Hyatt Lake (from Little Hyatt Lake)

Hello, old friend, it's so nice to see you again! The Pacific Crest Trail (heretofore affectionally referred to as the PCT) and I have been somewhat estranged not because we had an argument or anything like that, but because the PCT has been hiding under a heavy blanket of snow. She's been cold and inaccessible, like a beautiful Russian secret agent in either a spy novel or a U.S. presidential election. But summer is coming and we've been getting the sun and heat to prove it. At the lower elevations (presumably) there just has to be little or no snow on the trail, so it was time for the PCT and I to reconcile. 

So good to be back on the PCT!

The hiking club was going to hike on Soda Mountain on Saturday, so on Friday I drove up for an extra hike in the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument before it gets decommissioned by an orange President who does not hike. I figure'd I'd camp near the Soda Mountain Trailhead and meet the group there the following morn. Turned out, they canceled the trip because of snow and I'm thinking "snow, what snow?" as I baked under a warm sun like a well marinated lamb chop.

Prairie smoke

I started at Little Hyatt Lake, and headed north, simply because I'd never been on this part of the PCT. The trailhead was located in expansive Hyatt Meadows and I quickly got my meadow fix hiking uphill surrounded by several zip codes of green grass. Well, not all of the meadows were green, as large parts of the meadows were colored as pink as my cheeks (on my face!) due to dense patches of sea blush blooming in a green meadow under a deep blue sky. The rarely seen (by me, at least) and unusual prairie smoke flower was visited regularly by buzzing bees while small birds twittered in the nearby shrubbery. 

Happy happy joy joy!

At the start, it was a pretty good pull uphill away from the meadows but on the positive side, that was pretty much it for all the uphill I'd have to hike on this day. At least the slope was covered by shady forest and my heavy breathing was a secret kept between me and the trees. Once on the relatively level bench above Hyatt Lake, the trail popped in and out of forest and meadow. All this greenery under a blue sky and my heart was gladdened.

False advertising

About a mile and a half into the hike, the trail crossed the Hyatt Lake Road and there were a number of road signs directing traffic downhill to the lake. The area was heavily wooded so the lake was unseen, despite being in relatively close proximity to the PCT. There is supposed to be a PCT through-hiker camp nearby but I did not see it, just the signs pointing the way. There was also a prominently marked water stop and since my water was on the lukewarm side, I took the short side-trip to the water stop, consisting of a trough and a spigot. Unfortunately, there was more stop than water as the life-giving liquid was not yet hooked up, so lukewarm water it was.

Balsamroot was common in the meadows

What a yellow-staining collomia looks like

From Hyatt Lake, the PCT does a long contour around and well above the lake. I was hiking nearly at 6,000 feet and the meadows were abloom with the usual suspects: balsamroot, miniature onion, waterleaf, Sitka valerian, and larkspur. Because I was on my hands and knees taking pictures (real photographers don't shoot with the LED screen, boys and girls), I found a tiny flower which I later identified as a yellow-staining collomia. Not sure why it's called that but I came home no more yellower than usual.

The only view I had of Hyatt Lake

Eventually, the forest cover thinned out on a rocky meadow and I finally caught a glimpse of Hyatt Lake below the trail. In the distance was Mount Ashland, its ski runs still covered with snow. Nearer and dearer was Soda Mountain, slightly flecked with maybe one or two specks of snow (hear that, hiking club?) on it. I was at 6,000 feet and surrounded by greenery with no snow. Mount Ashland tops out at around 7,500 feet so the line of demarcation for snow had to have been somewhere around 7,000 feet.

Miniature onion

On the way back, I stepped wrong on the uneven trail tread and slightly wrenched my lower back; I was fairly sore by the time I returned to the trailhead several miles later. The decision was made to return to Roseburg instead of camping near Soda Mountain and that is why I'm not bitter about being stiffed by the hiking club. But if I would have been bitter, it wouldn't have lasted long because that would have meant I would have had my old friend the PCT all to myself for one more day.

Lichen graces a tree trunk

For more pictures of this hike, please visit the Flickr album.

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Pilot Rock

H, O, and T. Three little letters, harmless by themselves but when joined together in a certain order they can bake hiker brains to a runny casserole and turn athletic leg muscles into Spam pudding. Yup it's been hot lately, routinely exceeding 100 degrees on a daily basis. Given all that, who's up for a Richard Hike? Well, only three people answered the call, the rest of the hiking club stayed at home and three cheers for Bill, Lane, and newcomer Wendy.

