Cache 22 to Paved Highway 89 (Staying in Burney, CA)
Another sick day...sorry no text to accompany the photos.
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Cache 22 to Paved Highway 89 (Staying in Burney, CA) Another sick day...sorry no text to accompany the photos.
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Unpaved Road (Staying at Subway Cave Campground) to Cache 22 (Staying in Burney, CA)We had lots of things we wanted to do this morning before hitting the trail. Well...two things...go out for breakfast and check out the lava tube cave. Neither of these got done.
Another thing that didn't get done is this blog because I wasn't feeling well all day and needed sleep as soon as I got to the hotel room. Warner Valley trailhead to Unpaved Road (Staying at Subway Cave Campground) So nice to wake up to picnic tables and a bathroom...I know...it's the little things these days that make us happy. We all tried to get ready faster this morning since we have a huge mileage day planned. It kind of worked. We we ready to hike by 7:15 AM. Just leaving the campsite I saw this really nice PCT sign: Today's hike is supposed to be super easy, so we plan on hiking 23.81 miles...wow! As soon as we hit the trail though, it climbed pretty steep for the first 1.5 miles...are we really going to be able to hike almost 24 miles today?!? We might have been hating the climb, but check out the scenery: After the climb the trail did straighten out and become pretty flat. We spent most is the day hiking through a burned pine forest: We had a great view of Mount Lassen in the near-distance: The trail took us down into a valley with this incredible view: Check out this sign that points out the "Old PCT". We don't really know what that means. Maybe a forest fire rerouted it or something? Towards the end of the day we entered into what was obviously a replanted pine forest. Notice how nice and flat the trail remained throughout the day. About 1 mile front be end, Tim made an appearance. He is obviously feeling a bit better to hike in and meet us. Us on the other hand were tired and pretty much done for the day. By the time we hiked to the 4Runner we had covered 23.81 miles...a new record for us! Tim drove us to Subway Cave Campground with a stop at a convenience store where we bought chips, salsa, guacamole dip, and smoked oysters that all made the perfect dinner.
Tomorrow we get to slack pack 19 miles which makes us very happy, so until tomorrow... Highway 36 (Staying in Chester) to Warner Valley trailhead I woke at 6:00 AM and went back to sleep. By 7:15 AM I knew we needed to get up. Even though we are in town in a hotel room, we still need to get 20 miles in today. Today's 20 miles is supposed to be easier, so we shouldn't have a problem even if we leave later. We all got dressed and went down for the continental breakfast that was actually really good. After breakfast we packed up our stuff and headed back to the trail where we were ready to hike just before 10:00 AM. Tim should be in the photo, but there were 2 hikers that wanted a ride into town so he left before the photo. OK...it is 10:00 AM and we need to hike 19 miles to get to a campground. Luckily today's hike isn't supposed to be too bad. It starts with a 6.5 mile hill. Then it goes down and then back up again and then it levels out. Even though there are hills, they are all gradual and not too steep. I love when the PCT sign says Canada: Just after 1:00 PM we got a nice view of Mount Lassen: Around 2:00 PM we stopped for lunch at the foot of a bridge crossing North Fork Feather River and finally got back on the trail by 3:15 PM. Fifteen minutes later we were surprised to come across some trail magic put out by a couple. It's been a while since we have seen this kind of magic, so it was cool. How exciting...at 5:40 PM we entered Lassen Volcanic National Park. Since we are in a volcanic area, we had to check out at least one feature. Terminal Geyser is 0.3 miles down a side trail. It was 6:15 PM when we got there and we still had 2.5 miles to go, but we had to go see it. When we got there we were happy we took the time to hike to it. It was pretty cool: There was a deer just behind the steam looking like it was enjoying the heat: The last 2.5 miles...actually, much of the day we hiked through a pine forest. I like the way the sun is lighting up the one pine tree: The PCT went right by Boiling Spring Lake, another geothermal feature: We saw this young buck out eating dinner just after 7:30 PM: We arrived at Warner Valley Campground before 8:00 PM. We talked to the camp host and found out the ranger doesn't come by until 8:00 AM so we pitched our tents in the day use picnic area. It was great since there were picnic tables, outhouses, and water.
