Day 100: A Hundred… what!

July 28, Day 100: 1586.1-1599.7

Miles Hiked: 13.6

Gratitude of the Day: I’m thankful for encouraging messages from friends. 

Today was a hard day, even though it was just over 13 miles, my legs were jello. The trail followed a ridge line a lot of the day, lots of rocks and roots to pay attention to. But the town of Etna was calling and I couldn’t wait to get in and enjoy a break. I started the morning at 6am and basically walked most the the morning until I got to highway 3 to get into town. I’ve been hiking around a hiker named Long Haul and his wife has been driving around helping other hikers and him into town.

So I was able to get a ride into Etna when I hit the highway with them. I got to Etna at 11:30am and spent the day eating food and doing some chores like laundry. There’s a public pool here which was nice to go for a swim and then later in the night the rest of the Salty Butt Bandits got into town and it was more food and beverages for the night. 

Day 99: Marathon after a 40… ugh!

July 27, Day 99: 1560.4-1586.1

Miles Hiked: 25.7

Gratitude of the Day: I’m thankful for a great nights sleep and Advil. 

What a wonderful night of sleep. I slept in today until 7am and then took my time getting out of camp. Since I had a picnic table I made the most of it making hot coffee and eating breakfast. Surprisingly, my legs felt good this morning. I left camp at 8am to start my day. Today I got to walk thru the Trinity Alps Wilderness, it so reminds me of the Enchantments of Washington state. So beautiful and today there was a chill in the air, cloud cover and just south was a dark rain cloud. The rain never caught me, and I enjoyed the nice views and cool weather.

By lunch I’d hiked 13 miles, or half of my planned day. I stopped to enjoy lunch by a spring for an hour and then pushed on to get the last 13 miles done for the day. The last 6 miles were brutal as the trail truly roller coasters up and down, now my legs were tired and I was just annoyed. I finally reached camp by 7pm and set up camp for the night. There’s a chill still in the air and I think it’ll be a cool night tonight. 

Day 98: hike your age

July 26, Day 98: 1519.0-1560.3

Miles Hiked: 41.3

Gratitude of the Day:  I’m thankful for my feet, they’ve taken me to some incredible places and oh so many miles. 

I went to bed last night hoping to try to have a big mileage day, so I set my alarm for 3:30am.  The moon was basically full, it was beautiful but made it difficult to sleep. Also the mosquitoes were back, California is just doing everything it can to break a hiker.  When my alarm went off I’m pretty sure I only slept 3 to 4 hours solid. But I had a goal for the day so I got up and packed up. I left camp at 3:49am and set out to make the most of the day. One of my goals I had for myself prior to trail was hike my age, do a 40 mile hike in one day. Not until recently did I feel I could finally give it a shot, and with the terrain of the trail, so today I decided I’d attempt to accomplish my goal.  Once I left camp I hiked clear thru to 8am, just over 4 hours and I’d covered 1/4 of the day. I quickly filtered water and repacked my fanny pack with bars and snacks. By 11:30 when I stopped for lunch I had just over 20 miles hiked. It was here that I felt so tired and just wanted a nap. I started giving myself excuses to just take it easy and forget about the 40.  Instead I decided I just hike down the trail, so short lunch and back hiking at 12:15.  My goal was the water source in 10 miles, and before you know it it was 3:30 and I was there and had hiked 31 miles, only 1 mile off of my biggest day. I sat and relaxed at the water and drank my fill. By 5:15 the difficult part of the goal, the last 10 miles. So I loaded up on a couple spoonfuls of peanut butter, drank some crystal lite and slowly plodding down the trail. It seemed like time was standing still even as I was covering the miles step by step. The “worst” part was there wasn’t a campsite right at the 40 miles hiked mark, the best option was to hike another 1.4 miles to the next site. So I grabbed water before camp and slowly made my way to camp. By the time I got there at 8:43 I had hiked 17 hours for the day (not taking out breaks) and hiked 41.4 miles.  I ate dinner in the dark and set up camp, I rewarded myself with the warm beer I packed out too Mt Shasta. And now it’s to sleep at 10pm, tomorrow I can got back to 25 miles. 

Day 97: Castle Crags

July 25, Day 97: 1501.2-1519.0

Miles Hiked: 17.8

Gratitude of the Day: I’m thankful for my trail legs. Today was the first day I felt like I was “fast” keeping a pace of 3 mph or better, even going up the hills. 

