Day 93: a change in plans

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Day 93
Miles: 3
From soldier creek to Chester

A good night’s sleep – we may be back in business. Maybe I’ll do this second half after all. That’s no reason to rush out of camp though – we continue our trend of leisurely mornings, and are still getting ready when Far-out walks up.

We’re planning on heading to the Warner campground for the night. We would have gone into Chester last night, if we could’ve gotten to hwy 36 in time to hitch, but since we didn’t we’ll skip the stop entirely.

No burgers for us, but there is trail magic. Sodas! On ice! While I’m drinking my root beer, I check for cell service, and end up on facebook. The PCT facebook groups are blowing up with posts about fires. Here. Fires here, in California section N.

“J, that fire we saw yesterday – it looks like it’s across the trail.”
  “Up ahead? Is it closed?”
  “I’m trying to figure out.” The information on the web uses real landmarks and forest service roads to describe the burn area – things that mean nothing to me. In fact, for the entire length of the trail I’ve been in the curious situation of knowing  precisely where I am, while having no real ideas of where that location itself is. I’ll know I’m at mile 1145.87 on Halfmile’s maps, two miles from water, eight miles from town (for example), but not be able to tell you what the major roads are, what towns are in the area, exactly which national forest I’m in…

It looks like this fire might definitely be in our way though. I’m puzzling over it on a slow internet connection when other hikers start arriving at the hwy 36 junction as well – Far-out, Pippin, Tarzan & Jane. Two Feathers and Pacman, who are coming out of Chester, arrive as well.

In addition to California section N, trail section P is also now closed, and it looks like section R (last section before Oregon) is going to possibly be closed soon. That’s going to make it a bit tough to hike through…

We don’t just have one reroute in front of us, we have a couple hundred miles of detours staring us in the face. Everything I find out only raises more questions. For now, however, it looks like I’m going into Chester after all. The Bald Fire up ahead is 5000 acres and growing.

Chester has a reputation as a hard hitch (only seven miles too), which it lives up to. A trail angel in town (thanks again, Tooth Fairy!) saves us the long walk and comes and picks up all of us except for Two Feathers, who decided to walk to the next town north, Old Station.

I feel so derailed by this. Getting up and keeping walking is hard enough without decisions. I think back to J on Muir Pass, saying how the PCT is something he decided to do once, and he simply hasn’t reevaluated. I’m afraid that if I have to reevaluate, I’ll just go home. Back to where I’m not tired all the time, to where my feet don’t hurt all the time. The PCT isn’t a trip, it’s a pilgrimage. If I’m going to skip hundreds of miles, what’s the point?

There’s an art fair going on in town,  and there is no room at the inn. Any inn. They’re all full. The local Lutheran pastor takes us in, and lets us camp in the backyard of the church (appropriate). The local dentist gives us gift certificates to eat at the restaurant across the street, where we munch fish tacos and digest the turn of events. J wants to hang out – I want to know what we’re doing with our lives.

I’ve gone back to the church to mull things over, when J comes back with 3D in tow. “Bicycles!” she announces. “Pacman and I are going to ride bikes to Ashland.” They’ve hooked up with a local guy who fixes up old bikes, and they’re going to try to bike around the detours. They’ll check out the bicycles tomorrow.

Bicycles! The idea is crazy – I’ve never ridden a bicycle more than 20 miles in a row in my life – but it’s the first idea that has made me want to continue this journey. We’d ride out to the coast, ride on California 101, see the redwoods… it’s exciting, unscripted, but has that thread, that continuity I need to carry me through. I guess I’ll find out tomorrow if this is even feasible.

Meanwhile, the Bald Fire is growing. 18,000 acres now.

We heat up cans of soup on the church’s back porch, tell stories and laugh, get ready for bed. 26,000 acres. “What do you think about this?” I whisper to J, lying next to me in his sleeping bag.
  “If the bikes look good, let’s do it.”
  “Sounds good.”

Let’s see what tomorrow brings.

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Day 92: halfway at last

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Day 92
Miles: 20
From four miles past cold springs to soldier creek

Cowboy camping seemed like such a good idea last night. It’d be a little bit cooler, we’d be able to see the stars, we’d get up earlier, and there were no bugs to bother us.

