Day 3: Entering the Siskiyou Wilderness, exiting civilization

[Erin]:

We started Day 3 with a long uphill up the G-O road, an aborted project that had once promised to link the metropolises of Gasquet and Orleans. The Forest Service apparently started planning the road in 1963, in order to better harvest timber of the area; the entire project was scrapped in 1990 after decades of fighting from local Native American tribes finally won the day.

We reached the South Kelsey Trail and entered the Siskiyou Wilderness, hiking along the south fork of the Smith for several miles. As we crossed creeks, the trail started to deteriorate somewhat, particularly past beautiful Eightmile Creek, which equals the south fork Smith in volume where they meet. As an aside, Emily and I washed in Eightmile Creek because of all the poison oak we'd hiked through, and as she bent over to the water, our only bottle of Dr. Bronner's fell out of her shirt pocket and whoosh it was gone, down some rapids.

Emily negotiates the "trail" just past Eightmile Creek.

As we hiked, it became the job of the person in front to call out poison oak: "oak left," "oak right," and "oak across the trail." We pulled ourselves up and over logs, tiring as we walked. We saw two bears, one in front of us on the trail who ran away as soon as it heard us; the other across the Smith, who looked up at us with an air of curiosity as we passed. 

We finally reached a meadow next to Harrington Creek, where we camped. Tiny insects, smaller than mosquitoes, worked their way through our head nets and bit our faces, causing us to slap ourselves.



Tiny insects ruled this meadow.

I was anxious for Day 4; it was the only section in Michael's map set where he had a warning for hikers: "This is a difficult section of trail. If you attempt it, take your time...". We knew that the trail would be tough - at the trailhead for the Siskiyou Wilderness, there was a large map and someone had drawn an X over the section we would face on Day 4, and written "NOT PASSABLE" in permanent marker. My thoughts and then dreams were full of doubt.

Total miles: 13.5