Day 87 Again, I was of to kind of a late start with me taking the first step of the day by six am. Looking at the elevation curves it was going to be a though day with a lot if up and down. I was questioning if I would be able to make it as I hd to hike longer (or a lot shorter) today due to a stretch without camp sites. However, right…
Day 86 Have you ever heard the expression “a rolling stone doesn’t gather trail names”? Probably not because I think I just made that up. Nonetheless I think it makes sense. But before we get to that, let me just ensure that I have properly explained what a trail name is. In essence it is the name you are known by when you are hiking or interacting with other hikers. Hiker law states “We the…
Day 85 Getting up today was not easy as I got too late in bed but still wanted to beat the heat and do decent milage today, but the sleepiness gradually disappeared after sun had risen. As mentioned previously I hadn’t seen where Hardcore had camped yesterday, which made me a bit nervous as she had seemed somewhat off. Turns out that she had misunderstood what the other hiker had said to her and gone…
Day 84 First thing I did after getting awoken by my alarm was to call home. I hadn’t heard nor spoken with my family for a while and this could be the last chance for a while. I had gotten a bit late to bet yesterday so I wasn’t completely awake until a bit into the call. It was very nice to hear from then, though. I had still a lot of chores to do…
Day 83 As per usual I got off to an early start. I wanted to make it to Shasta today and also get some chores done to cut out a zero day. It was utterly dark. My headlamp started to falter as I had thought it would have plenty of juice and therefore not charged it. Instead I put my phone in a small pocket using it as as a torch like I had done…
Day 82 Got up a bit earlier today to further enjoy the coolness of the morning. Given the humidity and heat, it shouldn’t have been a surprise that a thunderstorm was raging, though I hadn’t been awoken by it. It was somewhat distant, I reckoned, as it wasn’t raining here and there was some delay between the lightning strikes were heard and the sound caught up with us. Eon, probably awoken by my commotion, got…
Day 81 Okay, so when us hikers came out of the Sierras, we had just witnessed some of the finest nature on earth, which inevitably makes the next stretch a bit bland. We may also have looked at the mileage and think: this took so much time, energy, and money and I am not even halfway yet. Then you get the Northern California blues, or “NorCal blues” and might decide to drop your hike. Anyways,…
Day 80 I had been planning to try to hitch into the small town of Burney to resupply. However, during the lunch break yesterday JC had talked about a place called Burney Mountain Guest Ranch, which was near the trail . In my guide book it didn’t say that you could resupply there, but it had come under new ownership and apparently now had a good resupply, so I decided to give it a go…
Day 79 I had set my alarm for half past two am today as I was going along the notoriously dry and hot Hat Creek Rim (allegedly comparable to the Mojave) as I wanted to beat the heat. It took me a while to get going simply because I was tired but it was still very early and cold. I walked the short way back to the trail and passed by the Subway Cave, which…
Day 78 Normally I snooze my alarm once and the second time it goes off I open the air went on my sleeping pad. That gets me up because the ground is hard and cold. Well not today as the ground was neither, so I fell asleep again and slept longer than expected. Not a catastrophe as today would probably not be that demanding, I thought. Most other hikers had already left despite it being…