Back to trail today. After sleeping in some and packing the now heavier resupply backpack, Dunk, Maverick and I walked across the street from our motel and stuck our thumbs out. (Clancy’s girlfriend Courtney drove up to see him and took Clancy, Navi, Zippy and Cool Cat to trail). Clyde and Biggie decided to remain off trail, Biggie’s foot is still sore so they’re working on a way to get to Etna, our next resupply town in 4 days.  The three of us got a hitch in about 20 minutes and even beat Clancy’s crew to the trail, they were surprised to see us there waiting on them. The plan today was just to cover some miles and make it up the climb today outside of Shasta. For the most part we walked in the shade of the trees with a small amount of smoke to dim the sun and it’s rays. The predicted high today was mid 90s and it was definitely humid. After starting at 11 we all took to our own paces and trudged up the hill. 5 miles in we all stopped at a water source and several of us started talking about how the trail flattens out after today’s climb. That we could push a couple big mile days and make it into Etna in 3.5 days and not 4.5 days, which would then earn us another zero. Also there’s a campground there that caters to hikers and it cost $5 to stay, with showers. So half of us have decided to try to push to Etna and half with Nero into Etna. Then it was back to the climb. We all stopped at the next water source as well and sat in the shade until around 5 and then pushed up the hill again, not far up the trail I saw my 3rd rattlesnake of Nor Cal. There’s a bubble of hikers now, and our intended campsite was just 15 miles in for the day, but it was full.

The next campsite was ok, but there wasn’t going to be enough room for everyone, since I was feeling good I decided to push another 2.7 miles to this amazing campsite that I can just make out the silhouette of Mt Shasta thru the smoke and a beautiful view of Castle Crags. 

Day 95: Into Mt Shasta

July 23, Day 95: 1470.9-1501.2

Miles Hiked: 26.0

Gratitude of the Day:  I’m thankful that my blister is nearly healed and it doesn’t hurt as bad. 

Today started out with the largest black tail deer standing right in camp when I woke up. What a way to start the day. By the time I had packed up to hike out it was already 7am, a late start for me. We had two fairly good climbs today but luckily they were both in a large dense forest of old growth trees. The first climb went well and I descended into the next valley and came to the perfect slot swimming hole for lunch. As I climbed down the rocks to the water I noticed a perfect entry spot to take a dip and made my way over, unfortunately a rattlesnake changed the plan as it was right where I wanted to go. A quick photo (from a distance) and I found a different spot to take a dip. After lunch myself and a couple others decided that we’d get into Mount Shasta today, Clyde (who BTW didn’t skip to Oregon) and Biggie took a different trail this morning and hitched to Shasta, Biggie had an inflamed tendon in her foot and it’s painful for her to hike. So a couple of us knew they were in town and decided to push the miles to join them. One of the things that made this easier was a PCT shortcut that was listed on our navigation app. It trimmed about 4 miles of the trail for the day, so it wasn’t too long if a day. After lunch o booked it the next 12 miles, covering them in just under 4 hours. I reached I-5 at 5pm. It took me 3 daily easy hitches to get to Shasta and meet Biggie and Clyde at their motel, another great surprise was that Baewatch had been vortexed by Clyde and I got to see him in town. That night was spent catching up and playing pool at a local saloon called the Gold Saloon. Tomorrow now I get a full zero for pushing the miles and will have time to sleep in and get all the chores completed. 

Day 94: A Day in the Life

July 22, Day 94: 1447.3-1470.9

Miles Hiked: 23.6

Gratitude of the Day: I’m thankful for my friend Megan Rich. She’s a ball of fun and has the best karaoke skills of anyone I know. 

Zippy’s “Good Morning”

A day in the life

5:35: awake, bathroom, make my hiker latte which consists of instant coffee and a breakfast essential, filter a 1 liter of water, eat lemon cake for breakfast, pack snacks into Fanny pack. Pack up bag

6:08: leave camp

8:00: 5 miles covered, start listening to music

8:40: stop to dig a cat hole, aka poop aka Bio-break

9:00: 7.8 miles covered 

9:55: stop to get water at Gold Creek 10.8 miles hiked. Hike 0.2 miles off trail to get water and come back to trail, filter water and take a break. Eat a snack. 

10:25: start back down trail 

11:00: 12.7 miles covered 

12:00: 15.9 miles covered 

12:18: stopped to get water at Deer Creek and then went to the campsite next to the creek for lunch. Lunch is a tortilla with peanut butter and jelly, meat stick and Korean BBQ chickpeas with crystal light lemonade. During lunch I lay out my ground sheet, take the shoes and socks off and relax. 16.6 miles covered. 

1:30: start hiking 

2:00: 18.3 miles covered 

2:23: dip hat in cool stream, keep hiking 

3:00: 21.4 miles covered 

3:45: 23.6 miles covered and made it to camp. 

Set up cowboy camp, wash in the creek, wash the legs and get all the salt off the face. Do laundry, wash all my socks, sun shirt, shorts and underwear and hang them out to dry for the morning. 