The bugs were just waiting for us to relax our guard.

The ants came one at a time. The mosquitoes descended as a horde with the descent of the sun. They were waiting for it to cool off too. Sleeping bags pulled over the head kept the mosquitoes at bay, but the ants always found a way.

I don’t know that the mosquitoes even bit me – but that unbearable whine! The ants definitely bit me. On top of all that, I’ve had a muscle knot in my back that bothers me when I lay down, so I tossed, turned, pulled ants out of my pants and my hair, flailed at invisible mosquitoes, and did it all again. If I feel asleep, J was flailing around instead.

Too tired to fix the situation, not quite tired enough to sleep through it – it was a horrible night. Dawn came, and my alarms as well, and the mosquitoes finally left. We meant to get up in time to get to the town of Chester tonight – maybe get a motel room, eat out – we sleep instead.

“Tonight, we use the net-tent,” declares J, when we do get up. Too bad tonight is such a long ways away.

The first part of the day takes us out of the dense forest onto an open ridgeline with crunchy, volcanic rock outcroppings. We can see Mt Lassen to the north, some reservoir to the east, green mountains everywhere else. J and I are both exhausted.

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We stop to water up at Little Cub Spring. I don’t know if it’s meat stick from yesterday sitting wrong, or perhaps one of the springs we drank from and didn’t filter, but my stomach feels awful. J is having problems too. We eat plain tortillas for lunch, then lay dejectedly on the ground for a while. But these miles don’t walk themselves…

We’ve come up onto a ridge again, looking north at Mt Lassen again, bit this time it seems to be exploding?? There are big cumulus clouds building too, but there’s definitely a plume – and growing fast. “Couldn’t be,” says J in disbelief. “We would’ve heard it.”
  “That thing is definitely not a cloud.”
  “No, it looks like a freaking plinian eruption. Do you have internet service?”
  “Nope,” I reply, after checking. “Looks like we’ll just keep walking towards it.”

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It’s still a long ways off. We’re not worried, merely baffled. Besides, if there was a volcanic eruption, and we ended up having to skip a section… I can’t say that I’d mind.

When we can see the mountain again, we’ve moved a fair bit to the east, so we can tell that their plume isn’t coming directly out of Mt Lassen, but to the side of it. It still doesn’t look like a cloud though. “Maybe forest fire?” suggests J.
  “Most likely…” I reply.

Back down in the trees. My severe foot pain is back – not the tired foot aches, the shooting pain up my heels. I put my audiobook on and spend some more time in the French Revolution. I’m so caught up in it I almost walk past it – the halfway marker on the PCT.

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(The best happy we can fake for the camera.)

Halfway! Three months to do it, to the day. I’m not sure I want to do this for another three months, or even for two (which we’re aiming for). Not if my feet are going to hurt like this every day. The trail register is full of hikers talking about lighting up in celebration, but we settle for just eating twice our day’s ration of fun-size candy bars. The other topic, especially for hikers right in front of us, is about needing to speed up, or deciding to skip ahead, then come back and do Oregon later. I guess I’m not the only one getting worked up about finishing.

We keep going. Less miles to go than we’ve already done… my feet hurt, and I cry. (Luckily, we’re going downhill. When I cry on the uphills I always end up hyperventilating, which is embarrassing, and makes it hard to walk.) Maybe I’m just exhausted and not feeling well, but I want to go home. At least, 49% of me does. The other 51% is morally opposed to quitting. All the percents of me that were having an awesome time appear to be on vacation somewhere else.

The water at soldier creek, when we get there, is cold and flowing well. There are campsites. I sit down next to my pack in order to feel sorry for myself more effectively. “You want to just camp here?” asks J.
  “I wasn’t planning on going anywhere,” I tell him.
  “Good,” he says. His feet hurt too. He’s exhausted too.

Halfway.

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Day 91: a world to ourselves

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Day 91
Miles: 17
From the Williams cabin site to four miles past cold springs

After a big physical exertion, it’s always the second day after that I really feel it. The 28 miles from day before yesterday are hanging over me today, holding me down in a groggy dream-land, where I have deep cracks in my skin, like mud cracks. You can see down in them, see the layers of skin and fat, and they’re oozing, and they have sand in them, and my mother just sold her teeth to save the farm, and J is stirring besides me. We’re in the tarp. Time to get up.

