Start: Shackleford Trail
Finish: Grider Creek Campground
Daily Mileage: 31.9
PCT Mile: 1650.6
We continued down the ridge as always through real forest. We could see Marble Mountain, the namesake of this wilderness area approaching with its completely bald white marble rock face which looked incredible. However, the trail stayed in the trees and didn’t give us a good view. Sometimes it just does that, requiring you to take a side trail or go off trail to see what you are hiking right next to. Frustrating, but we didn’t really have the time to go and explore just like most other hikers. We would have to settle for the partial views of the area.
We stayed in the forest past some lakes and an old cabin with a wood burning range still inside, but locked by the forest service. So many restrictions.
We continued skirting the ridge until the trail started to drop. This was a big drop though, and the final descent of the trail. It would drop 5,000 feet over the next 20 miles or so into the Seiad Valley.
Starting down we passed numerous campsites. Deer were hanging around all of them, and we were reminded of our days in California with the deer desperately seeking hiker pee for the salt content. These deer would even approach us when we were going to the bathroom. A bit too friendly, and it continued the entire way down with style curious and interested deer along the trail and near almost every camping area.
Nearing the bottom of the descent I saw something black dash through the forest and shoot up a tree right next to the trail. After we looked around we realized it was a black bear cub with a slightly larger bear standing off in the distance. The bigger bear still seemed small, but we guessed it might have been mama. I have heard way too many times in my life to stay away from bear cubs because of mama, but this time mama didn’t seem to care since the cub was safely up a tree, so we took our time taking pictures before moving on.
Since we have been largely targeting 30 miles days as a baseline as of late, we thought it would be a good idea to do one last 30 for old times sake before we lose our conditioning. Given that half the day was downhill, that didn’t seem too challenging, and we cruised our way right to it. We got to the Grinder Creek Trailhead and campground where we spent the night, a short 6 miles from completing the trail. It was our last opportunity to stop, and nowhere else would let us get our 30 miles in, so it worked out. It seemed a bit anticlimactic to have our final night on the PCT be at a car campground, but it was what it was, and that’s that. We left trail for the last time with the 6 remaining miles being on road.
There were a couple cars around but we only briefly saw other people while we enjoyed the luxury of a picnic table for dinner before retiring for the last time.
