June 23rd
Trail Miles 702.8

This town thing is getting old. I can feel it wearing on me. I need the positive effects of the trail.

While in Portland, I went to the mall. I never have liked the mall, but I wanted to spend time with my friends who wanted to use their day off to go to the mall. Typically I dislike malls because its alot of walking around and spending money. My favorite experience in the mall is the food court, where i get to eat yummy unhealthy food and sit down.

This trip to the mall was different. I didn’t mind the walking, but the food did not look appetizing. I also found myself thinking about all the tiny useless items that were being sold. While it is a stretch of the imagination, and probably more than I actually thought, I stood there looking at a small gadget thinking about where all the pieces came from. This flown in from here, that drove in from there, this machine molding that piece, that person putting it together, this company packaging it, and that person driving it here. All so some little girl in the fifth grade could have a pretty toy on her school desk…one to be envied by others, one to later be bought by another classmate, and casually tossed in the garbage a month later. A small useless, but “oh so cute,” plastic toy sitting in a landfill somewhere ever so slowly decaying.

While none of this never crossed my mind before, it did this time. I was forced to ignore it though because there was another cool toy to be played with, only this one was from a different company.

Of course this is all a bit of an exaggeration of my thought, but I am thinking it now. That is one effect the trail has had on me; a heightened awareness of our consumption of unnecessary items. We are Consumers, and companies know us as consumers, not as people. We are targets, and they market to Target Audiences.

I hate shopping.

On the brighter side of things, I had a great time visiting with my friends. We ate good food, I took in a few movies, and generally let my body rest. I shared some good time with good people.

I returned to Ashland, where we spent the evening eating good food, and planning the next leg of our hike. I still have some problems with what I might be doing when I get to a parting point with Jon and Debi, but I have a couple of weeks to tackle that decision.

Tomorrow we rise early, drop packages off at the post office and return to the trail. Thank goodness.

I read Kevin and Julie’s journal entry on their webpage today. They mentioned the happiness they felt to be back on the trail after a few days off the trail. I anticipate an equal reaction to the trail regarding my return to it.

June 24th Evening
Elevation: 5550 ft
Trail Miles: 715.8 miles

Back on the trail finally. After a great trip to Portland and a lovely stay in Ashland we are hiking again. Some friends of Debi’s took us in and treated us like royalty, driving us around and feeding us magnificent food. (Thank you Judith and JeanPaul).

But the show must go on, so we hit the trail around noon today. After roughly a week off the trail and a fully loaded pack, I was surprised that getting moving was not more difficult. Once on the trail, I saw a sign that said “PCT North Welcome Home.” While the sign may be saying welcome home to Oregonians, it also was saying to me, welcome back to the trail, my home for half of this year of my life. It was good to be back home, with the trail and all its beauty.

Being used to the decomposed granite trail and arid conditions of Southern California, this was quite a change. By jumping over 1000 miles of California, most of the vegetation has changed. I was walking in a much more humid environment that was lush with green vegetation.

We climbed up and away from I-5 into dense douglas firs, forget-me-nots, and ferns. The tread was a dried dirt with fresh pine needles occassionally scattered along the trail. Jon was shocked at how beautiful the trail was. Being from Oregon, it all seemed normal to me, but he slowed his pace to enjoy all that this section is going to offer him.

As we worked our way down the trail and around Pilot Peak, we climbed to get a great view of our first snow capped peak in Oregon, Mt. Lassen. I continued along the trail mostly to myself for the duration of the day.

Towards dinner time, I took a break amid a lush grassy valley with perfect sitting rocks. Once Jon and Debi arrived we looked over the guidebook to see if we were near a good place to have dinner. About one mile further was a good water source.

We arrived at the water source and cooked up a dinner. We also enjoyed some fabulous banana-nut bread the JeanPaul had made for us. Deciding to make our first day out an easy one, we looked around for a place to make camp for the evening. Tomorrow we get back to the longer hiking days.

June 25th Afternoon
Trail Miles: 727 miles

It was nice to wake to the chirping birds this morning. It seems there was no birds in Portland.

We slowly strolled through the lush forest, admiring the clouds overhead. The usual blue sky of Southern California let alot of sun down on us, keeping us warm. But the hiking, made us hot. Here in Oregon, the clouds block out the sun, and our walking keeps us warm.

Once we reached a road about 7 miles in, I parted ways with Debi and Jon. They decided to walk the rest of the way to Hyatt Lake along the trail. I decided to do a road walk. As I walked along the roadm I was passed by several bicyclists in the first leg of a 100 mile bike ride. I marveled at their physical endurance, knowing that I would never be able to do that. Then I realized I didn’t think I would ever hike 700 miles. Its amazing what a machine the human body can be.

Time for a shower and a mid day rest.

Happy Trails, Inner Peace, & Harmony