Adam, Leigh and the Trees

Sunday 4 August 2019
Day: 98
Location: Mile 1,198.7
Distance travelled: 7.2 miles / 12 km

We were up and away by shortly after 6am this morning, eager to get to Sierra City by the 8am opening time of the Red Moose Cafe. Nothing like food as motivator for an early start.

While we got to the road by 7:45am, being a Sunday morning there was hardly any traffic on the road, so it took us over half an hour to finally get a hitch down the hill into town with a lovely couple that were very sweet and even offered us money to help with our journey (we politely turned them down).

Once in town, we had breakfast at the Red Moose Cafe before heading down to the general store to charge our electronics and resupply. The resupply options weren’t the best, but we made do and stocked up with 7 days of food (you don’t want to know what proportion of this was made up of Pop Tarts and chocolate bars!) to get us through to the next town stop in Chester.

We then headed across to the public restroom for a cold shower and attempted to hand wash our clothes in a bucket to get us through to our next laundry facilities in Chester as there was no laundromat in town and we didn’t want to waste a day hitching back and forward to another town.

With our chores out of the way, we hit up the general store for a burger and onion rings for a late lunch and to wait out the hottest part of the trail. Some of us took the opportunity to put our feet up for a couple of hours while we waited for the day to cool down a bit.

As we knew there was a big climb out of Sierra City, we decided to split the climb in half, tackling the first section later this afternoon and the more exposed section first thing tomorrow morning.

We managed to get a hitch back to the trailhead within about 15 minutes and slogged it up the never-ending switchbacks to our rocky campsite for the night, which we discovered shortly after putting the tent up, we would be sharing with a couple of inquisitive Yellowjacket wasps. These little fellas would become constant companions of ours for much of the next two months. We didn’t know it at the time, but they aren’t always as friendly as they were on this particular occasion.

Monday 5 August 2019
Day: 99
Location: Mile 1,227.1
Distance travelled: 28.4 miles / 46 km

We only planned to do 25 miles today but after accidentally missing a trail marker during the morning and walking along an adjacent gravel road for a while rather than the marked trail, it ended up saving us a bit of time which allowed us to push on further in the afternoon.

It was an early start today for two reasons… (1) to beat the sun on the second half of our monster climb out of Sierra City and (2) to pack before the Yellowjacket wasps started getting interested in our tent again.

Being up early allowed to soak in the colours of the morning sunrise and take in the view back down to the valley of Sierra City way, way below us. We also crossed the 1200 mile mark within the first hour of hiking – only 1,450 miles to go! That’s not far at all…

Now that we are no longer in the Sierra where water is plentiful, we’re having to be increasingly mindful of the distance between our water sources to make sure that we know where the next refill opportunity is. It’s also meaning that we have longer water carries which adds more weight to your pack and makes the daily hill climbs more exhausting.

With all the exposed trails today, the heat really got to me and I was feeling pretty low on energy. It could also be the fact that we have up our mileage considerably in the past week… who knows. We stopped of at a seep over lunch to top up our bottles and have a break but I still felt pretty drained across the afternoon.

Only 100 miles now until we reach the halfway point on the trail! Can’t wait to be able to say we are on the home stretch, even though we’re still in California and haven’t crossed any state borders yet. Hoping to reach the halfway point within 4 days from now. Will be a really important psychological milestone when we finally get there!

Tuesday 6 August 2019
Day: 100
Location: Mile 1,259.9
Distance travelled: 32.8 miles / 53 km

We both woke up feeling pretty flat today. Not sure if it was dehydration or sunburn, but my energy levels are pretty low today.

I spent the morning in a bit of a daze, and couldn’t tell you anything about the trail as I was solely focused on putting one foot in front of the other.

It wasn’t until after lunch that I found my energy again and promptly declared to Leigh that we needed to night hike tonight to make up some miles (that is, after being against it the other day when Leigh originally floated the concept). We had a long steep climb ahead of us and my plan was to tackle it at night when it was cooler rather waiting until the morning when the sun would be out in full force.

Thankfully Leigh agreed with my plan, so after stopping for a dinner break at Bear Creek, we strapped on our head torches and headed for the summit on the switchback trail. It was a weird feeling walking on such a narrow trail in the dark. At one point, I was too busy listening for bears and mountain lions that I forgot to check for spiders and ended up walking face first into a massive web. I didn’t make that mistake again.

All in all, we walked in the dark for about 3 hours before reaching the moonlit summit, stumbling to the closest campsite we could find in the dark and calling it a night. Will be a nice surprise to properly see our campsite for the first time tomorrow morning.

Oh, and we also broke our record today for most miles covered in a day – 32.8 miles in total. I’m not a massive fan of night hiking though, so hoping we don’t need to make a habit of doing days as long as today.

Wednesday 7 August 2019
Day: 101
Location: Mile 1,286.5
Distance travelled: 26.6 miles / 43 km

After hiking late into the night last night, we were woken up late this morning by the sound of Yellowjacket wasps buzzing around the tent. Great… apparently we had pitched our tent in the dark somewhere near a wasps nest.

The sun eventually got us up, warming up the tent to the point where it was uncomfortable to stay inside any longer.

When we left the tent, we were greeted by some amazing views back down to the valley.

