Mile 1647 to 1660.
The walk into Seiad Valley was 6 miles of gravel road past old trailer homes and even older rusted out trucks. Along the way I saw a black bear pop out on the road ahead of me, maybe 100 yards ahead. Everything was kosher for about 5 seconds until I heard a large diesel truck in the distance coming toward me. The bear also heard this truck and did the only logical thing in that situation, run down the road away from the truck. Yes, away from the truck, and directly toward me. I started yelling “hey bear!”, “other way bear!” as I was quickly back pedaling. The bear either didn’t notice me, or simply didn’t care as it kept running headlong. Right as the bear got close enough for me to really start panicking, a second voice came out of nowhere, “HYEAWWWW!” The bear skidded to a stop, took a left turn and booked it up the side of the mountain. Where had this other voice come from? You know, from a man who was wearing camo, sitting in some weeds on the side of the road and holding a chain saw. Not alarming at all.
A few seconds later the truck rolled up and stopped to pick up the chain saw toting man. License place on the huge Ford Diesel, “REDNEK.” So perfect.
Seiad Valley (pronounced ‘sciad’ and the post office officially changed to this spelling due to confusion) is a town of 300 people and downtown consists of a single building that houses a diner, grocery and the post office.
After pancakes and eggs, I spent the whole day lounging in the constantly moving shade, catching up on some errands with the diner wifi, and drinking copious amounts of almond milk. Animal Style rolled into town midday and it was nice to see a familiar face after a couple days on trail. The temperature was over 100 and we waited until five to tackle a huge climb out of the valley. On our way up we found a spring that fed into a concrete tub. Animal and Aquarias took turns dumping their heads in and swinging their hair back like models.
