Day 10: Out of the Valley and into the Fire

[Emily]:

Despite the terrible night of sleep, we relished the time in little Seiad Valley - the one "trail town” along our route. I love small towns along rivers - particularly ones with a store/post office/cafe all in the same building. Seiad Valley is a key stop along the Pacific Crest Trail, and in fact last year 800 PCT hikers came through the Seiad Cafe. Fortunately, we were passing through this area well before the bulk of the PCT hikers. We had a leisurely morning today as the post office didn’t open until noon and our friend Sara came down from Medford. This allowed plenty of time for breakfast and a milkshake and local talk at the cafe. (Though we did not attempt the Seiad Cafe Pancake Challenge.)

Seiad Valley cafe/store/post office. State of Jefferson sign visible.

A wonderful benefit of going on a longer hike in basically one’s backyard is that your favorite people can meet up with you and bring their lovely selves, perhaps a resupply box, or fun surprises! Sara was a breath of fresh air as always as we enjoyed the morning and sorted through our food box once the post office opened. We sent our one set of postcards on the trip, which felt quite special. And we were able to catch a ride with Sara to the Grider Creek Trailhead. (We don’t pretend to be thru-hiking purists but rather enjoy maximizing the time in wilderness.)

After a nice dip in Grider Creek and hugs all around we were off on our first leg in the Marble Mountains Wilderness. I’d hiked a bit of Grider Creek several years ago and was excited to see the changes since the 2014 Happy Camp Complex fire. There certainly was a lot of high and mixed severity burn along Grider Creek and many of the footbridges (footbridges[!] that must have been so decadent) across the creek were gone. 

Crossing Grider Creek, with former footbridge visible in the background.

We also ran into our first PCT thru-hiker...at his average of 30 miles a day he did not stop long to talk with us but we gleaned there was a lot of snow in the Marbles. We would have to get a bit further to understand if the really tough snow was beyond where we turned off the PCT. We camped right under some yews (!!) after a crossing of Grider Creek. After the usual evening routine we even recorded our first audio Bigfoot Trail update!

Total miles: 5