Day 32, Mile Marker 284-304, Deep Creek

Sunday, May 26, 2013

Hiking Uphill: 1,083ft
Hiking Downhill: 4,030ft
Distance Hiked: 20 miles

Post by Nick:
We woke up fairly early amongst the manzanitas and crawled out of the tent.  It was still a bit cool but we could tell it was already warmer from the descent in elevation.



We continued hiking mostly downhill, at times following a stream.  We found a nice place along a stream to stop for lunch, made some tasty taco macaroni & cheese, rinsed some laundry, filtered some water, aired out our feet, took a short rest, and then continued on.  While taking our lunch another couple has passed us and we continued to leap frog each other several times throughout the rest of the day.  Apparently they were out section hiking the PCT for the weekend and over the years had made it from the start to that point.







While hiking with Melissa, since I naturally have a faster comfortable walking pace, I have a tendency to walk in front, develop a bit of a lead, and then wait somewhere in the shade on the trail for her to catch up.  At some point after lunch I’m walking around a bend and see a large gopher snake laying across the trail.  It begins to take off into the nearby bush and I immediately chase after it and grab it’s tail.  It’s wound around the bushes and I’m knelt down with my arm in the willow bush trying to avoid getting bit as it strikes at me.  Mel eventually comes around the corner and asks what I’m doing and apparently thinks I’m reaching for trash, which I’m periodically picking up off the trail.  I ask her to come over, explain I have a snake by its tail and ask her nicely to set her pack down and grab hold.  She sees that the snake is striking and hissing at me and hesitates a little but after verifying with me it wasn’t a rattler(as if I was in the habit of picking up rattlers) grabs the tail of the snake which is now wound around the branches of the willow bush.  I drop my pack and go to the other end of the tree to grab the snake’s head and ask Mel to release its tail so I can gently remove it from the entangled branches. Eventually the snake calms down and I take a couple pics and let it go back into the bush.





Occasionally on the trail we find a piece of poetry… we hear it’s a guy named scrub further up the trail.  Some of them are quite amusing.



Around 4pm in the afternoon we reach the Deep Creek bridge which is apparently a hangout for locals seeking a place to cool off from the warm temperatures.  We dropped our packs, put our feet in the cold water, watched the trout dart about, and sat on our mats people watching.  Just upstream there was a group of folks with their icechests, obviously liquored up and pretty rowdy.  There was a kid with a BB gun and a different kid with a paintball gun constantly shooting at things.  Originally when I saw all of the folks and their ice chests I was contemplating trying to purchase a cold soda or beer from them but after watching them a little while I thought better of it.  As we were getting ready to leave and filter some water to continue on, we saw a little girl pee just upstream with her parent’s encouragement.  We decided to hold off and wait to obtain water later.









We hiked on North along Deep Creek and the views were amazing.  True to its name the creek was very deep with a large pools around every bend.  I love to fish and would like to return some day to hike along with my fishing gear.

More pretty pictures from the trail

We had hiked until dark and cowboy camped (ie. no tent) in a sandy patch down by the river.

Post from Melissa:

I'd like to add that my boyfriend Nick is a little crazy for trying to catch every snake we see (w/the exception of rattlers that he just pokes at w/his hiking poles).  He was half buried in that bush when I came around the corner...I didn't want to touch the thing but Nick insisted so I did my part.  Let it be known that his shins were hurting him that night and part of the next day...I had to remind him that he jumped into a bush w/his pack on after that snake and that was probably why he was feeling unusual pains. LOL.  Men... :-)

Also, Nick had mentioned that there could be mountain lions in the area right as we were going to sleep which freaked me out a bit.  Normally I sleep with earplugs in but not tonight...I was going to be on full alert in case an animal tried to attack us in our sleep.  It was in the middle of the night (~2am) and Nick sat up straight in his sleeping bag and yelled "What the hell was that?!". I was freaking out and asked him, "what is it? Did you see something?"  He mumbled "Nevermind" and laid back down and went to sleep.  My adrenaline was pumping and I was listening intently to our surroundings for signs of breaking twigs or footsteps.  After a while I calmed down and fell asleep.  In the morning when I asked Nick what that was all about he had no idea what I was talking about...apparently he was asleep when he did that and didn't remember doing it! I better keep an eye on him when he is asleep...lol