hiker box jackpot

Day 101 ~ miles -1643.7 -1664.5

An 18 mile descent stood between us and Seiad Valley.  Since it was all downhill, we thought we would cruise right into town.  For this reason, we ignored the early alarm and slept pretty late.  Not many miles into our day, we crossed a footbridge over a swimming hole we just couldn't pass up.  It wasn't even hot out yet, and we were in the shade, but the pool was too perfect and we were too dirty.  The water was cold, like take your breath away cold, which was probably a good thing because we couldn't stay in long. 

Frequent breaks slowed us, and poison oak slowed us further.  Despite the blazing heat, I stopped to put on leggings to protect my legs from the pesky plant.

The PCT goes right through the town of Seiad Valley, as part of a 7 mile road walk.  A road walk is usually unpleasant; the shock on your feet and knees is always noticable.  This road walk was particulary miserable due to the extreme heat!  Two cars stopped and offered us rides which we declined; the road is the trail, so we stuck to it.  Our water could be likened to the temperature of a hot tub. 

Not a lot to the tiny (population 320 per the sign) town of Seiad Valley; just a store, post office, and RV park.  We arrived to see about 20 hikers sprawled out on the lawn of the RV park in the shade. The grassy lawn was so inviting, we walked next door to the store for ice cream and cold drinks and plopped on the shady grass.  We lounged around for a couple of hours, chatting with lots of hikers.  Most important to be done during our stop in town was buying more food to sustain us until our next stop, Ashland.  Several hikers had received boxes of food in the mail (also known as a mail drop), and some of them had extra that they planned to put in the hiker box.

We haven't seen a hiker box in awhile, and we've been missing them!  It's a box in a location frequented by hikers (general store, hostel, etc), where hikers can discard their unwanted/extra goods; the concept that "one man's trash is another man's treasure".  We were able to pick up almost all the food we needed from the hiker box! 

To beat the heat, we didn't head back to the trail until almost 8:00.  A huge climb awaited us out of town.  We walked until we could barely see, and luckily found a semi-flat spot.  We'll conquor the rest of the climb in the morning.