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Pacman, 3D, and Namaste are gone with the sunrise, or perhaps any of the three hours after sunrise – I wouldn’t know. J and I face the eight miles of difficult uphill and promptly get hung up just three miles in, at Chip’s creek. The Dude told us there was a beautiful swimming hole here… and there is. “What do you think,” asks J. “Nekkid?”
  “Sure.” We strip our clothes, already sweat-drenched, and get in. J gets in – I make a big production out of it, get my feet wet, get out, do it again, then finally dunk myself. I hate cold water, but I love it.

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Cool and wet, I stand on a rock and let a breeze blow around me -first time I’ve been cool in days. “Why does it feel so good to be naked outside?” I muse out loud. “Because it feels so free? So innocent? So safe? Like the entire world is yours?”
  “Hippies know a thing or two,” answers J.
  “Are we hippies? Have we turned into hippies? Maybe just hiker trash.”

Next to the swimming hole is a stand of thimbleberry bushes, with a thimbleberry bonanza. Our fingers and mouths are stained pink before long.

All I want to do is to swim, nap, eat thimbleberries, and then do it all again. I’m not really in a thru-hiking state of mind. The biggest problem with thru-hiking, far as I can tell, it’s that it involves so much hiking. Some days it would be nice to just camp.

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It’s hot and humid, but the climb awaits. Hot day, heavy packs, tired legs, uphill… one step at a time.

Right before we crest the ridge, we stop for water at Andesite Spring. It’s clear and cold, so cold. J pours some over his head and gasps for a while. “I don’t think the water in the Braatens’ fridge was cold as this!” Figuring that water this cold must come straight from underground, we drink it unfiltered.

After the spring, we walk through trees. Can’t say I’m too enamored of this stretch of forest. The trees are close together and all the same. There’s no understory except dead branches and downed trees, which make a dense maze of the forest floor. The trail crews must have spent weeks here with chainsaws.

We stop again at cold springs, the last water for thirteen miles. We cook dinner to avoid carrying water for it, I wash my socks, my feet. This has been a hot and dusty stretch of trail. I’d have liked to get twenty miles in today, but none of my choices put me in the position to accomplish that. You can’t have a late start, a long lunch, lots of stops, and hike slow… and still do twenty miles before sundown.

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No twenty miles, but we squeak in a few more before bed and get in seventeen. The sunset through the trees throws bars of golden light through the dense pine groves – a brilliant, burning sky barred with black. We’ve found a nice spot on the ridge to camp, a high spot with eastern exposure. We get up earlier with the sun on our faces. Maybe better walking tomorrow.

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Day 90: closing up shop

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Day 90
Miles: 6
From Belden (the Braatens’) to the Williams cabin site

I went to bed radiating aches, and hot, then slept the uncomfortable sleep off the overtired. This morning I wake up groggy, tired… and surprisingly ok. Namaste, 3D, and Pacman come in, and we all head to the diner at the RV park down the street (caribou crossroads RV park? Are we in Alaska or something?).

The food is surprisingly good -we order biscuits and gravy, three egg omelets, breakfast burritos, French toast, milkshakes. We pay for a load of laundry, then I put together a box to mail forward to Portland. I’ve decided to send forward the shirt top of my long johns, my rain pants, and my extra handkerchief. It’s tough saying goodbye to my rain pants – they keep me so warm – it’s just that keeping cool is the problem lately. Probably close to two pounds there, no longer on my back. I’m happy about that. I’m getting tired of carrying things around.

Back at the Braatens’, Pacman, Namaste and J take off to go swimming in the river across the street. 3D and I stay in and blog – chores. (3D is an artist doing a super cool project on her hike. Check out her site HERE.) I’m halfway through this hike, and I’m not going to quit now, but keeping this blog up has been (and continues to be) a difficult thing to do. One extra thing to do, every day. Especially now that I’m three weeks behind after not blogging the entire High Sierra. The solar panel from Dan has solved my power issues, but it did not magically write my posts for me. “If I only do two posts a day,” I tell myself, “eventually I’ll catch up.”

