Category: Long Distance Trails

Start: 1336.1

Stop: 1361.4

Today’s miles: 25.3

Total PCT miles: 1212.9

Another long day done. It was sprinkling when I woke up, and I have to tell you, getting up and out in the rain, when you’re warm and dry in your tent is HARD. I did not want to! Thankfully, the sprinkling was short lived. So, I did pack up and so did Margot. We had to walk 0.7 miles down a side trail and back for water to start our day, which sucked and put us back time wise-we didn’t actually start hiking the trail until 8am. Lord.

The temperature was perfection today. Cool and overcast, but no more rain. The threat was always there, some of the clouds looking more and more angry as the day went on. Apparently Hurricane Hillary’s reach is far. The wind was increasing all day, getting so windy in the afternoon that I was nervous about it. The rain is supposed to come in hard overnight and rain all day tomorrow.. which sucks, yes-but normally, oh well, such is life on a trail. BUT, we’re hiking in burn zones, surrounded by dead trees that snap and fall to the ground over a cough-let alone remnant hurricane winds.. and the burned ground is ashy and so fragile, mudslides and landslides off these mountain tops in heavy rain is a real concern.

Anyway. The views were still pretty, even surrounded by these dead trees. We had a few ridge lines to see out into the abyss, but the majority was just in the blackened trees. I even stopped to eat lunch on the top of a mountain, still surrounded by them all. Thankfully none looked like they were currently leaning my way. Margot joined me and we stayed a while, neither wanting to actually start walking again. I’m just so tired.

Somewhere at the top of a mountain after our lunch mountain, we got service! So, I reached out to the Quincy trail angels to see if anyone would be available to pick us up in Belden and take us back to Quincy either very late tonight or tomorrow morning in the rain. Belden is called a town, but really it’s a tiny campground with a general store, restaurant and cabins to rent that’s only open from 4-8pm everyday. We wanted to get out of the danger of the rain and high winds, but the closer road to Quincy would be over 25 miles tomorrow-in which case, we would have been hiking all day in the bad weather. Not ideal to say the least.

I got some action: Denise would be willing to pick us up if it wasn’t “that late.” I said it would probably be after 10pm if we made it tonight, but more than likely we wouldn’t be able to make it until tomorrow morning.. making it to Belden tonight would be over 30 miles and we decided this way too late.

I never heard anything else, because I lost service and never got it back! Oh no! We kept moving. The trail had prettier views as the day went on, more growth around the dead trees, im assuming these are older burn zones then. We had to put our headlamps on 30ish minutes before getting to where we originally wanted to camp, and we pretty much knew without saying it out loud that neither of us wanted to hike another 5 miles in the dark to town.

The sunset was incredible, and the deer were everywhere, green eyes glinting in the beams of our headlamps. We had a difficult in the dark water crossing right before camp that soaked my shoes. I was so annoyed but had to remind myself that it’s going to be raining when I get up, so they’ll get soaked tomorrow regardless. We found our campsite after walking around the woods with the deer for a few minutes, making sure we got the flattest most “non-flood-able” spots available.

We set up, unpacked, ate dinner. I can hear the river rushing nearby, but I think we’re pretty high up above it. It’s so dark I couldn’t tell how far down the cliff beside us is. I guess I’ll see it in the morning. When we wake up to rain and hike the 5ish miles to Belden. I’m hoping we get there early enough to figure out a ride into Quincy or realize it’s not going to happen and start hiking up the big climb out of there. Yikes. So many unknowns. I wish I had service.
Time for bed, goodnight.

Start: 1308.4

Stop: 1336.1

Today’s miles: 27.7

Total PCT miles: 1186.9

I seemed to roll around a lot last night, but every time I checked my watch (I love my new watch!) a few hours had passed, so I think I slept ok. Once again, we were up, packed, and on trail by 7am.

Pretty much all of today was walking from one burn zone to the next. Most of the morning was spent on a downhill with pretty views. Even through the burnt trees, it was enjoyable. I didn’t have any of the same overwhelming sadness like I did yesterday. I was grateful, because these burn zones will continuing being an every day thing for quite a while. They can be so exhausting on my brain.. and I never know when they’re going to trigger nightmares for several days in a row. Hopefully these don’t.

We collected water at a pretty river and then headed uphill for a good chunk of the late morning. It sprinkled on us, just enough to prove the water really can come out of those big scary clouds.. and then it stopped. It had been hot and then unbearable, then back to just hot, and even a little cool. The weather was all over the place today.

We ate lunch sitting beside a pond on a slab of wood. It was nice and sunny, but no bugs at all. From there we climbed up and down and walked through some active logging areas. When we met the road to Chester, California.. we couldn’t decide what to do. We have plenty of food, so we didn’t need to go, and we had only gone 19 miles so we needed to push farther-but the rain clouds looked Ominous and honestly sometimes town just calls to ya out here.

I decided to stick my thumb out for 5 vehicles. If one stopped, it was a sign: we deserve town food! And if not-well, we didn’t I guess. No one stopped. I pouted, but we kept hiking. We continued through more logging areas until we came upon a wide river-slow if moving at all.. with cows on the other side and no bridge. It had fallen through. Awesome.

I took off my socks and shoes and put on my crocs for the wide trek. It got up to mid thigh in the middle of the river, and the river bed was thick mud, causing me to have to yank my crocs up with each step, but I made it across just fine. Margot went across barefoot (this water really looked nasty) and went a slightly different way, but made it to the other end safely, too. The herd of cows all left, mooing and glancing back at us every so often.. I guess no cow tipping for us today!