Today turned out to be a really nice day of walking but we definitely got progressively more tired and sore as the day went on. There wasn’t as much forest walking today compared to the last few days, with a handful of spots with great views that we took the opportunity to soak in.

Upon reaching the road where you could hitch into the town of Quincy, we ran into two other hikers and two trail angels who were in the process of saying their farewells to each other. They called us over with the lure of a free apple and a half empty bottle of coke, which was more than enough to get me interested in chatting to them for a bit.

After parting ways with the trail angels, we climbed up the trail to our planned lunch spot in the shade, passing a number of people doing trail maintenance along the way.

We had a bit of 4G reception, so I took the opportunity to learn about the Yellowjacket wasps that we have been encountering daily since leaving Sierra City. I’m not a massive fan of them buzzing around so close to the trail in case I step on one, but they have been relatively passive so far.

The highlight of the day came during the late afternoon. We had decided that we needed to get down to the town of Belden tonight if we are going to reach Chester by Friday evening, which we only just realised we need to do apparently as we can only collect our parcels from Chester post office between 7am and 8am on Saturday morning (the only other option was to wait until Monday morning, which we don’t have the luxury of doing given we are running out of time to finish the trail).

I was expecting about 5 miles of foresty switchbacks to get down to Belden but instead we started on an exposed almost beach-like trail that allowed us to take in the colours of the setting sun over the landscape. For a moment I was able to forget about how the overgrown trail or much my feet hurt or how much I wanted to already be in bed.

By the time we reached the actual switchbacks, the light had gone so we had to walk the last hour or so in the dark again. We had a bit of trouble finding our planned campsite in the dark, and ended up fairly close to a nearby road which meant I didn’t get much sleep with cars coming and going most of the night (including a car that stopped in a nearby trailhead carpark and blasted music for about 3 or 4 hours from 11pm)

Thursday 8 August 2019
Day: 102
Location: Mile 1,310.9
Distance travelled: 24.4 miles / 39 km

We were expecting to be fairly slow this morning given we had a big climb out of Belden, but it ended up being not too bad, although the heat would start to get to me after a while. We took the opportunity to stop off at the general store in Belden for a morning ice cream before tackling the climb.

It turned out that they were setting up a some kind of festival in Belden that was due to kick off over the next day or so, which meant that our timing worked out pretty well to get in and out of there before things go too manic.

We stopped for lunch by a creek and I took the opportunity to dunk my head in the water to cool off a bit in the heat of the day. Not long after lunch we passed the 1,300 mile marker. It’s cool that we get to pass one of the markers every 3-4 days now instead once a week when we were in the Sierras. It finally feels like we’re starting to make some progress on our goal of reaching the Canadian border.

The walking wasn’t overly interesting today (what can I say, I’m a sucker for views and we were mostly in the forest). We did cross paths with a couple of Youtube celebrities in the hiking world in the afternoon who were going SOBO, which was kinda cool.

We hiked on through the dusty and rocky trail until sunset and set up camp once we found a site that wouldn’t bust our sleeping mats.

Halfway point tomorrow!

Friday 9 August 2019
Day: 103
Location: Mile 1,331.3
Distance travelled: 20.4 miles / 33 km

An early start this morning as we we had started hiking by 6am to give us enough time to reach the closest town, Chester, by 4pm when the post office was scheduled to close. Given my current pair of shoes (and socks) are basically done, motivation was strong to reach town quickly and replace them with a brand new pair that I had previously posted in my bounce box.

The day started well and we were making good time until I came upon a side trail to a water source. Leigh was already maybe 5 minutes ahead of me, so I couldn’t see her on the trail, but I thought she had taken this trail to top her water up. After venturing down the trail for a good 10-15 minutes, I realised that she was not at the water source, and I had just wasted 20 minutes walk down a trail unnecessarily. When Leigh realised I wasn’t behind her she ended up backtracking on the trail to try to find me. Safe to say, she was not pleased when I finally caught up with her that we had wasted time on a stupid mistake like that when we were already on a tight timeframe to get into town and get to the post office before it closed.

Allowing an appropriate amount of distance between us for venting, we picked up the pace and still managed to do 10 miles by 10am, which made me feel a bit less guilty about the earlier snafu.

It wasn’t long at all before we finally reached the PCT halfway marker. It was such a special moment to finally reach the marker, knowing that we are now on the home stretch!

We were making great time and stopped off for a quick lunch. The Yellowjackets are becoming increasingly annoying as they seems to like buzzing around my cooking pot while I’m trying to eat out of it – getting a little bit too close for my liking!

Thankfully we reached the road on schedule and without further incident, eventually getting a hitch into Chester. After picking up our parcels from the post office (side note – how good are new shoes!), the first priority was finding somewhere to stay. We had to chance our luck as there was no reception on the trail and couldn’t book in advance – unfortunately, the motel we planned to stay at was already full, but we found a relatively inexpensive alternative that wasn’t too far away from the main part of town.

Once accommodation, laundry and laundry were all sorted, we hit up the main attraction in Chester – Pine Shack Frosty, for some burgers and thickshakes. It certainly did not disappoint!

We topped off the day by a resupply at Dollar General and watching some movies back in our room while I downed a couple of non-refridgerated 1.25L bottles of soft drink. What party animals we have become!