PCT 2007 Day 102 – Belden – Cold Springs

PCT 2007 Day 102

Day 102 / 7-5-07 Tarp Tent 6450′
Belden – Cold Springs
19.5 miles; 1308.6 (54.5) total miles; 3169 trip miles
90-100, sunny and humid

Deer count is 63
Marmot count is 51
Bear count is 4
Pika count is 2

I woke up at 6:30 or so then Brenda, who runs the hostel, came and woke me again to say breakfast was on the table. We had breakfast burritos, juice, muffins, potatoes, and cantaloupe. We all helped clean up afterwards; then I packed my bag so she could drop me off when they made the PO run. The PO was the oddest PO I’ve ever seen. The sign out front should have clued us in. It read from top to bottom “Curios; Post; Office; Museum”. Inside it was part PO, part gift shop, part apartment, and part curio shop. There were stuff rattlesnakes, gems, old photos, you name it. It even had glass display cases. I shipped my old poles to Leki to be rebuilt and we were off. They dropped me back off at the resort and I started around 9-9:30 I guess.

I passed an old mining device used to break up ore, which was really neat. It was in the parking lot of the trailhead. The heat was already unbearable as I headed up the first steps of a 14+ mile climb. About two miles into it, I had to put on my pant legs so not to get poison oak. It’s all over northern California and Oregon. I stopped at every stream and the process way the same; fill bottle, pour over head, repeat; fill bottle and treat; and douse hat before leaving for the next stream.

I had lunch around 1 at Myrtle Flat Camp. It was super messy with old junk all over. I took almost 2 hours for lunch. I drank as much as I could. After lunch I proceeded to climb, and if I was lucky, descend a short bit then head right back up. Luckily there were tons of creeks to cool off in. Around 4 pm I finally started to reach the top and the head wall of the canyon I had been in.

I stopped at Poison Spring for water and since it wasnt obvious, I made a sign with rocks. Not too much further and I finally reached the first real downhill. It was here I found Frog Spring and had dinner. It was about 6:30 when I was done so I decided to push on to Cold Spring which was about 5 more miles north. The hiking was easy compared to the start of the day. Along the way I crossed the end of a beautiful meadow and then hiked just inside the woods along the edge. When I got to the end, I saw a huge brown spot. I thought wow! That’s a huge bear. It turned out to be a brown cow. There was about 5-10 grazing in the upper meadow.

I got to Cold Spring, which is ice cold and bursting out of the pipe. I set up camp then cleaned up so I could sleep tonight and that’s what I’m going to do right now.

Scatman 2011- What can I say but it was hot and I was miserable for more of the day.  The heat wave was really bad and being down low the heat was even worse.  I literally stopped at every creek, stream, river or spring to get my head and hat wet.  I was happy I did the whole climb in the heat instead of starting later and having to spilt it up into two days.  I wouldn’t have wanted to wake up and deal with that climb for a second day.

The spring at Cold Springs was so loud.  I was 30′ away and I couldn’t hear anything by the water rushing out of the pipe.  It was so nice to take a nice “whore’s bath” at the end of this day.