While we were sitting on the shore, letting our feet dry and getting ready to put our socks and shoes on, Switch, from awhile ago (the one that said he knew I was a nurse because I give off nurse vibes), appeared! He had already went north to the Canadian border and had just flipped back down to Chester to finish his hike in the Sierras. Small world! He powered through the water with his shoes on and then kept on trucking past us. He’s fast, and he’s still pretty dang hot, too. Forgive me, but I’m not blind over here.

After we started moving again, the majority of the the afternoon was spent climbing uphill. There were switchbacks of course, and the heat had cooled off tremendously, but it still had my heart pumping. Around 6:30 we made it to the midway point marker! Although, since I had to jump that 148 miles due to the fires, im technically not half way yet.. but close enough.. and as far as getting to Mexico this year, I am! I won’t be going back to do that 148 miles until next year more than likely, since I won’t have time before my trip to Egypt this year.

We took pictures and I ate my dinner sitting at the marker. Margot sat with me, but wasn’t hungry yet. When I packed up, we had our headlamps out and were ready to hike the next 7 miles regardless of the time. We got to watch the sunset while walking up to a ridge line and then down through the trees. It was stunning. We got swarmed by a bunch of hummingbirds.. which was incredible and had me laughing and talking to Paula. Even Margot indulges me and says it’s Paula when she sees them, too!

It got all the way dark just after 8:30, and headlamps were on for the next hour or so. We passed some green eyes, multiple times, which would cause me to stop in my tracks and hold my breath.. and every time it was a deer. Sneaky boogers. Which, thank god-I’d probably pass out if it was a mountain lion! We made it to camp around 9:35, and my feet were and still are throbbing.

We set up our tents as far as we could from the dead trees.. but the whole time I’ve been laying here with my feet propped up, typing this out, I’ve heard tons of cracks and pops from these dead trees. I’m praying none of them end up falling on or near us. It’s a little unnerving for sure-but when the whole area you’re hiking through for an entire week is a burn zone, it’s hard to find places without sketchy surroundings. It’s either *some* dead trees, a ton of them, or exposed ridgelines in the wind and potential thunderstorms that keep threatening us daily.

Fun times, huh? I really should be on a beach somewhere.. lol. Type 2 fun, living up to the hype! Ok, it’s 10:30 now and I’m absolutely wiped out. Goodnight, fingers crossed the trees stay put 🙂

Start: 1284.4

Stop: 1308.4

Today’s miles: 24

Total PCT miles: 1159.2

It started to lightening last night, before I fell asleep. I got nervous, but it never thundered so I prayed it was far away. And then, around 10:30pm, I had to make a mad dash out of my tent to go poop. It was pitch black, thank God for my headlamp!

After that, I didn’t sleep too well. My stomach was roiling and I couldn’t seem to get it to calm down. So, my sleep was off and on, worried I’d have to get up in a hurry again. Thankfully, I didn’t until 6am.. which still sucked, but at least it was daylight. I don’t think the iced coffee yesterday was my best idea.

Margot and I left camp right at 7am. I was pretty cruisy all morning.. I felt fast and was making the miles. There wasn’t a whole lot to look at, even if we did cross into Lassen Volcanic National Park after 4 short and easy miles. This whole area was a burn zone, so it was just exposed and hot. I stopped to eat lunch in front of a ranger station, mainly because I was getting hangry and didn’t care to look at the maps to see if anything better was around. Apparently I stopped only a quarter mile from a nice lake.

Margot joined me, and didn’t mind that I stopped before the lake, either. And after we got started again, the lake was covered in mosquitoes, so i no longer regretted it. I got water as fast as I could and kept moving. I slowed down tremendously in the afternoon. While some of the views were pretty, it was all through burned trees. It rained for maybe 20-30 minutes, although the storm clouds looked like they were ready to release a flood.

The wet, charred wood got to me late in the afternoon. My head started hurting and tears kept pricking my eyes. I couldn’t explain the why, but I was definitely struggling with my memories and they kept snatching my breath away from me. At one point I had to take my headband off, because it felt like it was suffocating me.. trauma and claustrophobia, how fun.

The wind picked up within our last 2 miles of trail before camp. I saw two dead trees fall, heard 4, and saw plenty of little limbs go flying. It was pretty nerve wracking. We went down a side trail to see the Thermal Geyser. It was neat, and a short side trip, so I was happy we went to see it.

When we got to the junction for where we were going to camp, I honestly didn’t like it. There were so many dead trees everywhere, the water wasn’t easy to get to, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep good there, after seeing trees fall today. We kept moving down the trail, got water from a stream crossing it, and then about half a mile later, I spotted a fire ring downhill from the trail.

I waited for Margot to catch up to me and asked if she thought it would work. She agreed and we made the side quest to the fire ring. The area is the end of a gravel road, so it’s rocky, but flat. We were able to stake our tents out by using the bigger rocks, lots of cuss words were said by both of us. We made it work, and then sat down to eat dinner. We’re both pretty exhausted. I’m afraid tomorrow will be a tough one, with lots of elevation gain and loss.. hopefully it’s the mild kind that you don’t really feel that much.
One can dream, right? I’m off to do just that. Goodnight y’all.