A couple of south-bound section hikers also come in, Mimi and The Dude. Mimi is heading home, so The Dude is reworking his whole setup for a solo trip. He passes on his three liter platypus bag to us, so we have a way to filter water again. Hallelujah. It’s actually a bounty of food and goods at the Braatens’. The Braatens are trail angels for just one month. If you miss the window, you’re outta luck – and tonight will be their last night. Everyone who resupplies in Belden has to send their own food, so the hiker box here is the best I’ve seen since the Saufleys’. There’s no one to leave the food for, but the stuff in our boxes is better. I’ll take my chocolate covered macaroons over their dehydrated chicken any day.

Meanwhile, we discuss our plans going forward and possible mileage plans to finish this trail before winter. “You know, I tell 3D, “if we hike just 22 miles a day, every day, we’ll get to Canada by October.”
  “With no zero days?”
  “No zero days.”
  “Well, that won’t work,” protests 3D.
  “If you do 23, you can take five zeros,” I proffer.
  “That might be doable.”

For those of us hellbent on finishing a complete thru-hike this year, time is no longer our friend. It’s taken me three months to do half the trail, but I only have two months for the second, if I’m really trying to beat the snow in the north cascades. I run the math all the time – “so, if I hike 30 miles a day for this section, then I can take four fifteen mile days in that section, or….”

All the math always works out the same: I have to get up and hike, for a long time, every day.

J comes back from the river with a hat full of blackberries. We sort our food boxes into our food bags. Seven days of food means we’re walking out of here heavy. There’s a scale here, so we know. Both our packs weigh 30 lbs each. Not bad for seven days of food for hungry hikers.

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After five we’ve waited out most the heat, so we sling on our packs. Brenda gives us a ride to the trail head and sees us off.

The descent into Belden yesterday means there is a mirror image waiting for us. This trail goes uphill for miles from here. Even at five it’s hot, but J and I, 3D, Pacman and Namaste get started.

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North fork of the Feather River, ascending from Belden. It’s too bad we haven’t figured out how to leave our rivers alone – rail on one side, road on the other, then powerlines overhead.

Six miles, it’s getting dark, and we’ve found a spot we can all camp. J and I get in first, and set up on the side of the creek closer to the trail. When everyone else shows up, I tell them: “there’s more flat spots over there, but there’s also a bunch of junk. It was a little creepy so we camped here.”

3D comes back from across the creek – “a little creepy? There is a bucket of knives! Bottles of bleach and gasoline! A cauldron! A tarp full of who knows what!”
  “Yeah, a little creepy,” I laugh.
  “What was in the tarp, dead babies?” Pacman deadpans.
  “Oh, definitely,” returns 3D. We all end up camping on this side of the creek.

It’s nice to be camping with people again. It seems like a long time since we had a little crew. Uphill for breakfast tomorrow, for all of us.

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Day 89: downhill blues

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Day 89
Miles: 28
From lookout rock to Belden

A cloudy, cool morning – without the sun beating on our faces, we once again don’t get up early. I think getting up is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do… and I have to do it every single day. We want to make it to Belden tonight, and we want to make it in time for burgers – and that means 28 miles.

The best part of doing big miles once, is that afterwards, everything seems a little easier. Now that we’ve done a 29, I guess 28 won’t be so bad.

We take it easy and do nine miles to Buck’s Lake Road and snacky-cakes time. Packs down, feet up, we’re minding our business when a big, white truck drives past, flips a U-ie, then pulls up next to us. “You guys PCT hikers?”
  “Yeah.” You never know what’s going to come after that question –
  “You want a watermelon?”
  “Well, ok.”
The guy pulls out a watermelon, must’ve been ten pounds! What the heck are we going to do with a ten pound watermelon?
  “Where are you two planning on heading tonight?” inquires the guy.
  “We’re headed for Belden.”
  “Belden? Ha!” he scoffs. “What is that, seventeen miles? You’ll never make it.”
  “It’s actually nineteen from here,” I correct. The guy pays no attention.
  “That’ll take ten hours! Nah, you won’t make it. You’ll stop at Three Lakes and get to Belden tomorrow.” And with those words of encouragement, he gets in his truck and drives away.
  “Well, nothing like being told you can’t do something,” observes J.
  “No kidding. What weird trail magic.”

