Day 28: Seiad Valley

PCT Miles: 1649.5 to 1656.4

Miles Hiked = 6.9

Today’s hike into Seiad Valley was along a road. It was a dirt road at first.

After a couple miles it became paved

After a couple miles the road reached the Klamath River and followed along the river for another couple miles.

There were wild blackberries along the road

I reached Highway 96 and a sign directed me to the left towards Seiad Valley – more road walking – luckily there was very little traffic on an early Saturday morning.

I walked across the Klamath River Bridge that leads into Seiad Valley

I wouldn’t call Seiad Valley a town – maybe a community of 350 people.

It consists of a post office, country store and cafe – all in the same building.

Seiad Valley

It was 9am when I arrived. The post office is only open from 12-1:30 on Saturdays so I had a little bit of a wait. Luckily the cafe was open so I ordered breakfast.

There was a picnic table in the shade for hikers to hang out at. I made a friend as I waited for the post office to open.

After I picked up my resupply box I walked another half mile down the road to the Wildflower Tavern and Lodge. The owner’s name is Rachel and she is super hiker friendly – she allows hikers to camp on her property, do laundry, take a shower and she cooks dinner every night! All for $35. Plus she has tap beer!

There was a group of other hikers hanging out at Wildwood. Most of them, except Energizer, had been there for the past day. The group included Daisy, Boston and Layla. it was good to see them again and catch up on their hike. This is when I learned that Daisy and Boston had hitched into Etna, skipped some trail miles and leap-frogged ahead of me.

Energizer, me, Boonie, Mario, Igur, Kegger, Boston, Layla, Daisy & Beeps

My original plan was to spend the afternoon in Seiad Valley and get back on the trail late in the afternoon. There is a BIG climb out of the valley and I thought I should put a dent in it today. But it was in the upper 90’s … another beer sounded good … and there was dinner tonight!!! Plans change. So I decided to spend the night and get back on the trail EARLY the following morning.

Most of the other hikers, except Energizer who arrived this morning also, were headed back out on the trail at 5pm this afternoon. The rumor was that the trail to the north out of Seiad Valley was more overgrown than the one entering the valley from the south (the one I had hiked down yesterday). There were reports that the poison oak was particularly heavy and that there were a lot of ticks. So most of “kids” were taking a ten mile alternate route up a dirt road up to a junction with the PCT. Only Mario, from Switzerland, was going to take official trail. I hadn’t even considered taking an alternate route – something to think about.

Rachel has one “glamping” tent on her property – it costs an extra $25.

It has a bed inside, low-voltage lighting and outlets to charge a phone and battery pack.

So I decided to “glamp” tonight. My excuse was that I could keep my backpack packed, not have to take down my tent in the morning and thereby get an earlier start. Convinced?

By the way, dinner was great!

Thanks for following!