Miles This Trip: 16.9
Total PCT Miles Covered: 1717.7
Today is the day I get back to Ashland now that all of my clean up spots are done in California. I drove far enough yesterday, so I slept in a bit today and allowed myself to head to breakfast before leaving town. I heard there was a Black Bear Diner here so I drove up to get something to eat. For those who don’t know Black Bear Diners are a chain out west and I ate at one 2 years ago in Mount Shasta. By far the biggest and best breakfast place I have ever been to in my life. Dennys and IHOP(B?) are pitiful in comparison. It definitly held up to what I remembered.
Utterly stuffed I headed back to the hotel and checked out. It was only 40 more miles to Ashland, but I did have to make one stop first.
I pulled into Callahans Resort around 11:30 just to take a look around and see if there were any hikers. Callahans was my finishing point 2 years ago and would be my starting point in 2 days. I walked inside and checked the hiker log they have there and was able to find my entry. The drawing isn’t mine but by another hiker I walked in with named Engineer, but I thought I would include it:
Not seeing any hikers to give a ride into town I headed out and north towards Ashland. Here is a picture of me 2 years ago at Callahans, and a picture i took today:
I had time to spare before I could check into the hotel, so I headed past Ashland and to the town of Medford so I could take in a movie. Saw Jurassic World 2 and was entertained even though I definitely prefer the first 3 movies more.
I still had a little time after the movie so I headed to REI in Medford and picked up the last item I had been waffling over, an inflatable pillow. It was only 2.5 ounces, but talking to Cookie Monster in Tahoe, he said buying one was a gamechanger for him, so I decided to pull the trigger.
Next up, I drove back to Ashland and stopped at the Post Office and the UPS store to get boxes to send out a couple food drops I needed to send ahead to places that weren’t very good resupply points. Then I finally headed to the Super 8, the same hotel I stayed at last time in town and checked in. I made some phone calls and got settled before I decided to be proactive and head across the street to Albertsons grocery store and start buying my food.
This is when shit hit the fan.
As I walked out of the hotel I saw all the traffic backed up in front of the hotel. As I got to the street I saw lights at the interstate entrance ramp about 3 buildings up. I decided to walk up and see what had happened because it appeared as though the on ramp was closed. As I got closer I realized the lights weren’t coming from a cop car, or an ambulance. Nope. The vehichle with the lights was green and a pit was forming in my stomach. Yup, a forest service truck. Then out of the open window of a car I heard those 2 words every hiker dreads - “forest fire.” The entire interstate was closed heading south, which it the way I needed to go to get back to Callahans. I turned around and headed back to the hotel without buying food to see if I could ascertain the severity of the situation.
Apparently the fire had started by the interstate about 7 miles south into California because some idiot was burning brush on their property and it got out of hand. It started about an hour after I left Callahans and was already up to 500 acres. The trail seemed safe for now but if I couldn’t get there I was in trouble. I decided not to worry yet and I would go about my normal routine.
So I headed back over to Albertons. I needed to buy 15 days of food which is the most I have ever bought on one trip. I took this picture of the sky on the way over:
Getting back to the hotel, I watched the news intently both on the tv and online and decided I would portion boxes and food in the morning and head over to a restaurant and get some dinner and hopefully get some more details from some locals. When I walked to the restaurant the sky now looked like this:
I started talking to the bartender at the Oak Tree Bar and Grill and he said that he just heard the fire had grown exponentially up to 5000 acres. This was not good. Plans never go the way you want on these trails but I had hoped I would at least be ON trail before having to adjust to the unexpected.
I am supposed to stay another day in town tomorrow, so I will just wait and see what happens overnight and adjust my plan accordingly. Heres hoping...
Keep on keeping on
- Patch
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