Day 116 : Goodbye California

13th August 2013
Mile 1670 to mile 1699.5 : Seiad Valley overlook to the California - Oregon border

Today was my last day in California! Along with Rocky and T-Rex i crossed.over into Oregon at the end if the ay after hiking the entire length if the PCT in California, a total trail.distance of 1699 miles! It has been clear though that California has nite been happy about us leaving and has thrown some major obstacles at us in the last few days, including rattlesnakes and wasps, hail and lightning, fire and smoke, and monster climbs.  Today the only obstacle today was one with which we are all accustomed : the Sun, but even with my now thousands of miles of trail experience it is still tough every day dealing with the sun. Nothing, though, could dampen our spirits today as we pretty much ran the 29 miles to the Oregon border where we sat in the evening light drinking beer that we'd all packed up the massive climb savoring the moment fir as long as we could. From today the countdown from 1000 begins! There was no camping at the border monument so we, along with 2 others, carried on a short way up the trail to find a logging road which would serve as our first campsite, in Oregon! As i lay in my sleeping bay feeling unconsciousNess enveloping me i was struck by a short conversation we'd had with a south-bounder that day. Vogue, the hiker in question informed the three of us that we between us we were the 269th, 270th and 271st north-bound hikers he'd met since he'd started in Canada. Many miles ago Scout, to the Scout and Frodo fame in San Diego with whom i stayed prior to starting my hike, told.me that in his capacity of PCTA chairman he knew that over 1000 permits had been issued for that year. Given my relatively slow pace during the first half of this hike i had assumed that the vast majority of hikers were ahead me, so 270 seemed an improbably small number to me. Vogue, which has done the trail trail before.in both directions also estimated that anyone over 10 days behind would struggle to make it to Canada before the first snows effectively close the trail to hikers like ourselves poorly equipped to deal with winter conditions. Assuming 10 hikers.on the trail per day (which i think is probably too large a number judging by what i see in trail registers), and assuming an.error of maybe 10%  that vogue might have missed in trail.towns, and then adding perhaps 50 for south-bounders, the number of hikers that can currently make it to Canada is less than 500. All his means that 50% of hikers have already dropped out for whatever reason, and we have still almost 1000 miles to go. The success rate is usually around 35% so another 150 have yet to drop out. I will not be among them.