[pct-l] more on western section R - through hikers have it easy!

[David Hough reading PCT-L]

Through-hikers have it easy!

All through-hikers have to worry about is getting back and forth to town,
post office/market resupply hours, and staying clean and healthy.

Dayhiking, especially leap-frog dayhiking with two cars, is more exciting.

First, if you rent a car (in this case, from the Redding or Medford airport)
you have to assume that at least one tire has a slow leak, so you better
bring a tire pump that plugs into the cigarette lighter.    One tire on the
rental required re-inflation every morning.    A jumper cable is also a
good idea.    The tire pump and jumper cable in the other car 10-15 trail
miles away don't count.

Then there's the question of finding the right access roads.    The Semb
books recommend the fairly good gravel roads to Wards Fork Gap and
Cook and Green Pass, but I needed something in between.   Last year I covered
Reeves Ranch Springs road 47N63 to Wards Fork Gap.   
You can get to Alex Hole or Reeves Ranch Springs from 40S01 which runs
all the way from highway 96 to Wards Fork Gap and points east.
However the lower 7 miles of 40S01 are very narrow and steep and encountering
another vehicle would be a major challenge.

Much better is to take Road 12 from highway 96 in Klamath River.   It's a
wide gravel road that climbs and then contours for miles until finally 
reaching a junction with 47N63 which has a sign and is a good dirt road
that takes you up to the PCT at the crest.    As with all Forest Service
roads, get the current vehicle maps from

https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/klamath/maps-pubs/?cid=fseprd538471

and print out the parts you need.

So you have your maps, find your trailheads, complete your hike, and then
drive back down from Cook and Green Pass to Seiad Valley - except you might
encounter a tree in the road at an awkward place.    Like a mile below
the waterfall.   It wasn't there the day before.    Very awkwardly placed,
with a shoulder too soft and narrow to drive around, and even if you have
a chain saw - if you cut the part that's impaled in the road you might
release the much bigger part up above you to come down and impale you.
So you consider your options and realize that there is
at most one - turning around on this narrow road,
driving back over Cook and Green Pass and down into Oregon's Applegate
Valley and then back to I-5 and Medford or Ashland.    Of course there might
be a rock or a tree blocking that road, too, and there's no cell service
anywhere around here.    Not thinking that they might be necessary, you
might not have any Oregon or Rogue River NF maps.   But since it's the only
option, you charge down and finally make your way to pavement and then
to OR highway 238 and you can get back to Yreka in just a couple of hours
after turning around at the tree.    The next day you pump up the tires
again and drive back to Klamath River and Road 12 to retrieve the other car.

But not without further incident -
you'd better be ready to change a tire yourself in an area of no cell
service.    One of the tires blew out on Forest Road 12, a pretty major gravel
road.   Getting the donut on and making it back to highway 96, the first
open business was the Klamath River Post Office where the friendly postmaster
advised us the nearest place to get flats fixed was Yreka.    Weldon's Tire
Shop near the Yreka Post Office was able to replace the flat tire and patch
the leaky tire, although it still seemed to lose pressure.

Compounding this, CalTrans is repaving highway 96 between Klamath River
and I-5, so there was a 10-20 minute wait four times that day.   But all's
well that ends well, and the rental car was returned only 5 hours late.

David Hough