Section A, Seiad Valley to I-5 at Ashland

Well, here we are in Seiad Valley, ready to get on the trail. We picked a 95' day, and the fire in Happy Camp was just getting started. We walked a very slow, steady 6 miles strait up (it felt like) to Lower Devils Peak... Really, it was terrible. The trail looked like something we grew up with in Roseburg, poison oak, madrone and grass, and the smoke obscured visibility so badly we couldn't see a mile.

We pretty much collapsed once we got to the lookout. It was dismantled in the 70's, so all that's left are 4 walls and the roof timbers. And a little gray field mouse who liked to climb on my bed...

The next morning we were filtering water at Lookout Spring, and we met Thomas. He's hiking alone, and tried to start in Washington and hike south, but there was too much snow so he came back to California and went north instead. He passed us and we never saw him again, but we hear about him almost every place we go.

The second day was easier, we passed lots of day hikers in Red Buttes, and ran into our first bit of snow. Kangaroo Mountain and Red Butte were beautiful areas, you wind in and out of some rocky canyons and meadows. And the smoke cleared out enough for us to have some visibility!

We spent our second night at Cook and Green Pass, I wanted to drop some weight from my pack in a Katz-like manner, but Trav talked me out of it.... Good thing too, we were out of food by our first resupply....

Our third day was better, we were able to look back and see our progress, which is always a big morale boost! You can see, from left to right, Lower, Middle and Upper Devil's Peaks, kangaroo Mtn, and Red Butte. The paths we were on were mica, so they glittered in the sun, and there were wildflowers everywhere!

We also were adjusting well to the altitude and the physical strain of hiking, so on day 3 we cruised up Copper Mtn, White Mtn and Condrey Mtn to Alex Hole Camp. It was an amazing campsite, well worth the 3/4 mile detour. Our appetites, which hadn't been too keen, returned, and we had a 2 course dinner with dessert sitting out on a cliff, looking north. It was beautiful.
Day 4 found us climbing up and detouring around a snowfield on Obsevation Peak. It was our first impassable snowdrift, and we had to go around it down a VERY steep hill. We also passed back into Oregon! The trail in Donomore Meadows, just south of the border, was faint, and we got lost in the cow paths for a while.. The PCT crosses into Oregon in the middle of nowhere, but I can imagine how happy the thru hikers are to start a new state. California's entire PCT stretches 1,700 miles! Oregon's is only 500. We camped at Sheep Camp Spring. Ahhh, the sound of water and cowbells sent us to sleep..

We hiked on roads most of day 5, to avoid snow. We came into Mt. Ashland Camp in the early evening. It was a hot day, and the drunk hippie who came up to escape the heat yelled out temperature updates every 30 minutes. I can say with certainty that it dropped from 86' to 72' before we went to bed. We covered the rest of section A the next morning, with a 10 mile walk to 1-5. We used the road most of the time, because after we passed the Mt. Ashland B&B, the trail was overgrown and scrubby. We hadn't heard about Callahans burning down, so when we arrived to get our beer and nachos, we found it being rebuilt. The disappointment was crushing, but oh well... We called our parents to let them know we were still alive and back in our home state, then, resolutely, we turned back up the road to start section B.