I woke up this morning with a sore throat. I thought it was just from breathing all the smoke yesterday, but as we packed up I started coughing and my nose started running. Somehow I’ve gotten a cold. It probably happened in Shasta – we don’t come into close enough contact with others out here. While getting ready to hit the trail a fire truck pulled into the trailhead parking lot to post something on the bulletin board there. We were worried that it was a trail closure, but once we looked at it (and waded through the legal language) we could see that it only affected areas west of the trail – portions of the Russian Wilderness (which we’d enter today) and the Trinity Alps area.

Saved from a reroute, we started towards town. Our first obstacle was a steep climb and it quickly became obvious that my cold would be a second obstacle. I felt as though I was back in the first week on the trail, huffing and coughing my way up the climb. I had to take frequent breaks to catch my breath. This continued all morning as we climbed into the beautiful but craggy Russian Wilderness. Suddenly white granite ridges and outcroppings were everywhere. It reminded us again of the Sierra – except not as steep, thankfully.

We hit a slight snag when our intended water source for lunch was bone dry. To get to the next we had to finish another steep climb, and even that one was barely a trickle. I was still moving slowly and got even slower as we started on the last 10 miles into town. Another uphill and lots of smoke from the nearby fire made for tough going. It was too bad, because the hike was on an exposed ridge and the views to the east were gorgeous. To the west was only smoke and lots of fire aircraft.

Finally we reached the road at the Etna Summit. It was later than we had expected since my pace was so slow. We planned to camp there tonight and try to catch a ride in the morning, but our timing was impeccable. Just as we joined two other hikers (who had been trying to hitch for over an hour) at the road a truck pulled up to let some other hikers off. They came back around to pick us up and just like that we were on our way to town.

We stayed at the Hiker Hut, a converted barn at a bed and breakfast in town. The owners were very friendly and it was wonderful to get a shower and do our laundry. We made it there before the grocery store closed, too, so we were able to buy dinner and drinks for tonight. We finished off a surprisingly tough day by sitting around and chatting with all the other hikers there. Oregon is on everyone’s minds, just a few days and less than 100 miles away.

– Posted from the PCT

Location:Pct mile 1606