Seiad Valley turned out to be one of the prettiest places we've stayed on the whole PCT. Mom drove up on Thursday and stayed with Pam and Aaron, then Pam helped her drive my truck and her camper to Seiad Valley to meet me (how would we ever have done this without her?!). There we stayed at a beautiful ranch owned by Tony and Cathy Bishop, where they welcomed us with open arms, even though up until the moment we arrived they had never heard of us before. It happened like this: in the middle of the last leg, I met a guy named Mike and he gave me the number of someone named Ryan who worked for CalTrans and knew Tony, and he told my mom to drive into Seiad and look for a Victorian house at the edge of town. So right up to the moment when my mom and Pam pulled in, Tony and Cathy were doing this all on faith! They let us put the horses in an amazing pasture of lush green grass--I think the horses thought they had died and gone to heaven! We parked the camper by the barn, and then we also got to meet a lot of the other great people in town. On my way in on the trail, besides meeting the teachers, I had met Bill Roberts, a man of many talents (including packer, pilot, and poet!). He even came over one evening and showed me some new hitches to use on my pack saddle--the first bit of actual packing instruction that I've had, outside of YouTube and that great book "When Mules Wear Diamonds". It was wonderful to get some advice from someone who actually knew how to do this, and I was very grateful to Bill. He also was had a wealth of knowledge about the trail and helped my mom and I plan our next section of riding.

#2014PCT