Northern California
02. July 2003 — Day 68 - Echo Lake to mile before Dicks Pass - mile 1104
It happened again, after a good breakfast at the youth camp, I headed down to the resort and shop to check if they sell phone cards and then I wanted to head off. That was the plan, but when I arrived at the shop ‘The Clean Machine’ was there and shortly after me, the couple from Scotland arrived so I started chatting to them. Ended up sitting around until 3pm I wanted to make it past Dicks Pass that day but 300 ft below the pass I found a decent camp site and it already was 8:20pm. This left 50 miles to Donner Summit for the next two days and since I don’t want to arrive at Pooh’s Corner too late I will have to put in a big mile day tomorrow.
03. July 2003 — Day 69 - mile before Dicks Pass to Ward Peak - mile 1132
Other hikers I met the previous day had reported that Dicks Pass had a lot of snow and it was difficult. It wasn’t. The climb was more or less snow free and the descent was on a forested ridge that had snow but was easy to get through. Otherwise eventless day.
04. July 2003 — Day 70 - Ward Peak to Donner Summit - mile 1152
Started off early after a pleasant night (not cold at all) and descended into the valley where it was at least 150 degrees colder than on the saddle. Then the trail climbed up near Granite Chief Mountain - now that was snowy and difficult. Landed on my butt once to slide down a snow patch.
After descending into Squaw Valley, the next climb was up to Tinker Knob and after that it started. Day hikers everywhere and the PCT became a freeway. On Tinker Knob I met ‘Walkabout’ who hiked the trail in 1997 and tried a jojo in 2000. A jojo is hiking the trail first northbound and then turnaround at the Canadian border and hike it southbound. For the PCT, this hasn’t been done, because of the snow in the Sierras. Either too much snow in Spring or too early in fall on the way back. Arrived at Donner Summit at 2:30pm and gave Pooh’s Corner a ring. Bill picked me up and we drove down to Donner Lake where Bill and Molly live. Very cool cabin at the lake with a climbing wall in the living room. There were 5 other hikers - Tin Cup, Tyson, Jeff, Masa & Tobe from Japan.
For dinner Bill & Molly had friends over and we had salad, salmon, chicken and rice. Very good. Ate way too much but afterwards there was still room for ice cream. For the fireworks, we all went on to the deck. Great watching it across the lake.
05. July 2003 — Day 71 - Donner Summit (Pooh’s Corner) - zero day
Zero day, ha ha. Bill made breakfast (pancakes, scrambled eggs, melon & orange juice) for everybody. Then he drove Tyson, Jeff, Masa & Tobe back to the trail. Bill went for a day hike, so Molly drove Tin Cup & myself to the grocery store and the PO. The rest of the day I tried to catch up on my journal. For dinner we had leftovers from the day before.
06. July 2003 — Day 72 - Donner Summit to Ridge after Meadow Lake road - mile 1173
Again got breakfast made, this time Molly did the honors. Headed out to the trail at 8am and started off by myself. Had a motivational low point this day. Being back on the trail I suddenly felt lonely. Missed the people from F Troop. Maybe I shouldn’t have checked their journals. Potato Picker was in Tuolemine Meadows on the 30 June. Well, made it through the day. Ran into people from the Sierra Club, who were doing maintenance work on a hut and I helped. Just a little bit, I carried some wooden beams down to the hut. Stopped on this ridge early compared to the last days.
07. July 2003 — Day 73 - Ridge after Meadow Lake Road to Ridge after Hwy 49 - mile 1197
Slept in the morning, only got going at 7:30am, then had a rough time because I ran out of water. I drunk my last water last night and the trail would ‘descend to a creek’ after 3 miles this morning, so no problem. Well I thought the trail would cross this creek, but instead it just got near it. Anyway, I didn’t pick up water. After another hour I was really thirsty, but no creek or spring in sight. Then I saw what appeared to be a Gatorade bottle on the trail. Was I hallucinating? No , a trail angel had left about 50 Gatorade & 140 half liter water bottles. Unreal. Miracles do happen. Rest of the day was uneventful.
08. July 2003 — Day 74 - Ridge after Hwy 49 to West Branch Nelson Creek - mile 1222
Again, couldn’t get my ass out of my sleeping bag, started off at 8am. Sun was already high up and burning down on me. I’m actually happy that it is warmer than in the Sierras. I thought will it ever be warm again. Back then I was freezing every night. Had lunch at a lake but unfortunately you couldn’t really go swimming there. Hopefully tomorrow evening I’ll stop at a creek that has a little natural pool. Ran into two day hikers that I talked to, other wise I have not met any other northbounders. Yesterday ‘Just Mike’ walked by my camp at 8pm. He was southbound doing kind of a section flip flop. Trail was deserted.
