Adam, Leigh and the Trees

Saturday 10 August 2019
Day: 104
Location: Mile 1,340.7
Distance travelled: 9.4 miles / 15 km

After a much needed sleep in, we headed out for breakfast at cafe across the road from our motel.

Having already finished both our resupply and laundry yesterday, we used the rest of the morning to track down some free wifi at the local library and hide from a midday thunderstorm that was due to pass through.

The weather looked like it was going to clear later in the day, so we made plans to head back out to the trail around 4pm and hike a few miles this afternoon. Before we left though, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity for more ice cream and pie before heading back out to the trail.

We headed to another cafe on the main street of town for a late lunch before calling a local trail angel, John, to organise a ride back to the trailhead.

John turned out to be an absolute legend, agreeing to take us back to the trail with only an hour’s notice and kept us entertained during the drive with lots of stories.

Once back on the trail, we walked through a ‘green tunnel’ of sorts, with no real views for the first few miles. We had a few spits of rain on and off but no sight of the thunderstorms that had been forecast at one point for thus afternoon, which we were grateful for.

The miles went quickly and before we knew it the sun had started to set and we started looking for a suitable campsite. We eventually found some nice flat spots next to a creek crossing and pitched our tent as it got dark.

Tomorrow we will be walking through Lassen National Park, which is supposed to be a pretty cool volcanic area. Can’t wait to see it!

Sunday 11 August 2019
Day: 105
Location: Mile 1,367.2
Distance travelled: 26.6 miles / 43 km

After leaving our campsite in this morning, we couldn’t have been on the trail for much more than a mile when we encountered an esky full of trail magic, and for once, the esky was actually full! We spent a bit of time making our choices and filling in the guestbook before heading off.

We were making our way towards the Lassen Volcanic National Park boundary when I heard a twig snap down the hill to my right. I looked in that general direction, I spotted a log which was the shape of a bear’s head, that was until the log moved and I realised it was a real life bear! It was about 50m downhill from us and was only a baby and with no sign of the mumma bear, so we decided to move on. Still, we were pretty stoked to spot our first bear on the trail.

They say things happen in threes, and our third highlight if the day was the side trip down to Terminal Geyser, which was a pretty impressive sight.

I’m not sure exactly what I was expecting from Lassen Volcanic National Park, but I think I must have overhyped it my head as it just felt like a long, hot day with a few cool side trips thrown into the mix. The dead trees probably didn’t help. We did apparently just miss seeing rather large bear in the afternoon though. We stopped off at a small creek to fill up our water bottles when another hiker passed us maybe 5 minutes later, asking whether we saw the massive bear back near the trail. We definitely didn’t see any bear at that time, but must have been pretty close to it without realising!

I also managed to pick up a few small blisters as my feet are still getting used to my new shoes, but hopefully they will go down overnight.

We reached finally made it to the other side of the national park and to our intended campsite just before 9pm, ending the night planning out the next few days where we are likely to have some longer water carrys.

Monday 12 August 2019
Day: 106
Location: Mile 1,393.6
Distance travelled: 26.4 miles / 42 km

Today was a day of largely flat walking for once, but you wouldn’t have known it based on how long it felt like it took us to reach our planned campsite.

We started the day walking through some old volcanic areas, which I actually preferred to the trail that was within the boundary of the Lassen Volcanic National Park.

The morning was spent walking and chatting with fellow hikers, Sweetheart and Magic Mike, before they both headed off for a late breakfast at JJ’s Cafe. As we were carrying a lot of food and got our cafe fix only two days ago in Chester, we decided to give it a miss on this occasion.

It was a long, hot section of trail and we were extremely grateful for the water cache that had been left near the trail at a lookout and picnic spot.

As is often the case, the discovery that we were in a patch of faint mobile reception derailed our day, causing to take longer breaks throughout the day.

After lunch, I had my first rattlesnake encounter, with a small one about a metre or two off the trail letting us know it wasn’t happy by rattling its tail. We waited for it to find a better hiding spot before continuing on our way. Leigh also had the pleasure or her first Yellowjacket sting. Fun times!

It was a hot after hiking along the exposed and dry Hat Creek Rim, so we took a few breaks along the way and carried extra water. We also spotted an eagle at one point that was doing laps around us for what felt like a couple of minutes.

After sharing the trail with some curious cattle for the last few miles, we reached the campsite around 8pm – in what actually turned out to be one of our earliest nights on trail in a while! We were very grateful to find a recently topped up water cache that is maintained by a local farmer near our campsite for the night. Now we just need to hope we don’t get trampled by a rouge cow in the middle of our sleep…

Tuesday 13 August 2019
Day: 107
Location: Mile 1,420.6
Distance travelled: 27.0 miles / 44 km

We were greeted in the morning by Sweetheart, who had arrived into camp last night after dark with Magic Mike. Apparently they had hung out at the cafe until the afternoon in order to avoid the heat, but Sweetheart developed a bad limp once he started walking again. He was due to head into Burney today anyway, so we parted ways after about half an hour of walking.

During the morning of walking we passed a number of southbound hikers, one of which alerted us to some potential trail magic up ahead in the form of ice cold coca cola. We swatted away some Yellowjackets to get to the esky and quickly grabbed one can each. The wasps then proceeded to buzz us while we drank, hoping to get in on this trail magic business.

