud, dead animal bits and cow turd particles that are in some of the desert water sources. Oregon and Washington don’t have these weird rules about chemicals and typically better water sources than southern California so we decided now that we were in Washington, it was time to shed a serious 10oz (283g) of base weight by switching from the Platypus GravityWorks 4 liter water filter to Aquamira drops. We’d take care of that in the next town we were in.
The rest of the day was humid and sticky with few views to be had as we wound our way through dense forests. Honestly it felt more like we were back east hiking in Kentucky or Tennessee instead of on the dry west coast climates we had experienced in California. Here in Washington state, the trail was lush and full of moss dangling in thick locks in the breeze like wiry hair hanging down from the pine trees. Giant evergreen slugs as long as our outstretched palms slowly meandered across the trail and reminded me of the enormous banana slugs of the coastal redwood forests we’d seen in northern California except these weren’t nearly as vibrantly yellow. Massive Douglas Fir trees towered above us, their thick trunks wrapped tightly in large puzzle pieces of fire-resistant bark and their bright green hairy little pine cones littered the forest floor. It was awe-inspiring to be walking through the temperate rainforests of the Pacific Northwest as monster fern fronds stretched above my head and I half-expected dinosaurs to appear out of the depths of the woods. Where it was wetter in the damp ditches, rubbery elephant ear-sized skunk cabbage leaves unfurled to the width of umbrellas. I definitely was humming the Jurassic Park theme song during our hike today.
Early in the afternoon we stopped at the smooth rocky river bank of Trout Creek where we ditched our packs under the bridge, set up some makeshift chairs in the boulders and cooked a late lunch. The water sources were a bit spaced out on this section of PCT so a bunch of thru-hikers were gathered on both sides of the banks since this was a bit of an oasis on the dry mountain ridges we’ve been trekking over. Some hikers were eating lunch, others had their tents set up to siesta in the shade and a few were gathered in a hiker circle on the side of the dirt road passing some green substance around while a couple played soft music on an ultralight ukulele. Immediately we started the lengthy water filtering process and cooked up some gluten free ramen for lunch to be washed down with electrolyte drink mix. We felt a little like bridge trolls as we nestled under the archway next to the creek, eating our snacks and debating on whether we should charge hikers crossing by with a troll toll. In the end we decided it was too much effort to do much more than eat food, rinse off our dusty legs and lounge on the side of the burbling creek in the dappled shade.
After lunch and a short nap we packed up, admiring the intricate charcoal graffiti patterns underneath the bridge drawn by hikers who had definitely been under the influence of something when they designed them. We reconnected with Coop the forest firefighter as we crossed over to the other side of the river and greeted his new trail family. I chatted with a day hiker in a van who was hiker trash in the purest sense of the word as he was drying his shorts out in a sunny spot on the dirt road. They weren’t the cleanest shorts and I honestly thought they were trash that I was going to pack out to a campground with a dumpster up ahead about 6 or 7 miles. We laughed about the nasty shorts a little and Mr. Dayhiker grabbed his dry-yet-dirty shorts from the middle of the road as we heard a car rumbling towards us. At least when I wash my shorts, I don’t hang them to dry by throwing them on a dirt road. Maybe this Mr. Dayhiker guy was really taking the whole Chris Farley “living in a van down by the river” thing a bit too seriously…
I followed Shannon through the woods and into a golden brown pasture. With the droughts on the west coast being so far-reaching, everything around us seemed to be dry except for the deepest of ponds and rivers and the damp hollows where the sun never shined. The dead, sunburnt meadow crunched underneath our feet with each step and the faint breeze rustled the hollowed shells of the grass like the sound made from flipping the pages of a book. I soaked up the late summer rays of sunshine that we’d missed all day underneath the canopy of trees and enjoyed the warmth radiating out of the earth, the sun bleaching my hair tawny yellow just like it had the pasture underfoot.
In the afternoon we encountered more signs of civilization as we trekked behind houses, crossed several land easements and paralleled forest roads. At one point we followed the trail as it passed an enormous canvas teepee set up on the shores of a pond. A small turkey was laying down in the gravel driveway next to the teepee as its much larger mama watched it rest from the forest edge. The turkeys could care less about us and were soon joined by a second big baby which the mama brooded over protectively. The little family of three strutted around making soft cooing sounds to each other and occasionally rustling their wings. We met some locals out for a stroll and they said they knew all too well of the turkey family, smiling at our wonder at how unfazed the creatures were of humans.
The early evening was a bit more stressful as we shuffled our way through the PCT on the side of a forest road. We had a 13 mile section of waterless tough terrain coming up and had planned on getting partway up the mountain and dry camping again tonight. My feet were hurting for some reason so we decided we’d stop short at a water source at the base of the mountain in only a couple miles. As I was dragging butt and wallowing in self-pity about my feet hurting and being tired, I was snapped out of my pity party by a loud gunshot going off. It was close. Like way too close for comfort.
