Day 129: Piped Spring Spur to Site at 1778.8

Start point

Spur to piped spring at mile 1756.3

End point

Tentsite at 1778.8

Miles hiked

22.5

Wilderness area

Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument

Rogue River National Forest

Winema National Forest

Sky Lakes Wilderness

People I met

Nadav

The day on trail

The morning was so misty and wet. Nothing really fully dried out, which is always a bummer. I tried to hang out at camp to catch some sun and get the wet out, but it just wasn’t working.

Heh. Oregon.

I packed up my tent and kit, but didn’t put my rainfly inside the tent bag. Instead I stuck it under the elastic outside my pack, so it could dry. It was saturated, so wetting everything down inside just didn’t make sense. It’s not the first time I’ve done this, but it’s definitely the time I’ve needed to the most.

Ketchup took off, as she does, and I followed later.

We planned on meeting up for lunch at a cabin which has a water pump and, apparently, a resident rat.

The day started off with a road crossing pretty quickly. Lots of these so far in this state. Which means I haven’t really escaped road noise for a meaningful period of time.

But it quickly turned back into beautifully maintained trail.

It’s just really easy walking. That’s Oregon so far: easy walking. And dramatic trees.

It’s heartbreaking to see so many trees collapsing, breaking, and dead. Climate change is super apparent here and it’s especially obvious when you hit the inevitable burn zones again and again. I remember driving through Oregon the times I have and seeing the golden red dead trees among the green living ones.

It’s stark. We need to protect what we have and enjoy it while we can.

I walked through a few hours of these trees. Dirt and living trees, and dirt and dead and dying trees.

There was another road crossing and a trailhead.

And someone lost their glasses.

But if you look at the trail sign, South Brown Mountain Shelter is the lunch spot! I’m excited for a chance to sit down at a picnic table, the height of luxury, and get water from an old style pump!

Oh, and this. This is cool.

I took the side trail to the shelter, found Ranger, Hottub, and crew there. I asked them about Ketchup and they told me I missed her by a few minutes. By The Way and his crew were also there, playing music on a speaker (ugh) and smoking up a storm of weed (ew). They took off after about 10 minutes.

Ranger complimented my chai, and she remembered I identified her hamsa. We had a little Jewish connection and it was so sweet.

I set my stuff down and got to work on filling my water bladder and filtering. I don’t know how I missed getting a photo of the water pump, but it was fun to use! It took about five pumps to get it flowing and once it did, it did with gusto! I set my filter up to go while I explored the cabin and tried to find Frederick, the rat.

Inside there was a hiker box with a log book I signed, and lots of nesting material from the rat. I spied him and tried to get close to take a photo, but he scurried off to hide on a beam under the roof.

I can’t blame him. We’re all hungry.

I went back outside to socialize with Ranger and her crew, and share where I saw the rat. They were all curious but didn’t want to get up and find it without knowing where it was. A bunch of them checked him out, some thought he was cute, others thought he was disgusting. Such is life.

They soon took off. A couple older day hikers soon came by, followed by a guy named Nadav. He was Israeli.

It’s always nice to meet tribe members.

We all talked for a bit, which was hard for me because I was just tired of talking to day hikers. It gets to be the same few questions and what they can offer me in information or conversation often doesn’t align with what I need. I hate saying that, because I genuinely love connecting with people. But this just feels so anemic and vacuous.

I packed my food back up and took off. Watered up and fed, I was ready for the remaining 12 or so miles to camp.

I was greeted with huckleberries.