6:00: make dinner, ramen noodles with tuna and some instant mashed potatoes with some knorr vegetable packet with siracha and French’s dried onions to top it. 

7:00-9:30: sit in the dinner circle with the Salty Butt Bandits and enjoy conversation. 

9:30: go to sleep. 

Day 93: New Blister and a nice day

July 21, Day 93: 1424.7-1447.3

Miles Hiked: 22.6

Gratitude of the Day: I’m thankful for my friends Zach and Megan Jones, and their son Bodhi. They are so much fun and I wish I could see them more, but when I do it’s like I saw them yesterday. They are amazing individuals and I’m so happy to have them in my life.

Today was a pretty great day overall. My only complaint would be that I’ve got a new blister for the first time since the desert that is on my left ball of my foot. It’s fairly large and right where you push off when you take a step, so every step with my left foot is painful and god forbid I step on a pointy rock…. Ouch!  The pain dulls after hiking on it for about a quarter mile, but it never goes away. So all day was a little brutal in that respect. Other than that, the trail was a up and down roller coaster in large pines with a soft tread. The trees kept the sun at bay and it stayed relatively cool for the majority of the day. By 11:30 I reached a great shaded lunch stop and had done 12.2 miles, so I stopped, took off my shoes and laid down my ground sheet, filtered water and then proceeded to sit there for 3 hours laying down and eating lunch.

A Dunk in a hammock 

 Soon all the Salty Butt Bandits we’re doing the same and around 2:30pm several of us got up the motivation to hike the last 10 miles for the day. It was rough starting out again, as Clancy says, “I need to warm up my blisters” before getting going at my normal hiking speed. 

The trail remained the same with a couple peekaboo glances at Mt Shasta. Camp tonight is at Moosehead Creek, there’s a ton of hikers camped here so we’re rather crowded in. The air is cool and I think it’ll be a good nights sleep. 

Day 92: Three month anniversary

July 20, Day 92: 1418.4-1424.7

Miles Hiked: 6.3

Gratitude of the Day: I’m thankful for my trail family. Every one of them are amazing individuals and I’m so happy to be around them. 

Today was a much needed day. Cool Cat, Maverick, Dunk and I slept in sat around drinking coffee this morning and packed up to head to Burney Falls for when the Deli opened at 10am. It was all of 0.7 miles there. Then we proceeded to sit in the shade at the deli for the day eating all kinds of food and drinking beer.  The rest of the Salty Butts showed up around 12 and now we’re all back together. We went down and checked out the waterfall and then decided to go another 6 miles to camp. It was a much needed relaxing day to let the legs rest. 

Day 91: Burney

July 19, Day 91: 1400.1-1418.4

Miles Hiked: 18.3

Gratitude of the Day: I’m thankful for a long shower to scrub the caked on dirt off my feet. 

Today was another relaxing day on trail. I slept by myself right at the 1400 mark and was all packed up and hiking down the trail at 6am. It was 11 miles to the highway to hitch into the town of Burney to get a shower and do some laundry at the Word of Life a church in town that caters to hikers. About 2.5 miles in there was a 1400 mile marker made of bones which was odd and then another 3 miles was a cooler with ice cold coke as trail magic.

 Once I made it to the highway at 10am, I started walking to the intersection so it would be easier for a car to stop and give me a ride into town. No less than 2 minutes a truck pulled over and I was on my way to a glorious shower. After showering I did some laundry and resupplied and then made my way back to the church and took a nap during the hottest part of the day. The Salty Butt Bandits weren’t too far behind and Cool Cat and Maverick had decided to do a 40 mile day so I decided to meet them at their intended camp 8 more miles down the trail. So I packed up my pack and got a hitch out of town almost immediately, I started hiking again around 5:30pm. The 8 miles cruised by and I made it to camp by 8pm.

Cool Cat and Maverick showed up around 9:15pm having down over 41 miles. Then come to find out Dunk even though having a late start got competitive and decided to do the 40 miles too. He ended up showing up to camp at 11pm after seeing two bears and hearing cougars calling as he walked to camp. Tomorrow is a chill day on trail at Burney Falls while we wait for the rest of the gang to show up. 

Day 90: Hat Creek Rim

July 18, Day 90: 1373.5-1400.1

Miles Hiked: 26.6

Gratitude of the Day: I’m thankful for my sun shirt today, it saved my ginger skin. 

It was a slow start to the day today, I started hiking at 7am. The terrain ahead was fairly flat but it was the notorious Hat Creek Rim which is known for being exposed and hot with little water for roughly 30 miles and it did not disappoint. My watch died a couple days ago so I’ve just been hiking to certain destinations or water sources and not keeping track of my pacing. That’s a habit I still have from my running days. But by noon I was at Lost Creek, the lone water source for the first 12 miles of the day. It was a steep decent into a canyon to get the water but definitely worth it at is was flowing very well and it was cold. I sat in the shade and drank 2 liters and then washed my feet. 