Shannon jumped at the firearms blast and we both looked at each other nervously. He was certain it was just someone on their private property sighting in their gun or doing some target practice. I wasn’t too sure as I thought we were on National Forest property and maybe the gun owner was doing some early season hunting (or worse, poaching). Another gunshot went off, this one closer and loud enough where you could feel the percussive shockwave rattle your insides. We walked a little quicker down the trail, the road at our flanks just through the woods. There were no cars parked or traffic coming down the rough gravel road and we couldn’t see who was firing the gun which made us unsettled. Was the person some nutcase shooting at us dirty hippie hikers? Were they shooting at an animal and just didn’t see us? Or were they hunting illegally and didn’t want any witnesses to their poaching activities? I pushed those thoughts out of my head and picked up the pace.
The sound of bullets got closer and more frequent as we hiked north. I had my blaze orange backpack on and hoped that it was a bright and unnatural enough color in the woods to make whoever was shooting realize we weren’t the animal prey they were looking for. Shannon and I quickly discussed if we should yell to make the marksman realize they were shooting right next to the Pacific Crest Trail where dozens of hikers came through each day. We’d been nearly shot at before hiking in Tennessee while hiking with a group when we didn’t realize it was hunting season. We had kept up singing and yelling for several hours til we escaped the woods, pissed that the trip organizer didn’t let hikers know to bring blaze orange. Something in my gut told me this time was different and to keep quiet and GTFO of the woods immediately. Hopefully when we got to camp tonight, there would still be two of us but I wasn’t so sure as another boom went off, the closest one yet. We started running.
About 45 minutes later we arrived at the rushing waters of Panther Creek and a semblance of civilization. There were thankfully no gunshots going off out here and the noises of the nearby campground and squealing children running around were comforting. Shannon and I were relieved to both be above ground still and exhausted from the adrenaline-filled end to our day. It was a mutual agreement that we were just going to camp somewhere between the river and the fee campground .2 miles away instead of continuing uphill several more miles as we had planned. Even though at 5:45pm it was early in terms of setting up camp for us, other hikers had already called it quits and the well-established PCT campsites in the dense jungle were already taken. We found a spot away from the traffic on the side trail that connected the PCT to the busy campground and pushed away leaves and duff to avoid having any ticks crawl on us.
Dinner was a grateful affair and we were just glad that we probably didn’t have to worry about being trampled by elk tonight or getting shot at by a crazy person in the woods. The peacefulness was soon interrupted by objects being mysteriously hurled at us through the dense rainforest. In a thick redneck accent I surmised the culprit. “It’s a dang Samsquanch!” I hollered.
Shannon rolled with laughter at the thought of a Sasquatch hurling stuff at us and all the stupid Bigfoot hunting shows on TV that we’ve seen. We did a little investigating to what was being thrown at our tent and cooking pots and found that it was fresh green pinecones. Well, pinecones come from up in the trees and we didn’t think a Bigfoot could climb that high so ruled that out as an explanation. Each of the pinecones had tiny nibble marks where they had been chewed off the pine branches. With it being late summer or early fall in the mountains, squirrels and chipmunks become much more active and even aggressive in some cases when it comes to storing enough food away for winter. Some of our hiking friends have sworn that these little forest critters have thrown pinecones or acorns at them during the fall season. One of our friends even reached into his trail mix bag he was eating out of to pull out not your typical handful of Good Ol’ Raisins and Peanuts (GORP) but instead he had scooped up a handful of 100% pure aggressive demon chipmunk trying to stash away his snacks for winter!
Sure enough, when we looked up in the branches of the tall fir trees we could see a bushy tail jumping from limb to limb and heard it making angry squirrel sounds. Luckily after a dozen or so cones fell on our campsite and hit our packs and tent, the squirrel decided it was bedtime and we stopped getting bombarded by pinecone air strikes. We wanted to hang our food here so our tent wouldn’t get chewed up by rodents looking to get at our trail mix and peanut butter during the night but the old growth trees were absolutely enormous and low-hanging branches to bear bag our food were few and far between. However there was a bridge that extended about 20 feet above the nearby Panther Creek so with a bit of backcountry ingenuity we rigged up a food bag line that dangled from one of the steel beams about 15 feet or so above the rushing river and hung our food there.
With the forest being so dense and almost jungle-like down by the river, the canopy blocked out much of the sun and night came early to us hikers. Our campsite was a bit off the beaten path from the Pacific Crest Trail through thick ferns and vines and it was cool that we were able to sit in camp and see seasoned hikers pass by our tent without realizing we were camped there. Night soon fell and we were absolutely fine with going to bed early. Not even the sounds of the partying campers at the nearby campground could wake us from our dead slumber after the day we’d had.