Friday, July 29, 2011

North into Oregon

In mid-July, brother John and I escaped to the PCT for a 5-day, 82 mile backpacking trip which brought us well into Oregon. We began the journey in Seiad Valley, a tiny town in Northern California (this is also where we started our trip last year when we went south to Castle Crags), and ended at Green Springs Mountain along Highway 66 in Oregon. With the crazy amounts of snow that fell over the winter and spring, we still had many snow obstacles to get through. Most of these were on N and NE facing slopes. In some of the forests, we found snow to still be drifted to 5 feet high. This made for very interesting problems, as we lost the trail several times and had to rely on map, compass and good navigation skills.

On days 1, 4 and 5, we had beautiful sunny skies with occasional white, puffy clouds and temps in the 70's. Day 2 was mostly cloudy with temps in the low 60's and day 3 was mostly foggy with temps in the 50's! This was mostly a pleasant surprise as it was much more comfortable to hike.


Here are a few of the highlights:

Avoiding snowfields on Day 1




Echo Lake (Campsite #1)




Bearground Spring (Campsite #2)



On day 3, we happily entered Oregon!



Heading cross-country to avoid a HUGE snowfield covering the trail...the wildflowers were INCREDIBLE as we summited Observation Peak (7,340')



Lots of snow on the PCT!


On day 4, we left the Siskiyou Mountains and entered the Southern Cascades. This is Pilot Rock


Day 5 breakfast stop with a view. Hobart Bluff (above) and 82 miles later, this (below) is our destination!


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