We quickly set up our tents and cooked/ate dinner at the picnic table...how civilized. We were all pretty tired after going to sleep late the night before in the hotel room and from the 19 mile hike, so we immediately went into our tents. We had a great day averaging almost 2 miles per hour including breaks, so we probably hiked 2.5 miles per hour most of the day. We are definitely getting faster. Tomorrow we have a lot of miles to do, so let's see how fast we can hike then. Until tomorrow... Carter Meadows trail junction to Highway 36 (Staying in Chester)The temperature was perfect last night to allow for a great night sleep. As soon as we woke, Share Bear said that she heard huge noises in the night that had to be a bear. Free Lunch said that he heard the noises too and put on his light and saw multiple deer around all our tents. Cool. Share Bear said that it made sense because if it was deer then it was many of them. She also said that she had heard stories of deer coming into camp and stealing hiking poles because they like licking the sweat off the handles. Then Alex was like, "Speaking of poles, one of mine is missing!" It was unbelievable. I didn't really believe he story of deer stealing poles, but here it is, right in front of me. Alex went off searching for his pole. Meanwhile, a family of 3 deer wondered into our camp eating while ignoring us: I figured if a deer took a pole they wouldn't go far, so I stepped up on a rock to get a view and spotted the pole about 30 feet from our camp. I will be keeping my poles closer to my tent for now on. After all the excitement, Alex left before our picture, but Free Lunch hadn't left his tent yet, so here we are, ready to hike at 7:30 AM. Today we only have 13.31 miles to get to the town of Chester where Brad's mom Mary bought us a room at the Best Western for the night. She thought we deserved a room to celebrate getting to the halfway point today. That's right...we will be passing the halfway point in just under 10 miles, so let's get going. By 9:00 AM we had 10 miles to get to town. We were anxious to get there to enjoy the room. Check out this great view of Mount Lassen: The scenery was beautiful today, but the trail was overgrown in many places. These bush really scratch the heck out of my legs. At 9:30 AM we arrived at the PCT midpoint marker post. It was cool to see it, but according to half miles map, we were 4.39 miles short, but it wasn't going to stop us from celebrating and ponder what this means. Random thoughts that went through my head at the halfway point of the PCT: * We are only halfway there?!? * We have used almost two-thirds of the hiking time to come only halfway. * Can I really hike the same amount of miles again? * This pain in my back, foot, knee, etc...is it going to make me fail? * After the halfway point, we are closer to Canada than Mexico. * We are halfway and still have 369 more miles left in California. We took a break there and stared at the market post not believing that we made it this far. After about an hour we headed back on the trail in search of the actual halfway point just over 4 miles ahead. Just after noon we arrived at PCT mile 1325.05...the actual halfway point. We were now about 3.5 miles from Highway 36 where Tim is going to meet us and take us to Chester, so we skipped lunch and kept hiking. We arrived at the highway at 1:30 PM. A whole 30 minutes faster than Tim or us thought we would be getting there. When Tim did arrive, my friend Lynda's mom was with him. Lynda and her family invited Tim to stay at their house in Susanville for a few days.