We slice up the watermelon, stuff ourselves, slice up some more and pack it for later, and we still have half the blasted thing. “What do we do with this now?” I ask J.
  “Beats me.”

The watermelon ends up left on top of a sign with a big metal post, with a note telling what time we cut it. Bad form, leaving food out like this, but we’re not sure how else to deal with it. It’s too much to eat and too much to carry. I hope all the trash I’ve picked up on the trail so far will atone for my leave no trace sins.

Noon, and nineteen miles left. We start up the hill. Up Buck’s Peak, the view opens up to the north, a sweeping vista of green mountains after green mountains after green mountains. A big peak, far on the horizon, might be Lassen? Cumulus clouds look like they’re trying to build into thunderheads, but don’t quite make it.

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Silver Lake

The climb is over, but we rollercoaster along for a while, finally running into a southbound pair of hikers. They give us the beta on Belden – the trail angels in town, the Braatens, are going to close up in a few days, but they’re still open. If we want to get picked up, we have to call before six. Six… It’s three o’clock, and we’ve got eleven miles left. We’ve never made that kind of time. Ever. Not even close. Maybe today’s the day? We take off faster than we’ve ever gone before.

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Our feet are killing us, our muscles are cramping, and we go! The last seven miles are all downhill, and we stand on top of the crest, looking down a dizzy slope that spins our heads. I’m not so sure this a good idea anymore. “J, I don’t know if I’m still up for this.”
  “Me either.” But going downhill fast doesn’t hurt any worse than going downhill slow, so we keep hitting it.

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We’re making time, but this might be the worst I’ve ever felt. I think I might have torn something, but what am I going to do? The only way out is through.

I get reception while still up on the ridge, so I call the Braatens. “I stop pickups at 7:30, will you be down by then?”
  “Yes!”
  “Call me back when you get in!”

We’ll get in before 7:30 for sure, but what about burgers first? Down the switchbacks, on the double.

Limping hard, we drag into Belden. It’s 6:09. We made it. Burgers and steak sandwiches and root beer. The locals laugh at my hobble. Brenda Braaten comes and takes us home. Hot shower. Phone service. A bed. I hope I can walk tomorrow.

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Day 88: life is pain?

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Day 88
Miles: 15
From past Fowler Creek to Lookout Rock

All those miles at the end of the day yesterday still feel like a bad idea this morning. I’m sweaty, groggy, and hurting. We meant to get up early to have time at the Middle Fork of the Feather River, but we don’t.

Instead of pines, pines, pines, the trail takes us down through oak groves today,  dappled and green. I spend some time wondering why poison oak has to always company the real deal. Nobody likes it. It should just go away.

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We do the five miles to the river, and it’s a gem. It’s designated as a ‘wild and scenic waterway’, which it is. Leaving the switchbacks, we go down a side trail which takes us to a smaller tributary, with lovely pools, a nice bank, and beautiful trees. Packs – ditched. Clothes – off. Time for a swim.

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I’ve been struggling a lot lately to figure out what my philosophy/goals are for this thru-hike. Now that we’re hiking faster, I feel like we should be using the time to hike more miles. J thinks we should be using it to better enjoy our lives – you know, stopping at some of the amazing places we walk past, swimming in the creeks, fishing in the lakes. “Life is not about enjoying yourself!” I tell him. “It’s about misery!” But he insists that this trip is pointless if we’re going to just walk past all the nice bits.

I can’t really figure out why I feel like I need to feel miserable, or at least uncomfortable. Habit? Feeling competitive with other thru-hikers? Wanting to prove something to myself? Maybe today I’ll try enjoying myself.

We spend three hours at the river. It’s nice to spend some time with J when I’m not exhausted, when we can talk without one of us constantly yelling: “huh? What?” at the other’s back. (It’s hard to converse and hike, turns out. Your ears point the wrong way.)

