Sunday, August 5, 2018 - Stung

23.26 miles - Total to date - 385.6 miles

Ascent - 3890’ , Descent - 6876’ - Moosehead Creek Headwaters (1445.2) to Ash Camp Campground

Derek and I agree, too many miles. Bailey and Logan like 28 mile days. Derek and I are rebelling. 20-22 is just fine with us, give or take a mile or two to land on a good campsite or where there is water. With this in mind, we set our aim at Ash Camp Campground, a primitive car campground 23.26 miles away. Bailey and Logan expressed a desire to add 3 miles onto that distance. We said go for it, we are stopping at the campground. 

Up at 5:00 am. On the road at 5:45 am. The trail climbed for the first mile or two. As it rounded a rocky promontory out of the trees I checked for cell service. Bingo! We stopped on the point and texted, emailed and posted blogs. Me met Hoover here, a hiker from San Diego. 

For the next thirteen miles the trail stayed on the ridge top. We leap frogged Water Rope and Little Abe as we each stopped for second breakfast or water. I got in the zone and just started walking. I am listening to a book by Stephan Ambrose called “Nothing Like It In The World” about building the transcontinental railroad between 1862 and 1870. It is fascinating, especially about building the railroad over the Sierra at Donner Pass which I hiked through two weeks ago. Did you know 10,000 people worked on the line running east from Sacramento and 8000 of them were Chinese immigrants? And 10,000 worked on the line from Omaha, Nebraska going west and 8000 of them were Irish Immigrants? This crew laid a pair of rails every 30 seconds 8 hours a day with no machinery, just muscle power. Astounding!!

Anyway, once the thirteen miles of ridge running were out of the way, it was 10 miles of downhill to the campground. I found a shady place to wait for the others and eat food. I found a sunny place to deploy my solar panel to charge my battery and phone. I ate and waited. It took about thirty minutes for everyone to catch up. They headed down the hill toward Deer Creek for water and lunch. I packed up and was soon following. It was nice to be going steadily downhill after the up and down that comes with following a ridge line. 

The trail crosses Deer Creek in two places, one at 2.3 miles and the next at 3.3 miles. Derek stopped at the first and took the short 100’ side trail down to the actual spring that is the start of Deer Creek. It was fun to see the water swelling up out of the ground, crystal clear and cold. Since I had eaten up on top of the ridge I just stopped to talk while Derek ate. A deer came into the clearing where we were eating, coyly browsing on bushes while eyeing us. We figured it wanted to get the salt off our pack straps and such. We didn't give it the chance. 

After about 15 minutes we were back on the trail and soon joined Bailey and Logan at the second instance of Deer Creek. From this point it was about 7 more miles downhill to the Ash Camp Campground, winding in and out of drainages as we descended. Finally, about 5:15 we hit the bottom of the ridge and the parking lot above the campground. I had read there was an outhouse at the Campground, but as Derek would say, ”the children want to come out to play.”  I found a secluded place and did my business. 

It was only a little ways down to the campground. As I approached I saw Derek, Hoover, Bailey, Logan and Double D sitting in a semi-circle with COOLERS in the center!  Trail magic! MT’s parents from Puyallup were there to meet him, but he was behind us a day and had told his parents to play trail angel. They did so with gusto. The dad works at Costco. He had coolers full of pop, Gatorade, fruit drinks and more. The other coolers and boxes had 50-60 bags of chips, Honey Buns, Oreos, cookies, Twix candy bars, Reese's products and more. I drank three bottles and ate a bag of chips, a package of Oreos, a Honey Bun, a bag of Gummy Bears and candy bar. We left them 45 minutes later and found a campsite near the river. Double D, Derek and I all soaked our feet in the ice cold MacCloud River before retiring to our separate tents to sleep. As always, yellow jackets are everywhere. As I was putting my pack in my tent I inadvertently pinched a bee between my forearm and the mosquito netting of the entrance of my tent. I didn't realize this had happened until I felt the bee sting me. I had gotten stung a week ago and little became of it. I hoped the same would happen with this sting, although this was a yellow jacket and I always react, even though it often takes a day before the swelling begins. We will see what tomorrow brings.