We hopped in the 4Runner and drove the 7.5 miles to Chester and immediately went for lunch. After lunch we checked into the hotel and relaxed for the rest of the day. Share Bear was nice enough to do our laundry while the rest of us laid on the beds watching the Summer Olympics. We watched TV way too late and then went to sleep. We should get back on trail at our normal 7:30 AM tomorrow morning, but we have to sleep in just a bit since we have this awesome hotel room. I guess we will wait and see what tomorrow brings. Campsite at mile 1295.47 to Carter Meadows trail junction It was chilly last night. I didn't put on my rain flap so I had to wear my puffy jacket, gloves, and hat. I slept warm and comfortable and had a great night's sleep. I was sound asleep when Share Bear announced, "Good morning." I laid there for 10 more minutes then got ready. Share Bear and I were ready to go, but brad was having a slow morning so we waited for him. We were all finally ready to hike at 7:30 AM. This morning we have 3 more miles of climbing to get up the climb we started yesterday. First, a picture of the meadow we slept by last night. Just after 8:30 AM we made it to the top of the 13 mile climb. We climbed a total of 6,063 feet...crazy. We needed water and I was much happier getting it from Frog Spring versus yesterday's Rattlesnake Spring. The trail is beautiful up here: Woohoo...another milestone today...1,300 miles! These milestones are coming faster since we are hiking 20 miles per day. Check out this cool log fence we saw today. I have no idea what it is fencing in. We stopped for lunch around 12:30 PM just short of the 10 mile point. We usually try to stop past 10 miles so we have less miles to hike in the afternoon than in the morning. But, there was a really nice place to stop, so we stopped. At 2:00 PM...another too long lunch break...we got back on the trail with 10.74 miles to go to our planned camp for the night. The scenery after lunch did not disappoint: Today's PCT sign of the day is great: More great shots of Share Bear hiking today: We were doing well today and hiking strong. We thought we had a chance of getting into camp early today. Then the water situation hit us hard. We had to walk 0.3 miles down to a spring and carry up 4 liters of water each since our camp tonight is dry and the next water is 12 miles away. By the time we walked down, collected water, filtered a couple of liters, and walked back up, one hour had passed. We only had 2.23 miles to our campsite, but it was now 6:50 PM.
We arrived at camp at 7:45 PM and quickly pitched our tents. Free Lunch showed up and decided to join us. Then, Alex from Long Beach, who was hiking southbound joined us. He is thru-hiking California...cool. It is another chilly night, and again I didn't use the rain flap. Hopefully I will sleep as well as last night. Belden (Staying in Portola) to Campsite at mile 1295.47There is something about the Airstream that allows for an awesome night of sleep. I woke at 7:00 AM and went back to bed till 8:00 AM. We figured we all better start moving since we have a challenging hike up a mountain today. We got up and prepared our food for the next 4.5 days then headed into town to do laundry and eat breakfast. By 12:00 PM we were on our way back to the trail. We arrived back to Belden before 2:00 PM. Tim parked at a rest area across from where he picked us up, so I had to walk across the street and back to ensure continuous footsteps. Brad thought I was crazy, but Share Bear joined me: In the store we saw Puma who I first met over 2 months ago. The last time we saw him was when he came down Mount Whitney. We figured he would be way ahead of us, but he said his wife joined him for a couple of weeks so he slowed down. We went back across the street to Brad and Tim and was ready to hike just after 2:00 PM. Unfortunately Tim was still sick, so he didn't hike with us which was lucky for him since the trail leaving Belden climbs for 13 miles with the first 5 miles total exposed with little to no shade. As a matter of fact, I think this was one of the last trees we saw for a while: We were exposed, but the views were amazing: We finally hit some shade when we entered Lassen National Forest. It was HOT. As I hiked I dreamt of drinking an ice cold Miller Lite, but had to settle for ice cold spring water from Rattlesnake Springs. I didn't really dig the name though. Once we were off the ridge we stayed pretty much covered in a pine forest with lots of streams and springs. Here is a nice one: Even under the shade of the pine trees it was pretty hit since we were climbing and climbing and climbing. We set a goal to make it to a campsite at mile 1295.5 which would take us 3 miles from the top of the climb. Finally, just after 8:00 PM we made it there. Today we climbed 4,912 feet in just over 11 miles. We really should sleep well!
