[pct-l] Oregon Section Hikers

[Nathan Miller]

>I hiked Etna to I5 last year and it was horrible. The flowers were blooming so abundantly they overthrew the trail in places and we had to push our way through huge bouquets of flowers.

Yah!  If you like to photograph wildflowers (and I do), then either get up and going REALLY early and hike REALLY late, or allow an extra day.

>Yes there's a big climb our of Seiad and it can be hot.  I left Seiad at 4 am to beat the heart, hitting the open ridge top views at sunrise so I won there too.

Yowsers!  I went SoBo on this section for precisely that reason.  Oh, and be prepared for a serious poison-oak hedge at Fern Spring...I had to do one of those spy-movie laser-beam dances to get through it without touching any...another good reason to use trekking poles!

>(I caught up on my sleep with a pleasant NATO atty Kangaroo Spring.)

I didn't notice many decent places to camp at Kangaroo Spring.  Yeah, there was lots of flat and flattish space, but it was all lumpy limestone and peridotite.  Maybe I didn't look hard enough?

-Nate the Trail Zombie
Newberg, OR