Same boat as yesterday though, we’ll have to walk hard from now until dark to hit our mileage goal. Uphill for ten miles straight, too.

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Things are looking possible for hitting our twenty miles today, when we finally finish the ten miles of uphill and look out across a sweeping vista of green mountains. A look at the map tells us that the views will probably not be as good after this, and there’s a rocky fin jutting out, with enough space to cowboy camp on top…

“Ah, forget it. Let’s enjoy life today,” I say to J. And we abandon the last five miles we had planned, put down our packs, and watch the sun go down over our mac’n’cheese. We’ll suffer tomorrow, but for now, well, life is beautiful. Living the dream…

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Day 87: hornswoggled

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Day 87
Miles: 24
From saddle before Gibraltar peak to past Fowler Creek

I’d noticed the stars disappearing during the night, which I attributed to clouds, but we wake up to a thick haze of smoke instead. We’re on a saddle, and it’s thick, gray smoke on both sides. “Where’s the fire?”
  “I don’t know,” says J. “Do you have service up here? Check the internet.”

We don’t want to walk blindly into a fire, but the internet doesn’t tell us much. If we were in danger, hopefully it would. We’ll continue on. Just not right this minute… It’s a leisurely morning for us. We’ve been making good miles in good time lately, and it’s taken off some of the stress of meeting mileage goals. Walking twenty miles at 2mph takes much longer than at 3mph.

Everyone seems to have a different way of managing mileage goals. Pillsbury, for example, holds herself to a rule of walking at least 8 hours a day. Every time she starts or stops she starts or stops her watch. At a 2.7mph pace it’s easy to fit in twenty miles, says Pillsbury. Namaste, on the other hand, allows himself one half-hour break for every hour he walks. A twelve hour day gets him eight hours of walking… and about twenty miles. J and I don’t set any time limits for ourselves, count our breaks, limit our breaks, or do anything concrete to manage our time. We have a stopping place in mind, and if we’re running slow, we either walk faster, walk for longer, or reevaluate our goal. (Lots of reevaluating goes on.)

Our goal today is Fowler Lake, about 22 miles from our camping spot. If we walk really fast, that’s only 7 1/2 hours of walking. Piece o’ cake. So we dilly dally the cool morning away.

We set off down the trail, past the impressive Gibraltar peak, all volcanic rock, and down the valley of the West Fork of Nelson Creek. The wildflowers are either blown or dusty looking, but the thimbleberry bushes are full of green thimbleberries… and a few red ones. Our first berries! We’ve been stuck for the past few days in the gap between wildflowers and berries. Hopefully it will be a short one.

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Hazy morning

I have to say, Northern California still looks exactly like I expected. Big, rounded mountains, carpeted with trees. All day long. J bags on it, but I like it. Sure, it’s not a seventh wonder of the world, but it’s green and mountainous and wide.

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Water has started to be something I think about again, something to plan for. It was lovely in the High Sierra, where crystal clear streams ran straight across the trail every other mile, but we left the promised land. We’ve had to start going off trail to find creeks and springs, plan our stops more wisely. Today we have to walk down a paved road a ways to get water from a stream running into a culvert. I know that Namaste is not too far behind us, but I’m really hot and dirty and I’d like to bathe. George Carlin says you only really need to wash the four key areas: teeth, armpits, feet, and crotch. My percentage isn’t good. “Holler if you see somebody coming,” I say to J, then drop my drawers and do a speedy bucket bath.
  “Living on the wild side, huh?”
  “Living the dream!”

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I don’t know what this thing is.

I get dressed again just in time. Namaste comes walking down to the creek. He’s in and out, but we stay a little longer, and I wash all my socks and underwear and shirt. I know we’re planning on staying at a lake tonight, but I’m just a little tired of being dirty.

A little dilly dally here, a little dilly dally there, and it’s 4:30 and we’ve got 9 miles left. Great. “If we hustle, we can get to the lake by 7:30,” I calculate.
  “Lead the way,” says J.

An hour in to our late afternoon hustle and we’re both hurting. I can keep this pace for an hour, but three hours straight?