Paved Bucks Lake Road to Belden (Staying in Portola)Surprisingly, the night just off the road was pretty quiet and comfortable. I did wake in the middle of the night with a strange foot discomfort, but I took the sock off and kept it out of the sleeping bag the whole night allowing it to air and it felt much better in the morning. Yesterday when we arrived here we noticed an outhouse up the road, so Share Bear, Pogo, and I went to check it out. It was well worth the walk. What a luxury to not have to dig a cat hole this morning. Tim arrived right on schedule, just after 7:00 AM. The bad news it that he has a cold...poor Tim. We all packed our bags with just what we need for the next 20 miles and put the rest in the 4Runner. A 20-mile slack pack...so happy. Painter and Pogo left ahead of us since Pogo felt she needed extra time become of her knee aches. The rest of us were ready to hike just before 8:00 AM. Today we have 20 miles to get to Belden where we plan to take showers, do laundry, and spend the night. Tim will be meeting us there, obviously since he has all our gear, but he won't be spending the night with us. He will be headed back to the Airstream. With slack packing, we figure we could make it to Belden before 6:00 PM. As soon as we started hiking we entered Bucks Lake Wilderness. All day we looked for this Bucks Lake, but never found it. However, the area was beautiful: Check out this cool PCT sign I saw today: Oh yeah...right from the start of today's hike the trail climbed, but pretty gradual. At the top of the climb we were rewarded with some awesome views: I was pretty happy to see a sign pointing out Mount Pleasant, but seeing the trail not going anywhere near it. Such docile deer out here. This one barely looked up from whatever it was eating. We stopped for lunch around 1:00 PM and was shortly joined by Painter and Pogo. They are utterly enjoying their day of slack packing as well. Somehow we managed to take a 1.5 hour lunch break. We really need to shorten our lunches! At 2:30 PM we were still over 9 miles from Belden, so tried to hike a hit faster. By 2:55 PM we were 8 miles from Belden...not bad. Wow. Today's hike was really amazing with different views throughout the day. The day was great, and then came the last 7 miles of the day that pretty much did a nosedive from 6,200 feet to 2,254 feet...4,277 feet of hiking down. Blah...it was awful, plus there was poison oak everywhere that I had to look out for. We made it to the bottom and even though we had less than 0.5 miles to Belden, we sat right on the trail for a break: Share Bear was amazed that the PCT trailhead was right on a railroad track: We got to Belden and Tim was waiting for us on a picnic bench. He said he had checked out the place and didn't think it was fog to meet our needs. A wedding party has taken over the entire place including all the rooms and even the campsites. Share Bear and I wondered around to access the situation and unfortunately, we agreed with Tim. It was decided that we will take the 1.5 hour drive back to Portola and the Airstream with him. So we jumped into the 4Runner and headed out. We stopped in Quincy for dinner and made it to the Airstream after 9:00 PM. By the time we were all showered it was after 11:00 PM.
We will sleep in tomorrow and then prepare to get back on the trail. Until then... Unpaved road 23N65YB to Paved Bucks Lake RoadMy darn air mattress kept deflating last night. I had to fill it up every 2 hours. Somehow I still managed to wake up well rested. I woke at 5:59 AM and listened for Share Bear and Brad's alarm to go off 1 minute later. I laid in my tent watching the mosquitoes flying around outside for 10 more minutes before getting up and breaking camp. I ate breakfast pacing around to avoid the mosquitoes and was ready to hike at 7:12 AM. Mosquitoes suck, but they motivate us to move faster. Today's hike starts with a 2.6 mile down followed by an 11 mile, 4,427 foot climb...oy! At least the views this morning were pretty: The 2.6 mile down wound up not being too bad. At the bottom was a bridge over the Middle Fork Feather River and a sign telling us that it is 18 miles to Bucks Summit, our end goal for tonight. We washed up and collected water from the river before starting the dreaded climb up. Four miles towards the beginning of the climb was particularly steep and not too fun. Just before 11:00 AM we stopped for our 5 mile break at 6 miles. At 2:10 PM we made it out panned lunch place just 2 miles from from the top of the climb. We finally got back on trail at 3:30 PM with 9.39 miles sill left to hike. Right after lunch we had a pretty good hill to climb. The view from the top made it worth it: Like yesterday, most of today was hiking through a pine forest: Towards the end of the day Share Bear was excited to be close to finished. She took off way in front of us. Finally, just before 8:00 PM we made it to Bucks Lake Road. Along with us is Painter, Pogo, and Aviator. We all just collapsed on the shoulder of the road before figuring out where we were going to sleep. Suddenly, a truck pulls up and asks us if we want their leftover pizza...YES PLEASE! Here is what they gave us...well, there was more, but I couldn't get my camera out fast enough before people grabbed: After eating a couple of slices of pizza we found a site just up the trail and made camp. It was getting dark, so decided to eat on the road where it was a bit brighter. We cooked and ate dinner then headed back to the tents for the night.