Being hot and dry all day, we were looking forward to reaching Burney Falls where a swim beckoned.

I managed to get my first Yellowjacket sting of the trip later in the afternoon. Out of nowhere, a wasp latched onto my achilles and started stinging me through my sock. It managed to get in two or three stings before I could swat it away. It must have still been annoyed about the coca cola.

The afternoon got away from us a bit and we got into Burney Falls a bit later than expected. It was too late to swim with the sun already behind the mountains, and before we knew it we had been bailed up by a curious family that wanted to know all about our time on the PCT.

Once we had finished chatting, we decided to have dinner and charge our electronics. We considered staying at the paid campsite near Burney Falls, but had last minute change of heart to hike out for a few miles into the darkness of the night as we were both feeling refreshed after the break.

It’s always more challenging finding a campsite at night and tonight was no exception. We ended up camping on a sandy but sloping spot overlooking Lake Britton Dam, and went to sleep to the soothing sounds of hydraulic pumps and other machinery.

Wednesday 14 August 2019
Day: 108
Location: Mile 1,447.3
Distance travelled: 26.7 miles / 43 km

With high temps of 37 degrees expected for the rest of the week from today, we decided to get up early and hike for a bit before the sun came up. We broke camp around 5:30am and hiked with our headtorches on until the sun made an appearance about 45 minutes later.

On account of our early start, we were able to do over 10 miles by 10am, which allowed us to take our time later in the day once it got hot.

Most of our climbing was gradual and under the cover of the tree canopy, which helped keep the heat away. You had to watch your feet though as I almost stepped on a snake that was sunning itself right across the trail.

The only other noteworthy thing that happened all morning was when a dead branch seemingly fell out of the sky from nowhere and, almost in slow motion, landed squarely on Leigh’s head and backpack as she was walking. Luckily, the branch was basically hollow and didn’t do any real damage so we continued on with one eye looking up at the many branches above us.

We took plenty of breaks once the sun kicked in after midday and the trail became more exposed. We even had a siesta for an hour or so at a shaded water source near the trail.

I felt the last few miles of the day a lot. My ankle, already swollen slightly from overuse, seemed to have increased in size again, most likely due to the wasp sting yesterday afternoon on my achilles. Here’s hoping that it goes down a bit overnight so that I can walk a bit easier tomorrow.

Its another hot one tomorrow, so we will be up early again to get some miles done before the hottest part of the day.

Thursday 15 August 2019
Day: 109
Location: Mile 1,473.1
Distance travelled: 25.8 miles / 42 km

We were greeted with an amazing sunrise this morning, which made the 4:30am start to the day seem worthwhile.

The morning flew by as we were able to take in views of the surrounding mountains.

We were more exposed than yesterday, so the climbing temperatures could be felt by about 10am.

By about 3pm it felt like you were inside an oven when the sun hit you, so we took a long break next to a stream and soaked our feet in the cool water. A deer joined us at one point to get out of the sun.

Once we had sufficiently cooled down, we headed for our planned campsite, at a gulch, whatever that is.

Friday 16 August 2019
Day: 110
Location: Mile 1,498.3
Distance travelled: 25.2 miles / 41 km

Today was an unexpectedly good day. With two big hill climbs ahead of us and another 37 degree day, I had expected this to be one of our tougher days on this section. The climbs turned out to be gentle and largely under the cover of trees, which helped a lot with the heat.

It wasn’t long after leaving our campsite that Leigh spotted a mumma bear and two cubs in a bit of a valley off the edge of the trail. They were super skittish though and ran off through the bushes as soon as they spotted her. This meant that I didn’t get a chance to see them but did hear all the commotion from further back on the trail.

Maybe two or three hours later, we heard more rustling in the forest above the trail and spotted the back end of a bear climbing up the hill and away from us. Leigh was pretty convinced that these were the same bears.

We had an awesome lunch spot at Squaw Valley Creek today. It was so tempting to jump in but we knew from dangling our feet in the water that it was ice cold. In the end we both chickened out.

Mt Shasta has been looming on the horizon for the past few days now but we had some pretty great views of the mountain in the afternoon. It is pretty cool to think that when we started this 7 day stretch on the trail, you could barely see Mt Shasta on the horizon but it is now so close you can’t miss it!

We finished the day with a fairly gentle downhill walk to our planned campsite, which was as close as possible to the road to allow us to hitch into Dunsmuir early tomorrow morning to make the most of our town day. We have the noises of the highway as our sleep soundtrack tonight.

Saturday 17 August 2019
Day: 111
Location: Mile 1,501.2
Distance travelled: 2.9 miles / 5 km

We flew through the final 3 miles of downhill trail and were at the road before we knew it.

In what was an unbelievable stroke of luck, we managed to pick up a hitch without even trying today. We were walking towards the main road where we would try to hitch from when a car came from behind us and stopped right next to us. The driver was a local who was on his way into town to go to the mechanic and kindly offered us a lift (we’re pretty obviously looking like PCT hikers at this point).

Once in town, we headed straight to The Wheelhouse cafe for lunch are were pleasantly surprised by how good the food was. It even had this cool stream that ran underneath the building that you could hear and see from inside the restaurant through some strategically placed vents.

With lunch sorted, we then organised a room for the night in a nearby motel and headed to dollar general and the local supermarket to organise our resupply.