Day 78; July 2; 18.7 miles (cont)
The rest of the climb was indeed exposed and rocky, but the vegetation was recently cut back by trail maintenance. I was so thankful that I didn’t have to worry about thorny bushes scratching my legs. And the views were amazing. We did have a run in with an old familiar face, a rattlesnake. But he didn’t bother with us too much, just did a little rattle and slithered away.
At the top we had a decision to make – either stick to the PCT or stay on the ridgeline, which was the original PCT route. The ridgeline, from what I read, was 3 miles shorter and had less pointless ups and downs. Only issue being it had no water, so it’d be a 15 mile water carry and dry camp. But we’ve done worse, so we opted for the old PCT route. I can’t be sure this was the right decision. The route was slightly confusing, causing us to get lost more than once. It also seemed to have a lot of pointless ups and downs, but I guess that’s just par for the course. Eventually we made it the 5 miles back to the PCT and made camp just after.
After leaving Sierra City, we didn’t see a soul the whole rest of the way. It’s so strange, considering it’s such a popular trail. The only sign of life is a deer who’s been patrolling camp since we got here. It better not steal my sock!
Day 79: July 3; 28.7 miles
Woke up to a beautiful warm morning. It makes breaking down camp so much easier and faster when you’re not shivering. I’m sure it’s a sign of what’s to come. In Sierra City I saw that we were in for a warming trend, the high 90s. Fabulous!
Today was boring. There are going to be a lot of these in NorCal, I think. A lot of it is in the trees, which I like. It lets the body go into autopilot and I can spend miles just thinking. Really deep profound thoughts too, obviously.
At one point I caught up to David, who was standing by a blowdown staring at something. To my absolute horror, I saw it too. A baby fawn, not even a day old, laying by the blowdown in the middle of the trail. It wasn’t moving, eyes wide open but not seeing. It was beautiful- white spots, big floppy ears, tiny little hooves. Thinking it was already dead, my heart broke for the poor creature. Then, as if jolted alive, it moved and started to breathe slowly and shallowly. It had some fight left, but was quickly losing the battle. Unable to move it, I knelt down by it to offer some comforting words in between tears. As we left it, I pray death found it quickly and took mercy on it, ending its obvious suffering. How horrible that in a world I love and find so beautiful this creature only knew pain and suffering. I hope my words offered it some sort of comfort. It’s a stark reminder that nature isn’t always beautiful and is hardly ever kind.
Heartbroken, I thought about that baby the rest of the hike. What led to it being there without its mom and if there was anything we could’ve done to help it. There was nothing we could’ve done – it was too late and nature had to run its course.
After getting to our intended camp spot at 4:30pm, we opted to grab water and keep going another 3.6 miles. There were plenty of blowdowns, but manageable. From what I hear, they’re about to get a lot worse. Great!
Code passed us around 8:45pm, saying he was going a little farther. He was already at 29 miles! I asked him if he saw the baby deer, he said he was warned by a SOBO (who we warned) but he didn’t see it. By the time he passed, the deer was gone. Something inside me was hopeful, Code wasn’t that far behind us. Sure, something like a coyote could have gotten it, but I theorized that the baby was just born and we spooked mom. The baby was too young to do much, so it just laid there. Maybe mom came back and rescued baby and all was well! At least that’s what I’ll tell myself to get myself to sleep.
Day 80: July 4; 27.8 miles
It was such a warm night and a hot morning was definitely starting early. There is no denying it – we’re definitely in a heat wave. And to think, one week ago we were walking in the snow!
We set out at our normal time, a little disappointed that we weren’t eating hot dogs or at a parade to celebrate the Fourth of July, arguably my favorite holiday. I kept putting “trail magic” energy into the universe in hopes that we may be blessed with hot dogs on trail, but that may be a long shot.
The day started with a long descent. It kept going, and going, and going. I knew the entire way down we’d have to go back up. A 10 mile climb was in our future. But once we got to the bottom of the descent, we were greeted not only by Code (who ended up having a 32 mile day yesterday) but also a beautiful river. We decided to spend some time taking a dip, I opted for one mostly because I was so grimy from not showering for nearly a week. I’m basically a biohazard at this point.
Then we started the climb. Based on the farout comments, it was a doozy. But this is the one time I don’t think the comments were dramatic enough. This climb was heinous. It had every negative thing a climb could possibly have, and then some. It was steep, it was hot, it was exposed. And on top of that, there were so many blowdowns that I couldn’t even keep track of. Seriously hundreds blocking the trail, forcing you to go under, around, or over them.