It’s awful, but we do it. My legs feel numb and weak, my feet feel pulverized. Now, where exactly is the turnoff to the lake? “It should be around here?” I ask J. He consults with the maps.
  “I think this old jeep road is it,” he points down a slope.
  “Let’s do it.”

We follow the old road and red flagging down, take a side path, come out onto a very steep slope, and skid down onto a smooth, wide dirt road. No lake. “Where the heck are we?”
  “Beats me.”

We consult the maps again. Two geologists, and we can’t figure out where we are on the topo map. “Well, I’m hornswoggled,” j finally exclaims.
  “You and me both,” I reply dejectedly.

A closer examination and we realize that the map had switched from 40 ft contours to 80 ft, and the area is much steeper than we’d expected. We’re also farther than expected – the road we think we’re on is a mile past the lake. If we follow it, we should get right back to the PCT. “We’ll have to go another mile farther after that to get water now. And then hopefully just set up camp.”
  “Let’s get started then,” J answers.

The road does take us back to the trail, and we do find Fowler Creek, but we do not find a place to camp, unless we want to start sleeping at a 45 degree angle. So we keep walking.

Three miles farther than planned, we finally scuff a flat spot into a little drainage. We saw fresh lion footprints and old lion scat right before camping. The weird noises coming from the forest don’t help us settle down. “You know, this might be the first night out here where I’ve been creeped out to be sleeping outside,” I mention.
  “Oh, I’m completely creeped out,” says J.

Creeped out and exhausted, we go to bed. It’s hot here, and in my shorts I’m still sweating, sticking to my sleeping pad and bag. Mosquitoes whine just outside the net-tent. Gonna just be one of those nights, I guess. Better luck tomorrow maybe.

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Day 86: work

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Day 86
Miles: 22
From the top of the switchbacks to the top of more switchbacks

Between mosquitoes and damp, we hadn’t cowboy camped in a long time – since I can’t remember. Last night was perfect though, open sky, clear night, no moon. We watched the milky way appear as we drifted off, and I looked at galaxies every time I turned over.

It’s the full sun on my face that’s getting me out of bed though. It’s more effective than any other alarm I’ve got. We’ve got a cool walk ahead of us, too. We’re up above the timberline on the backside of Sierra Butte, with a climbing traverse around it.

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Sweeping views, and it looks exactly as I’d imagined northern California – mountainous, but not jagged, and carpeted with pine trees. The rock outcrops are sheared and crunched. All messed up. “You could butcher an animal with this rock,” says J, kicking a loose pile. It’s true – we’ve been waking on loose, sharp rock all morning (hard walking)  but this takes the cake.

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After coming around Sierra Butte we follow a ridge to the north. There are big, beautiful lakes below us on both sides. While eating lunch, we watch a swimmer cross from one side to the other of one of the lakes. We’re hot, and we stay that way. No swimming for us. J is out of sorts all afternoon. “The trail couldn’t take us down to at least one lake?!” We take long breaks at our water stops. Both our sawyer squeeze bags have developed pinhole leaks today – I hope they hold together for a few more nights…

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(No lake for you! Or us.)

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More walking, more trees. Lots of jeep roads and jeeps and ATVs. One jeep that passes us, where the trail intersects with a road, stops and says: “didn’t I see you guys earlier today? Still walking, huh?”
  “Yeah,” we reply, a little glumly. “We’re always walking.” It’s feeling less like adventure and more like work today. So much walking left to do. We’re not even halfway yet.

We stop for the night on top of a saddle, right before a set of switchbacks. Another great spot, and all to ourselves tonight. Maybe better attitudes tomorrow.

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You can see the tippy top of Sierra Butte on the right side of the photo – the peak in the far background.

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Day 85: ending on a high note

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Day 85
Miles: 8
From Milton Creek to top of the switchbacks, north of Sierra city

The little campsite, surrounded by ferns, next to the creek, is just as lovely in the morning. I turn off my alarm and fall back asleep, my dreams picking up right where they left off. We have no real goals for the day, other than getting to Sierra City. That’s only five miles away – chump change. Certainly not enough to rouse us from our soft air mattresses and cozy sleeping bags. I was worried that I’d sleep badly on this trip – instead, I’ve worked out a sleeping system so comfortable I can’t get myself out of it.

