Night on Mt Ashland

After a week camping at the Panther Flats Campground and hiking in Northern California it was time to head back to Ashland to catch up on 'regular' things, or as I'm beginning to think of it, it was time for a 'town day'. There was a month's worth of mail to sort and reply to, emails to catch up on, gear to update, birthday packages to send,laundry to wash, and grocery shopping to do.

Leaving the campground early Sunday morning we reached Amy's house around 1:00 and within seconds had our mail scattered all over the living room floor and our computers connected. Thank you Amy and Nick!! While they escaped to go swimming we worked on things for an hour or so, went to get lunch and then headed up Mt. Ashland to camp for the night. Ashland had been suffering through a week long heatwave, which we did not want to participate in, and we knew temperatures 3000 ft higher would be significantly lower. Such is one of the joys of living out of your car. If the weather is bad, you just do somewhere better...or you wait in the car for it to blow over.

Which is exactly what we were doing two hours later. While driving up the mountain a light rain had started to fall. By the time we reached the summit there were ground strikes a little to the southeast. Slowly driving along the forest service road that follows just under the ridge we had to stop briefly to let four fire fighting trucks go by. "There's a lot of smokes starting to show up" one of the guys told us. We drove a little further and pulled off to wait out the storm in the van. We'd selected a low saddle called Grouse Gap where there was a good level tent site, a side road to a little shelter and where the PCT crossed the road.

(Cue  Rimsky-Korsakov's "Night on Bald Mountain")

And then the storm started. First just lightening and heavy rain, then small hail, then large hail, then some really close lighten strikes. Meanwhile the temperature was dropping. It had been 95 degrees in Ashland. When we first got to the summit it was 72. It was now 58 degrees. Looking up we saw a PCT thru hiker with a full rain suit and pack cover come out of the woods, cross the road and disappear down the trail. He went so fast, and the rain was falling so hard on the windshield it was almost like he was never there. Then two other figures emerged from the woods. The shorter one in the rear, no rain gear and completely soaked. The taller hiker raced over to the car, before I could even get the window down he was saying something about his grandfather being soaked, cold, and shaking, their car being three miles down the road. Could we give them a lift? The grandfather was now closer to the car and he was indeed shaking. Getting him into the front seat it was easy to see he was actually hypothermic. S.D. started the car, and blasted the heat. We dried him off a bit, threw some dry coats over him and wrapped him in one of the sleeping bags.  I pushed aside enough gear so that the grandson and I could crawl into the back of Bruce.  We sat for a while warming him up, then headed back down the mountain to their car. With promises from the grandson that he's stop at the hospital and with the grandfather's condition starting to improve we left them and drove back up to Grouse Gap to wait out another round of storms.

View from the tent site (Mt. Shasta)

Around 8:00pm the clouds cleared off, and the sun came out. We set up the tent. It was one of the many spots on this trip where I'm just amazing and honored to be able to camp. To see the sun set reflected off Mt. Shasta and a few hours later to watch the sunrise glowing on the same peak. In a few hours we'd head down to Ashland to finish up business, laundry, and shopping but for now I was too happy to sit back in my Kelty Loveseat, sip my morning coffee and enjoy the moment.