PCT 87 – Callahan’s/Ashland

Daily Miles: 13
Total Miles: 1715

We woke up to some fog in the mountains. Luckily no condensation on our sleeping bags, but it was a change from the blue skies we have woken up to for months. The fog didn’t stick around for too long and then the blue skies were back.

A few miles into the day, we came upon some trail magic…several chairs with two coolers full of sodas. We each took a soda and spent time chatting with a hiker who was new to us, Buff. He said his son was flying in to the area today and was planning to do trail magic for the next week, basically meeting his dad at each road crossing with snacks. Sounded pretty nice!

We saw more hikers going south today than we have seen in awhile. We are starting to see south bounding thru hikers. Oregon is where we should see most of them. But the ones we are seeing now, either started early in the snow, or are going really fast. I’m sure they will be glad to get through the giant bubble of northbounders, then they will be able to have some solitude on the trail.

The walking was pretty smooth today and we got into Callahan’s Lodge just after 1:00. This lodge is just south of Ashland. We had planned to just camp, but when we heard that the hiker shower was broken, we decided to get a room so we could get clean. It ended up being cheaper to just get a suite, so the three of us are in one suite together. It is so nice, we don’t want to leave!

When we were checking in, we ran into a couple, Lizard and Forever 50, who are Trail Angels on the PCT. They host trail magic just south of Tahoe, which Beardoh got to experience in 2012. Then we saw them on the Tahoe Rim trail in 2014 and they remembered Beardoh. Their memories are still really good because they remembered us and even our names again today! Beardoh’s shorter beard threw them off at the beginning, but it was great to see them again.

They took us into Ashland for lunch at a local brewery which was really good. They even treated us to lunch, which was incredibly kind. It was fun to hang out and chat with them.

Once we got back to Callahan’s, we all got cleaned up and relaxed for a bit. We ended up having dinner at the lodge, since they have a special hiker dinner of “all you can eat” spaghetti. SweetPea chose something else from the menu, and sadly didn’t get her food until Beardoh and MountainMan had long finished their meals. It was just one bad note on an otherwise awesome day, so no complaints!