Only five miles, but some of the best views we’ve had in a couple days – we can see across the valley of Sierra City to where the PCT switchbacks up 4000 feet of elevation. We’ll do that later today. Milton Creek joins up with the Yuba River, a robust little concourse. We’ve had to start watching our water again, after the endless streams of the High Sierra, and it’s a pleasure to see so much water. “It smells wonderful here. Glade should really work on their ‘forest grove’ scent – this is what it’s supposed to smell like!” I observe.
  “It’s a nice forest too, not that boring western pine forest we keep running into,” replies J. “There are pines and cedars and firs and undergrowth here. With that other pine forest I swear it’s like looking at a blank piece of paper.” That criticism seems a little harsh to me, but this is undeniably lovely forest here.

Sierra City is surprisingly charming as well, although there is almost nothing going on. The only things open appear to be the general store/deli, and the bar. The Red Moose Cafe has already stopped serving breakfast, but they let hikers stash packs, camp out in their backyard, and hang out on their porch. That’s about all we do all afternoon, along with a bunch of other hikers. I’m twenty blog posts behind (!) so I sit on the porch and write. J gets to go swimming in the local swimming hole.

We’re both back on the porch when Rock Ocean pulls up in his blue Vanagan and our friend Kimchi hops out. “Kimchi!” It’s a reunion! We haven’t hiked with Kimchi since Agua Dulce. (Kimchi is a professional photographer when she’s not thru-hiking, and she’s selling prints of her hike to help fund her trip. Check out her blog and photos HERE.)

“Are we actually going to get out of this town today?” I ask J. It’s already 6:30 and we’ve been putting it off for hours.
  “We probably should, huh?” he answers.
  “Probably.” Time to rally. Rock Ocean saves us a mile and a half of road walking with a ride back to the trail head, and we start the switchbacks.

The switchbacks feel easy and go fast. Uphill has always been our strong point. A last turn of the trail brings us suddenly out of the trees and onto a small shoulder of the mountain,  with sweeping views in three directions, and spots flat enough to sleep. Happy Feet and Pillsbury are already camped. (They freed themselves from the town vortex a little earlier than us.) We join them, watch the sunset, eat our cheddar and broccoli pasta. I can’t wait to wake up here tomorrow.

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Mountain streams

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Looking north

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We’re not there yet…

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J, eating a sour patch kid. (We take our candy pretty seriously these days.)

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Day 84: heads rolling through the forest

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Day 84
Miles: 20
From Lacey Creek to Milton Creek

Not a particularly motivated morning, but here we are, doing it again. That seems to be the trick to thru-hiking – doing it again. The amount of miles you need to hike a day is within the reach of almost anyone who decides to start walking, it’s the repetition that gets you. “Stackin’ twenties,” as thru-hikers like to say. “I’m doing alright, it’s just when you start stackin’ the twenties, you know?”

Blue lakes in the distance, but out of reach. Good. J would want to fish, don’t have time for that. We’re not here to have fun, you know.

My feet are making me straight-up miserable, so I get out the ipod and put on an audiobook. I don’t use the ipod much, but it’s a good crutch to have on hand. I decide to listen to some Dickens and spend most the day deep in the French Revolution, it’s guillotine and untrammeled vengeance a strange companion to the trees. (What’re sore feet to losing your head?) The trees here aren’t much to look at anyhow, as we alternate between sections of grossly unhealthy forest, the trees crowded, the understory dank and filled with dead timber, and forest that’s been partially harvested. We cross dirt roads all day. There’s no real illusion of being deep in the wilderness – this is a managed forest, with years of mis-management behind it.

We end up stopping at Milton creek, the prettiest place we’ve been in what feels like a long time. The creek is robust and freezing cold, the understory lush with ferns. We meet two other PCT hikers there, kids fresh out of their freshman year of college. You can actually see the stars coming out of their eyes.
“I think I’m getting old,” says J. “I had to restrain myself from wanting to parent them.” Nothing makes you feel way older than 18 than hanging out with 18 year olds. Man.

Short day to Sierra City tomorrow – for now, it’s time to let myself relax into the soft blue light of our Sil-nylon palace. Home sweet home.

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