Pilot Rock

So yeah, it was hot in Roseburg and Medford but up in the Cascade Siskiyou National Monument it was about 15 degrees cooler, so a chilly "nyah, nyah!" to all you air condition-o-philes! We would be spending virtually all day on the Pacific Crest Trail and the trail was quite busy with thru-hikers doing their 20+ miles per day on the way to Canada.

The meadows are browning out this time of year

From past experience, my recollection of the trail was of open slopes all covered with snow. Of course, it had been the middle of winter and Ray and I had snowshoes on. Naturally, the snow was long gone but the open areas remained and were now meadows, starting to go brown with the end of summer looming near. What I didn't recall was just how much shade time there is on the trail and a good thing too, it helped keep the burner on low, so to speak.

View to Mount Ashland

For the first several miles, the trail alternated between oak savannah, scratchy brush, pumice barrens, and open meadows. This hike had more variety than a jar full of jelly beans. Of course, we felt the sun's brunt when out in the open but shade was always around the corner so it really wasn't bad at all. From the breaks in tree cover, we enjoyed intermittent views to Mount Ashland and her other Siskiyou Mountains friends.

What California looks like

At a saddle with a five-way road junction, Pilot Rock made its first appearance with still a mile or two of hiking yet to go. We crossed all five roads and continued on where the PCT wrapped around the west side of Peak 5241. While sidehilling the slopes of the small peak, we Oregonians enjoyed looking down our noses at California below. The citizens of Hornbrook were going about their business, totally unaware of our self-perceived smug air of superiority. 

And speaking of greasy, toxic substances...

Rounding peak 5241, the trail entered the most sustained barren encountered on this hike, comprised of low grass struggling to survive in the pumice-based soil. We could look up the Emigrant Creek drainage and pick out Soda Mountain, Hobart Mountain, and Hobart Bluff on the Cascade-Siskiyou skyline. Unfortunately, at this point some nasty grease or other toxic substance absolutely covered my camera lens and all the photos I had taken at that point were useless. But take my word for it, it was pretty spectacular.

Scotch thistle

Anway, after switching filters (now I had a funky ND filter which I don't like but at least it wasn't slimy with what ever slimed the first filter) we continued on with the trail dropping through firs providing some very welcome and effective shade. After a short downhill stint, we ate lunch at a saddle below Pilot Rock as PCT thru-hikers passed by. 

Convention has it that PCT thru-hikers are known only by their trail names, given to them by fellow hikers based on some kind of incident or story. One fellow was given the name He-man by his brother because he "hiked so easily over hills that it looked like he was made out of helium." On the Periodic Table of Elements, the abbreviation for helium is He, therefore: He-man. Based on that story, my trail name would be Pb-Man because Pb is the scientific abbreviation for lead.

Rough trail to Pilot Rock

La-Man on the PCT

It used to be that from the saddle, hikers would just go cross country to Pilot Rock. Accordingly, a whole network of ad hoc use trails sprung up, scarring the terrain. Now that the iconic tower of rock is Monument property, the old scramble route is off limits due to the ongoing vegetative restoration project. An actual authorized trail switchbacks from the saddle and it's a steep one through a forest. Pilot Rock became less of a tower and more of a wall the closer we got to it. The path ended where the scramble route to the summit started; the scramble route was not obvious but was a narrow chute that clearly required the use of hands.

Pilot rock looms above

A lone hiker was descending and he told us rocks as big as his head had fallen and he aborted the mission at that point. So did we. Lane and Bill went up for a bit with Lane working his way to a cliffy viewpoint while Wendy and I just watched. No matter the summit was not attained, Pilot Rock is still pretty spectacular and provides an up close look at all the basaltic pillars it is comprised of. At the base were piles of rocks, some even as big as my head, and that's pretty big!

The bravest souls in Roseburg

After our up-close commune with Pilot Rock, we headed back down the trail, about 5 miles from my car. If anything, the day had gotten warmer but again, we were saved by intermittent shade and breeze as we continually exchanged greetings with a steady stream of thru-hikers walking in the opposite direction. It was about 90 degrees at the trailhead and over 100 degrees down in Medford. Despite the heat in the valleys, hiking sure beat staying at home like an air-conditioned namby-pamby.

Almost lush at McAllister Spring

For more pictures of this hike, please visit the Flickr album.

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