Friday, July 25, 2008

July 19:Marble Valley

Last night at the bluegrass shindig, JZ talked to a local guy who offered to drive us the 45ish miles around the fire closure to a trailhead called Lover's Camp. From there we could take the 5ish-mile Canyon Creek Trail 1500 ft up to Marble Valley and recnnect with the PCT. In the end we decided to take his offer, and he picked us up around 9am. The climb up was nice, and Marble Valley was spectacular! Granite walls and green everywhere. And the air was actually smoke free!

We arrived to find some cavers who were getting ready to head out (this area is filled with caves). After talking to them for a few minutes, they took us to a cave that another hiker had told us about, which turned out to be the one they were heading to anyway (Skunk Hollow Cave...I think). All it is is a little hole i the ground that you slide down into and it opens up into these huge rooms. Mark and another hiker went down into all 3 rooms, but I only went into the first one since we didn't have good clothed, headlamps, and my shoes felt slick on the rocks. But it was a very cool experience. The only bummer was that by the time we got back to the trail, the smoke had moved in and continued to move in all day. This area is super beautiful, and we didn't see much of it. It ended up being the smokiest day we've had yet. At times there were no views...just white. We were thankful (in this respect) that this section was short and we'd be in Seiad Valley tomorrow.

We only had 31 miles to cover in 2 days, so we felt no pressure to move very quickly. We took a long break at Paradise Lake (after hiking around more snow!), and ended up camping by the coolest tree on the trail. It is three trees grown into one at the bottom, and it's HUGE. It even had a branch that made a great chair! It was kind of a goof-off day, but it was fun having no need to do big miles.

Total Miles:1641.3
Miles Today:10.9 (+5 Canyon Crk Trl)
Camp 83:GIANT 3-Forked Tree

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1 comment:

bryce.schroeder said...

Hi there. I'm one of the cavers you met last month on the PCT. Yes, the cave is named Skunk Hollow. I posted some pictures of it online, here: http://bryceschroeder.multiply.com/

I'm glad you enjoyed the trip. If you want to get more involved in caving, look up the National Speleological Society.

Enjoy the rest of your hike.
- Bryce Schroeder