a wild welcome to Oregon

Day 103 ~ miles 1684.6 - 1712.5

Today was a day that we would obey the alarm. The goal was to stage ourselves as close as possible to Ashland for our hike in tomorrow. We were off at 6am, and were enjoying the cool temperatures. Sideways commented on some pink clouds in the distance and I remembered an old saying that I had heard. "Pink sky at night sailors delight, pink sky in morning sailors take warning". We laughed about it because it looked pretty nice to us.

We made great time hiking and we found ourselves covering the 15 miles to the CA/OR border before noon. It was surreal approaching the sign because to this point I hadn't considered the PCT ever being anything but California. The state was so long and challenging, we are in disbelief that we actually hiked the  trail through it. We recorded ourselves performing a rap song written to Will Smith's Fresh Prince of BelAir, describing our experiences through the lovely state of CA. Thor and Fern Toe were our hype crew in the background of the video. Everyone was in good spirits, and I felt especially energized by the crossing. Not long after entering OR we reached the seemingly less significant 1700 mile mark. The miles are starting to go more quickly again.

We stopped to eat lunch and while we were cooking we saw some very dark clouds starting to build. Thunder started rolling, and  we waited for Oregon to welcome us with drenching rain. We managed to dodge the bullet while we ate, and figured we needed to start moving. We were climbing up to a ridge that we would be exposed on for miles to come, and we could see ground strikes being produced by a storm cell we were walking into. We actually stopped at the treeline to allow  the storm to move on while others hiked by, seeming to not mind the hazardous conditions. Once we felt "safer" we proceeded onto the ridge.

We met some other hikers at a spring where all the talk was about the smoke we could now see rising just a couple of miles south of us. We all felt a little uneasy about it, but we knew we should be walking away from it. More thunder was booming, and some fast moving clouds brought in heavy rain. We quickly said our goodbyes, and literally took off running down the trail. There was no cover and the rain was coming in sideways. Lightning was striking too close for comfort, causing us to flinch and duck as we ran. Each bolt was followed by an immediate sharp crack and a boom that sounded like the report of a cannon directly over our heads. We kept moving until we were well away from the intense cell.
As we rounded a bend we could see three more fires starting on the next ridge over. This brought feelings of anxiety because we didn't know exactly where the trail was going, and there were fires in front and back of us. Our new plan was to push even farther to town to put as much distance as possible between us and the flames. Within minutes could hear the sounds of planes and helicopters coming to work the fires. The fire closest to us seemed to be the largest and was recieving a lot of attention from the helicopters. We watched them take turns dumping fire retardant chemicals as we hiked along. Everyone was stuck between disbelief and amazement. More fires began to come into view and we ended up counting seven total.
We appeared to be hiking in a safe direction until the trail made a hook back behind the ridge that was burning. We reached a road and saw a search and rescue K9 handler who I approached to get the scoop. He said the PCT should be fine heading North, but that we should keep moving because there were several spot fires that hadn't kicked up yet. We were off again with the comfort of somewhat "official" word.

We stopped for dinner, and planned on hiking as far as we could after we ate. A bit of rain fell while we sat, and lightning could be seen to the north of us. Our goal of hiking several more mile was halted by a strobing electrical storm on top of the peak we were climbing. It was dark, and we were physically and mentally drained. We didn't want to end up in another mess, so we called it a night on the side of the trail. Looking forward to being in the safety of town tomorrow.