There was also so much vegetation you lost sight of the trail, usually running straight into another blowdown. And there was severe erosion, forcing you to walk funny to avoid slipping down thousands of feet into the valley below. AND there was poison oak everywhere! So on top of keeping an eye on the trail, blowdowns, and not falling to your death, you had to make sure that you didn’t get touched by poison oak. I’m not a good plant identifier (thanks bio degree) so I have trouble recognizing it. Because of this, I tried to avoid all plants. Which is impossible to do given the trail was so overgrown. Ironically, those plants saved my life. I broke my one week record of not falling and fell backwards, the abyss calling my name. Thankfully two bushes cradled me, stopping me from certain death. More than anything I was frustrated and so done with the climb. But there were still 3.8 miles to go. Argh.
But each step forward is a step forward and I found myself at the top, overjoyed. I was drenched in sweat and on the verge of a heat stroke (and maybe a mental breakdown), but it was done. That was probably my worst climb of the whole trip. Ever since Sierra City, we’ve barely seen anyone on trail besides Code. Not sure if it’s because of the holiday, but we also heard that people are skipping this section en masse. The Dixie fire caused over 100 miles of devastation on the PCT and is notorious for being awful. With its reputation and hikers skipping a significant chunk, I would think the forestry service or PCTA would be a little faster with cleaning it up. But alas, they know more than I do and I’m not the one cleaning it up, so I just have to suck it up. But I did have a bit of resentment that people were skipping the tough part while I was suffering through. But, as the old saying goes, hike your own hike!
We decided during the river dip that we were going to celebrate the 4th like true Americans – with hot dogs and fireworks. Sure it was 4pm and the road was still 8 miles way and we likely would wait a while before getting a hitch, but what kind of Americans would we be if we didn’t at least try?!
And so we went, hot dogs being our siren we reached the road quickly thanks to beautiful trail maintenance, not a blow down in sight. I did catch a glimpse of another bear! A big fella, I wasn’t quick enough to get a picture before it ran off. We got to the road a little before 7pm, it looked bleak and poorly traveled. But after 23 minutes and only 3 cars we lucked out with O’Sean, an 18 year old lifelong Quincy resident who decided to help us out. We got into town and soon found every motel had been booked. Rats. Being 18, O’Sean had plans for the 4th of July that didn’t involve driving us all over town, so he dropped us off in a Safeway parking lot. Resigned to getting some small snacks (and hot dogs of course) before getting a hitch back to trail, we were instantly called over by a woman in a car curious about what we were doing. After we explained our saga she asked, “want to stay with me?” Not entirely sure what she was offering, we were hesitant to accept. “I own a summer camp. You can stay there and have everything you need” I mean, sure why not! So we got our groceries and soon we were heading to camp with Yassi and Dan, totally unsure what to expect.
Well we made it in one piece. The camp itself was great. We had full access to a kitchen, showers, and laundry. Yassi said that they were in between families coming for the week so it was great that timing worked for us. Already 8:30pm, we quickly made a July 4th feast and went to bed, thankful that everything worked out (minus fireworks, but i was too tired to care).
Just before going to bed, the thought of the baby deer popped back up in my head. With just a smidgen of reception I was able to do some research and lo and behold…. My theory was likely correct! Apparently baby deer will play dead if a perceived predator approaches. We likely did scare mama away in the midst of cleaning off the newborn, and the baby did a stellar job of acting dead/dying – it had me convinced. Once we left mama almost certainly came back to the rescue and nature was returned to peace and I can continue on knowing that baby deer will live a long and fruitful life.
Day 81; July 5, 18.7 miles
With an anticipated drop off time of 9:30am to trail, we had time to sleep in and do laundry/shower in the morning. Once 10am rolled around without any sight of Yassi or Dan, we got a little antsy. We still wanted to get to Belden by tonight.
Eventually they came out and we were ready to get back to trail. We called the owner of the RV park we are picking up our packages at, but it was little to no help. Once she knew our packages were at the post office and she wasn’t getting them until Wednesday, she hung up and stopped answering our calls. Well, looks like we have to head to the post office tomorrow. So far it’s the only hiccup of this trail, so we just have to deal with it.
On the way to trail, Yassi and Dan were picking our brains about how they can utilize their camp to help with hikers, obviously at a fee. We gave them a few ideas but told them we’d send them more. There is a ton of potential at that camp to really make it a PCT haven!
We started the day at 12pm. The hike itself was great – there was a climb initially but nothing like the day before. Then it was down down down. There were blowdowns of course, some requiring straddling and gripping on for life to avoid slipping. All charcoaled from the fire, my shower and laundry experience from earlier was made useless quickly. But aside from a few splinters, I was fine.
We got to Belden at 7pm where we saw the most hikers we’ve seen in days. There were 8 dirty charcoaled covered hikers in the restaurant enjoying hot food and cold drinks. We saw Silver and caught up with him as well as Sean, who was originally way ahead of us but with our increased mileage and his recent bout of suspected norovirus, we caught up.
