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PCT Yearnings
By Liss | January 8, 2009
PCT Yearnings: Resting at the cattle gate, originally uploaded by dreamingcrow.
Yes, I’m really feeling the urge to return ASAP. These aren’t great visual photos, but they make me smile with memories and yearn for the trail again. They were all taken on my first foray into Oregon in 2008.
I don’t think that you even want to know how much of the southern Oregon PCT crosses stock lands. Often, the gates couldn’t be opened easily using the poles or one-handed and frequently needed a hard pull on the whole gate to open or close, even ones like these that were designed for easy handling. There were a lot of cow patties and you never knew when you might stumble into a herd, even in the forest. However, my favorite campsite was also on stock land, so it’s not all bad, and at least the owners are willing to have hikers traipse through.
This is the PCT trailhead south of Ashland, Oregon. It’s the first easy access to the trail north of the California border and was my starting point. The piece of cardboard with a rock at the base is a sign pointing which way to head into Ashland for those coming off trail.
To get to Ashland from here, you have to road hike 3/4 of a mile to Interstate 5 and then hitch to town. It’s 12 miles on the freeway to the Ashland Post Office, frequently hikers’ first stop. I caught a ride out to the freeway off ramp and then walked up.
Ah, my first diamond marker. Someone wrote “PCT —-> North Welcome home” on it and that’s really how it feels. On trail, these markers are both your best friend and your worst enemy. Sometimes, they are very frequent and you wonder if someone was getting paid by the number of markers posted. Other times, you search and search for markers, concerned that you might have missed a turn off, and pray to find one soon. Or, at least, that’s what I did after my one time of taking a wrong turn and hiking 1.5 miles out of my way, down hill.
The newer official markers look like this, with the official trail logo, but the more frequent markers are these white diamonds and you even occasionally run into the old trail markers. Of course, that doesn’t even start to mention all the wooden posts, non-standard trail markers, non-obvious and non-marked trail changes, or various agency signs that you run across. It can get confusing. Also, any and all of the nailed markers can be subsumed and enclosed by a tree and end up being an edge that’s barely visible or a tiny flash buried in bark.
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