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.
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