We’re camping by a river with everyone from the restaurant, including Code! The post office is about 20 min away and doesn’t open until 10am, so there’s no rush to get out early tomorrow. I’m not sure what the hitch situation is like, but I’m sure we’ll find a ride before it closes at 12pm. Such great hours! What really is annoying is there is a 10 mile 5000’ climb first thing. It would’ve been great to get it over with in the morning, but that’s just how it goes. If we had known we were going into Quincy, this all could have been avoided. Just luck of the draw sometimes!
PS it’s the 11th year anniversary of me adopting Addie, the most wonderful dog in the world! I can’t believe it’s been so long, it feels like yesterday when I picked her up and cradled her in my arms. I hope we have many more years together.
Day 82: July 6; 18.7 miles
Went to bed under an amazing and dazzling show of stars. There were thousands, including a comet! There must have been a meteor shower last night because there were also a number of shooting stars lighting up the sky. Taking in the night sky is definitely a benefit of cowboy camping. What wasn’t so pleasant was the train that felt entirely too close. There were a few times it sounded like it was going to derail and come barreling down the hill right towards all of us. But aside from some interrupted sleep, we all made it through the night unscathed.
There was no rush to get up early since we didn’t have to be in Twain until 10am. So we saw Code, Silver, and Sean off. Who knows when we’ll see them again. It’s kind of a bummer this package is holding us back, it’s a great group. There was brief consideration of forgetting the packages and moving on, but with all the trouble it put my parents through I was determined to get that package. Plus it had all the ingredients for breakfast burritos- I needed this package! Eventually we moseyed over to the road at 7:19am. It looked bleak. The only cars driving by were work trucks, totally uninterested in giving us a ride. Just when we thought we were in it for the long haul, Jeff pulled over at 7:23am. It’s shocking how easy hitching has been. We hopped in and were on our way to Twain. Jeff said that our story was not uncommon – packages get misdelivered or lost all the time. Just a lot of unnecessary chaos. He offered to let us stay with him in Quincy if our packages weren’t at the PO, but we were fairly certain they were and hopeful we wouldn’t have to take Jeff up on his very generous offer.
We got to Twain before 8am, hopeful that at least the cafe would be open. It wasn’t… at least yet. It was unclear when they would open, being still technically affected by the holiday. So we sat. And waited. The store did open at 9:30am and we enjoyed an amazing sandwich. I was able to load up on snacks before heading to the post office, where our packages were waiting. I now have entirely too much food and my pack is extremely heavy, but hey, I wanted to eat more so getting that weight down is great motivation.
We were lucky enough with our timing that we met John outside of the PO with 3 other hikers. He’s a trail angel from Quincy who just so happened to have a huge truck that could fit two more of us for a ride back to Belden. Seamless!
We got to trail at 11am and immediately started the climb I’ve been dreading all day. The climb itself is 14 miles with the most gain being the first 10. After all the blowdown nonsense, I wasn’t ready to do it again. Without boring you, I’ll get the complaining done now, short and sweet (not at all like that climb): it was long, hot, covered in bristlebush, poison oak, and other plant life that completely obscured the trail in several places. Now, that’s not to say there weren’t plenty of good things about the climb. We were rewarded with some of the tastiest blackberries I’ve ever had that lined the first few miles, water was so plentiful that I was constantly wet and hydrated, and there was a slight cool breeze. Certainly helps! In fact we went for full swims twice. With it being so hot, jumping into a river really helps make the day more manageable.
With the swims and climbing, we got into camp pretty late. Just enough sunlight to set up camp and eat a cold dinner. We saw Sean, who (and he said this himself) looks horrible. Whatever virus he had a few days ago really wiped him out. I see a town day (or week) in his future. We did get some trial magic – apparently the water trough by camp is a popular spot for dropping off sodas. Looks like I’ll be packing out a Dr Pepper for the morning!
Today is the 25th anniversary of getting hit by a car. I don’t think about this day often, but I do think it shaped the person I am today. I like to think I bounce back quickly and don’t let things stop me from keeping on. The best compliment I’ve ever received was being called “resilient”. I give all the credit to my parents. Whether they knew it or not, they didn’t let me feet sorry for myself. Sure I was in a wheelchair all summer but there was no babying me. They made sure I still had a normal life, with a few adjustments here and there to account for all the casts. In fact, the day the last cast came off they took me to the pool to go swimming! I don’t think I even had the chance to feel sorry or traumatized. I’d like to think if that kid knew 25 years later she’d be hitting 1300 miles on the PCT, she’d think it’d be pretty cool. I mean current age me does.
Emilie Bikes and Hikes 