Day 5: Out of Bear Gulch and down Clear Creek... slowly

[Emily]:

After such an eventful day and evening, on Day 5 we rose early, skipped breakfast, and packed up quickly to head toward Harrington Lake.

After hiking up contour towards Harrington Lake, we found this sign...wow a  sign of civilization!

We found a small wallow and congratulated ourselves on finding the lake, until we walked just a few feet more over a hillock and saw the actual lake. It was amazing to realize we had made it nearly to the ridge along the most challenging off trail section of the Bigfoot Trail.

Harrington Lake.

After filling up on water, we hiked up from the lake, following some cairns, little assurances that things were fine. We scrambled up a burnt hill, then found a full blown trail (!) and followed it to the ridge. We had made it to the Siskiyou Crest!

The ridge above Harrington Lake.

We could see our entire hike before us: from the Red Buttes to North Yolla Bolly. We could see snow in the Trinities and likely in the Marbles too. We made coffee and sat back, laughing with relief. The sun was shining, all was great.

Looking north along the crest towards Preston Peak.

But as we descended into the Clear Creek drainage, I realized that not everything was great. The yellowjacket sting had progressed over 24 hours into a localized reaction. My leg began to swell with quite a lot of fluid and walking became slow and difficult. When sticks would hit my legs (quite often along trails infrequently traveled) fluid blisters would form and pop (eew!). However the forest down through West Clear Creek to the main fork of Clear Creek was fantastic.

Along Clear Creek south of Wilderness Falls

We found a deflated bouquet of mylar balloons draped over logs in the middle of the woods and cursed humans for purchasing them.

Just say no to helium filled mylar balloons! They do go somewhere when released. 

The one thing that helped along the final push to camp that night...second lunch consisting of our first dip into the beef jerky and crackers. I’d never really eaten much beef jerky before the hike but it was just the delicious energy needed to make it to Wilderness Falls and our camp for the night.

We made it to Wilderness Falls around 8 pm, and crossed the deep, fast Clear Creek to our campsite. Yew trees and huge Port Orford Cedars surrounded us, but I was in so much pain Erin kindly took care of all the camp routines - getting water, setting up the tent, and putting up the bear bag. We started to consider our options, which included staying at the campsite an extra day for the swelling to go down, but agreed to wait until the morning to decide.

We called my right leg the "Frankenstein" leg.

Total miles: 11.6