From the Trail

Day 35: Up around 5:15. Would have liked a little more after a long day, but I’ll take the 8.5 hours.

Spent the first part of the morning catching up on some writing and icing a couple sore spots from Shasta. My bone bruise by my right knee from my fall at Lake Solitude was re-aggravated, as well as a spot on the inside of my left knee which Dr. Cook informed me was where several tendons met.

Sam got up a little closer to 7 and we started packing for a four day backpacking trip on the PCT.

We had intended to start packing yesterday afternoon, but didn’t have it in us after Shasta. Packing up was slow going, but we were making progress in between eating breakfast (leftover pizza covered in Nutella for me), and making calls to family to let them know we may not have service the next few days.

Finally, we were on our way around 11:30 after a last round on snacks and water. Sam has planned a route that took us on a trail in the National Forest, to the Pacific Crest Trail. There was even a feeder trail from his neighborhood, so we left from the front door and went right by the car.

The feeder trail was narrow at first but opened up by a pedestrian bridge that crossed Lake Siskiyou. We briefly parallel the lake before turning onto a dirt road. The time on the dirt road was brief, and a truck attempted to make it briefer, but Sam saw it coming around a bend and we had time to step off.

Soon after we arrived at another bride crossing and stopped to eat the peanut butter and Lemurian honey (it’s a reference to a local cult) sandwiches we had packed, and fill up Sam’s water bladder which had leaked some at the house.

We got back moving around 1:30 and soon reached our trail. It was adjacent to the North Fork of the Sacramento River for the rest of our day. We happily traversed the next section chatting about old friends and trips along the way. However, the trail started to climb and my knee injuries from Shasta started to have some discomfort then pain. We stopped around 3 for me to take some ibuprofen to ward off the inflammation.

After the short break we kept moving and the elevation continued. We think the incline caused much of the discomfort and there was no escaping it, at least for today. It was a tolerable amount of pain, but I was more concerned with causing a long term issue. We took another break around 4:15 and Sam told me we had about a mile to go. Sufficiently motivated we got back on the steep trail and found a campsite along the river around 5.

We set up camp and enjoyed a delicious, if not nutritious, dinner of Chickpea Masala on top of some Ramen Noodles.

Following dinner we lounged by the river and I soaked my legs hoping to relieve some inflammation.

After other routine chores including setting up the bear bag I headed for bed.

Day 37: Up around 5:20. Sam isn’t far behind. Not quite sunrise, but light enough to see.

We tag team taking down the bear bag, then Sam starts heating up water for breakfast and I start packing up some of my stuff and filtering water from the river.

We have some oatmeal and dehydrated fruit. I’m definitely more of a breakfast guy and scarf down three packs, while Sam struggles to finish two.

After filtering some more water to get us back to 100%, and packing the tent and all our gear we are in the trail a little after 7:30.

We are close to connecting to the PCT, but the rest of our trail is pretty steep and my left knee started to bother me again. Based on the pain we decided to cut out part of our planned route to Mt. Eddy as the trail is very steep. Fortunately, it took a little less than two hours to reach the PCT, and then trail leveled off and followed the ridge line.

Almost immediately we began to run into PCT thru hikers all headed NOBO (northbound). They were all excited to see Stephen, even when he didn’t return affection.

We had a beautiful view of Mount Shasta in the distance for much of the morning before crossing a mountain pass that put it out of sight.

We lunched on peanut butter and Lemurian honey overlooking one of the lakes. It was a lovely place to dine.

Not long after lunch we passed a thru hiker who asked us unironically if we had seen Daniel the Lion. Many of the thru hikers are given trail names and we assumed he was looking for a person, but he wasn’t. Apparently, there is a lost stuffed lion somewhere on the trail. Not knowing we needed to look for such things we had completely missed it as the last known sighting was at a spring we passed about 1/4 mile earlier. Wishing him luck we continued on our SOBO route.

Pretty soon we reached our trail for Gum Boot Lake, which is less than a mile off the PCT. The campground can be accessed by cars, so there are already a handful of campsites occupied when we reach it around 3. We continued around the lake until we found a suitable location, then dropped our packs to setup camp.

After setting up the tent we walked down to the lake planning to go for a swim but the rocks that surround the lake extend into it making it tough to wade in. Sam still walked out a little past his knees, but based on his negative reaction I stopped at my ankles.

After the aborted swim we chilled in the campsite and I attempted to take a nap an a large, relatively flat rock.

We ate an early dinner around 5 and finished with camp chores before spending the rest of the evening by the lakeshore and watched the sun set over the mountain on the other side.

Day 38: Up off and on throughout the night, but up for good around 4:20. Looking forward to getting back on my larger sleeping pad that was too big to take on the trail. And my pillow, mostly my pillow. I’ll sleep better with it.

I laid in my sleeping bag and Stephen even got in for about an hour, until I got out of the tent around 5:45. I must have woken Sam up, because he is right behind me.

We get the bear bag down and make some breakfast before breaking down camp. It’s around 8 when we hit the trail and it’s a steep climb from the lake back to the PCT. My knees did not like steep inclines the past couple days but fare ok this morning.

We are in sight of Castle Crags within an hour and they stay in sight for much of the morning.

Along the way we decided we were making good enough time to finish our four day hike in three, and set a goal of making it to Castle Crags Lake for lunch.

It was getting hot and we were nearly out of sunscreen. Our remaining bottle had a pump that was not working well so we had to remove it in order to access the sunscreen. It was still not enough. I envied the thru hikers and the sun shirts they all wore. (Mental note to get my own.)

A little after noon we pass by our would be campsite had we planned to spend another day on the trail. Shortly after that we found our trail off the PCT and hiked to the top of the ridge then down to Castle Crag Lake.

It was beautiful and filled with picnickers. It was a very different crowd than the thru hikers we had seen over the last couple days. The bread for our sandwiches had some mild, so we ate peanut butter and honey straight out of the containers.

Our time on trails was over as the hike back to Sam’s house was mostly on the road. Sam had carried Stephen for much of the day already and had to almost the entire 8 miles down the road back to his house. However, on the final stretch that was familiar to him Stephen was willing to walk giving Sam a final reprieve.

After a shower that revealed my high sock tan was really a dirt line we headed into town for dinner. Sam had talked up Pipeline since I arrived and it did not disappoint. We had some fried cauliflower for an appetizer and I had mushroom burger covered in goat cheese. It was a great post trail treat.

After dinner, we returned to the house to start planning and preparing for the next week of travel. Should be fun to live out of a car after living out of a backpack the past few days.