August 6th
In the middle of the night we had a couple hours of unexpected rain. Fortunately we set up the tent to avoid the bugs. Our tent, a Six Moon Design’s “Europa II” passed its first “water” test, handling the rain very well. It kept us dry.
Another cold morning, another double layer of hiking clothes – a long sleeves and fleece hat kind of morning. The only hikers we saw were Toek and a couple of day hikers.
The walk was a long traverse of the flanks of Mt Ashland, offering occasional views of Mt Shasta to the south and ahead to Pilot Rock and Mt McLoughlin. We passed by the Mt Ashland B&B which now has a picnic table for through hikers to use. I remember ten years ago encountering guests in th driveway who were so interested in my hike that I ended up being served coffee and leftover breakfast breads. Now the establishment kindly offers a water spigot and a picnic table/rest area for hikers, which is very nice and keeps hikers away from knocking on the door and asking for water.
We basically were very focused on making miles and getting into town as early as possible to get a jump on chores and eating. With very few breaks we pushed through 17 miles by 1:30pm. We started to hear the sounds of I-5 from about 7 miles away. Never has a freeway sounded so sweet, as it meant we would be close to town, food, showers, beer and new gear.
We were very lucky and within minutes of arriving at the frontage road/old highway 99 got a ride into Ashland, dropping us off at the Post Office where we had a package waiting.
Being Friday hotels rooms were filling up fast but we found reasonably nice, reasonably priced accommodations at the Ashland Motel.
