Destination: Etna Summit
Starting Location: Just past Bingham Lake outlet
Today’s Miles: 13.10
Trip Miles: 1607.40
Bingham Lake Outlet (1593.2, 6867) to Etna Summit (1606.3, 5960) ascent (2047) descent (3300)
Etna is a great town & it feels like I am in a time warp. A real soda shop in the drug store & when you get a milkshake you actually get a glass with the extra shake. I am sitting in the local diner and the local radio station has not played a country music song recorded after 1970. The really neat thing is that it looks like the town is thriving with all the old downtown buildings fully occupied and open for business. The truck to car ratio is 9.9 to 1, and as Merle Haggard said “cowboy boots are still in style”. I love this town.
Met Turbo & her dog heading south after she flipped around the Sierra. She was bummed that she had “fell for the hype” and flipped. Which reminds me, I owe Scott Williamson a big debt of gratitude. Two days before Kennedy Meadows, when I was so apprehensive about the Sierra, I saw Scott & asked him his opinion. I appreciated what he said because the message was: form your own opinion & do not listen to the hype regardless of the source. He went on to recommend that we try it as “you can always turn around”. How right he was. As Turbo & I discussed she commented that she wished she had heard & followed such wise counsel. Instead she flipped to Old Station as suggested by some of the experts & this provided absolutely no advantages.
Mom said she was up for eating Mexican food and thus she clearly made it through her first chemo-nausea cycle. She is planning on coming to Seiad Valley in a few days to see us off into Oregon.
Staying at the Alderbrook Manor Bed & Breakfast. They have a separate hiker hut that sleeps 6 & for $20 you get a bed, shower, laundry facilities,& internet. The proprietors, Vicki & Dave are wonderful hosts and I have decided to take a real 100% zero day.
The trail is officially closed between Etna & Seiad Valley due to 4 fires burning on the Klamath Forest. That said, we have been told the trail is not burning and “while not advisable” we will not be stopped if we proceed. We proceed – unless the situation deteriorates to a more unsafe level.
I have been contemplating my strategy going forward & I am torn. The group is the best but going my own way is feeling very liberating & offers some logistical advantages. I think I will do a combination going forward where as I will stay close to the team but set a schedule more to my liking. Sunny, Tadpole the hippo, & Rolling Thunder are looking at an Oregon strategy that works for me, so maybe I will hand with them for a bit & see what happens. They hike much faster than me but at the end of the day I do the same miles.
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Robert Francisco 