Then it was the long trudge back up the canyon and then another 8 miles to a water cache called Cache 22. I reached this by 5pm and I sat down in the shade with other hikers and cows. I ate some dinner and then a hiker who’s off trail but driving around supporting his trail family pulled up with a cooler of beer and soda. Beer for dinner!

I’d already done 20 miles for the day but it was cooling off and I wanted to go a little further. So I headed back down trail at 7:40pm with intentions of going another 6.5 miles to the 1400 mile marker. I got into camp around 9:30 and set up camp in the dark. The evening hike was quite stunning, I could see Mt Shasta to the north and the setting sun was brilliant, probably because of the surrounding fires. 

Day 89: Old Junction

July 17, Day 89: 1350.3-1373.5

Miles Hiked: 23.2

Gratitude of the Day:  I’m thankful for small resorts right off trail. 

I woke up and it was chilly for the first time in over a week. How fitting since I just mailed my puffy jacket, thermals and gloves home until I get to Washington. So the only way to warm up was to start hiking up the hill out of Warner Valley Campground. The day was rather uneventful as I walked thru Lassen National Park, the haze from the smoke obscured most of the views and you could barely make out Lassen Peak.  I walked thru an old burn section of the trail, and there was some trees starting to grow back. I also saw my second bear on trail, it was a ways off which was fine by me, but looked rather large. Then all of a sudden outside of Old Station the forest came back but you could tell it was planted to be logged in the future because all the trees where equally spaced out and in rows. Seemed really odd not to see biodiversity. I made it into Old Station resort just off trail before it closed and got a cold coke, a butterfinger ice cream bar, chips and queso and beer. Just what a hiker wants after hiking all day. 

Day 88: A chill day

July 16, Day 88: 1331.3-1350.3

Miles Hiked: 19

Gratitude of the Day: I’m thankful for less stress day on trail where a 19 mile day seems easy. 

Back to trail, but first coffee and breakfast sandwiches. It was nice to hang out with the trail family again, I’ve been pushing such big miles I wasn’t sure I’d see them again and I’ve decided that even though it’s kind of amazing to see what my body can do I miss hanging out with them, so I’m not going to be so gung ho. So this morning I hiked out with Zora and Lenore (two other hikers that came into the Salty Butt Bandit fold after the fire closure (Dixie Fire). We first stopped and got iced coffee and then got a hitch back to trail. It was 11:30am by the time we started hiking and the trail was soft duff and super easy. We were covering miles easily. We walked into Lassen National Park today, officially the third national park on trail. We took a side trip down to see Terminal Geyser which was basically a steam vent that reminded me a lot of Yellowstone National Park.

 And then walked by Boiling Springs Lake.

We reached Warner Valley Campground which is also a drive up campground and sat at a table to have dinner and several campers next to us started chatting us up and offered us beer… so of course we said yes. Then it was bed time. 

In other news, Clyde has decided to jump ahead to Oregon for personal reasons. I’m sad to see him go, he’s always a joy to be around and I’ll miss him. I’d like to think I’ll catch back up with him but that’s a lot of miles to cover to catch him. I’ll just have to make it a point to visit him in Michigan some time, he has so much love and joy for his home and talks about it a lot so I need to see this place. The rest of the Salty Butt Bandits had already booked a hotel for today so they stayed in town. Tomorrow they’ll get back to trail and they’ll catch up with me soon. 

Day 87: Halfway

July 15, Day 87: 1311.9-1331.3

Miles Hiked: 19.4

Gratitude of the Day: I’m thankful for making it to the halfway point. 

Today I got up early to make it to the halfway point and try to cover over 30 miles. 4 miles down trail I stopped to get water as it was a 10 mile water carry past this point. Also I’ve been carrying a backpacking dessert of Creme Brûlée. I made it here and put it in the mesh pocket on the back of my pack, and then my pack toppled over and it squished half of the creme brûlée out and on my bag… damn it!  I wiped it off the best I could and headed to the halfway marker. At 9:30 I walked around a corner and there was the post, halfway… 

1325 miles from Mexico that I left 87 days ago and 1325 miles to Canada. I waited for Rugrat to show up and then we ate the rest of the dessert and drank our beers we packed out to celebrate. After about an hour hanging out, it was back to business. Because of the fire behind me the trail was closed to hikers behind me the salty butt bandits were in Chester waiting to see if the trail would open so they could continue from Belden or if they need to jump on at highway 36. So i made the decision to jump off trail and hitch into Chester to meet up with them. I resupplied and got a shower and did laundry at their Airbnb and after spending time with them decided to stay the night in town. We all caught up and played games into the night, it was so nice to see them all.