Tomorrow morning Tim is meeting us here to allow us to slack pack the 20 miles into Belden. Painter and Pogo is going to join in the action as well which should help Pogo out since she is having knee pains lately. So, until tomorrow... Unpaved Road to Unpaved road 23N65YBLast night the temperature was perfect allowing me to have a great night of sleep. I awoke just after 6:00 AM and stayed in my sleeping bag until I heard others making noise around 6:15 AM. I packed my stuff and ate breakfast and then waited and hoped to hear a vehicle driving up the dirt road. At this point it wasn't 100% that Tim would make it here this morning because we weren't sure of the condition of the roads for him to get here. Sure enough, at 7:10 AM he pulled up. Woohoo...so cool! We emptied out our bag of all things we didn't need for the day and put them in the 4Runner. Tim will meet us for lunch at the 10 mile point and then meet us at the 14 mile point where we will take back all our gear. A 14-mile slack pack sounds good to me! Plus, seeing Tim throughout the day is a real bonus as well. At 7:52 AM we were ready to hike. Today's hike should be pretty pleasant, especially since we just have daypack for the first 14 miles. There are no long ups or downs...pretty much a roller coaster all day, except for the last 2 miles that go down pretty steep. The first hour of the hike gave us some wonderful views: At 9:00 AM we were at a road crossing and came across this PCT sign. Right after this crossing the trail went up a bit to the top of a ridge. Share Bear noticed a wired shape at the top of a mountain across from us, so I zoomed in and took this picture. What the heck is that?!? At the 5 mile point we took our "shoes off break" and headed back on the trail at 10:30 AM. We told Tim to meet us at the 10 mile point for lunch at 12:00 PM, so we were right on time. At about the 8 mile point we saw Tim hiking towards us and followed him back to the 4Runner where we took our lunch break. Our lunch break was all but relaxing since there were hornets everywhere. We quickly ate and got out of there around 1:30 PM. We hiked another 4 miles and met Tim at another road crossing so we could repack all our stuff into our bags. We are doing pretty good today. It is before 4:30 PM and we only have 5.68 miles to go till our planned stop for the night at the 20 mile mark. We said goodbye and thank you to Tim. We will see him in 2 days when he meets us in the morning allowing us to slack pack the 20 miles into Belden. Tomorrow we will be on our own. The last 6 miles of the day were hiked in a pine forest. Actually, most of today's hike was through a pine forest just like this: Before 7:00 PM we made it to our camp for the night. Actually, we weren't sure if there would be tentsites, but usually when there is a road crossing there is a tentsite. In this case, the tent sites were in the side of the dirt road which is fine since it doesn't look like any vehicles have been on this road in a while. Even the trailhead sign here looks worn: We set up our tents and then the mosquitoes rolled in. I was in no mood to deal with them during dinner, especially since lunch was a disaster, so I ate inside my tent. Luckily I cooked for lunch, so it was quick and easy to eat my peanut butter & jelly tortillas.
Wow...another early night. It is just 9:00 PM and I am done with the blog. Looks like I will have another great night sleep. We are down to 4,636 feet, so the temperature should be perfect. |