09. July 2003 — Day 75 - West Branch Nelson Creek to Middle Fork Feather River - mile 1247
For a change I got going early today. Not due to my will power but because a squirrel started tossing pine cones from a nearby tree at freaking 5:30am. Today was another hot day, not as hot as the desert but more humid. So I’m happy I made it to that river quite early and went for a nice swim. This is actually the lowest in elevation I have been in ages - 2900 ft. Haven’t seen a soul today. Lying here in my bug bivy and it is warm. I’m roasting actually. Feeling like a swim again. Tomorrow it goes up 2500 ft or so.
10. July 2003 — Day 76 - Middle Fork Feather River to Clear Creek - mile 1276
No wake up call by a squirrel today, but another animal incident. I got attacked by some sort of eagle. Must have had it’s nest close by the trail even though I didn’t see it. Anyway the first time it flew by it came from behind and I guess it was 2-3 feet above my head. Kinda scary. This was repeated 2-3 more times until I was by. Stupid Bird. If humans would do that - slap people because they are too close to their kids. That was all the excitement for the day. Camped at this creek which is not as clear as I would guess by it’s name - Clear Creek. The water is a little muddy/green colored even after filtering. Easy 10 miles into Belden - Hmmn Coke and fruit. Not so easy 10 miles, it’s 4000 ft downhill.
11. July 2003 — Day 77 - Clear Creek to Belden Town Resort - mile 1283
Started my big descent early in the morning - 6:20am. I was pretty eager to get into town - hmmn Coke. But the 4000 ft descent took long because I was going slow downhill. My left shin started hurting again. Belden ‘Resort’ which is more like a RV park is very sketchy. The store is small & expensive and did not have fresh fruit :( So after some phone calls, I headed over to the post office. Sorted through my bounce box and got my food for the next two days. Just after I finished mailing my stuff out ‘Diesel’ walked in. So he had made up one day from Pooh’s Corner. He is pretty fast. He was staying at some trail angels - Brenda & Laurie. My plan was to get a few more miles in but he had an easy time convincing me to stay. Go for a swim in the river and then have lunch at a snack bar. That’s what we did. Brenda & Laurie’s ‘Little Heaven’ still needs a lot of work but I can see it becoming a classic - like Lunatic Lounge or Pooh’s Corner. Also staying there are ‘DNA’ and Masa & Tomo. We all had dinner - pizza, salad, cake & ice cream. Nice relaxing day.
12. July 2003 — Day 78 - Belden Town Resort to Humbolt Road - mile 1309
Woke up, had breakfast with the others (Diesel, DNA, Masa, Tomo and myself) and headed out at around 9am. Lots of climbing from 2300 ft back to 6500 ft but the grad was easy and I talked a lot with ‘Diesel’ about this and that. Great to be hiking with somebody again. Time flies by and he is fast. We easily average above 3 miles/hour. We find a great camp spot overlooking a wide valley and Mt Lassen in the background. The guidebook warns that this spot is often visited by drunken, gun toting characters - but they are absent today.
13. July 2003 — Day 79 - Humbolt Road to Hwy 36 (Chester) - mile 1330
We (Diesel & I) were flying this morning, drawn to town I guess. Had done 20 miles by 1pm in the heat. On the way to the Hwy we past a parked car with a kajac on the roof about 1.5 miles before the Hwy. We had quite a difficult time to get a hitch, everybody is going by at 55 miles/hour and won’t stop for some smelly hikers. Then we saw the car with the kajac go by in our direction. The girl behind the wheel didn’t stop. Damn. Another 10 mins later the same car came back and the girl shouted ‘A sec’ so we waited. She turned the car around. Her name was Liz and she was up there for the weekend. She dropped us off at the gas station near the supermarket. We got something to drink and tried our luck at the first motel but nobody answered the door. Searched around a bit, got a room at a small place off the Hwy. They showed Star Wars Episode II on HBO so we just went to Subways, got a foot long sandwich each, then to the supermarket, got drinks and fruit there and after that kicked back at the motel watching the movie. Nice and relaxing. After the movie, I had to stitch up my backpack, a few seams started to rip. That was it for the day.
14. July 2003 — Day 80 - Hwy 36 (Chester) to Warner Valley Campground - mile 1350
Slept till nearly 6am - nice. Went for breakfast at the ‘Kopper Kettle’ and Diesel ordered a stack(3)pancakes and our waitress said they were pretty big and if he would prefer to have 2. She apparently wasn’t familiar with hiker appetites, we thought. But when the pancakes arrived, they were huge - you could not see the big plate the were on. Diesel managed about 80% - I guess he is not ready for the pancake challenge in Seiad Valley. Went grocery shopping and then headed out of town. Started walking down the road. When we passed a hardware store, Diesel just walked up to an older couple in the parking lot. They were not going in our direction but we pleaded. They agreed to drive us up 8 miles to the trail. Thanks Lee & Luise. Started hiking at noon. Did quick 18 miles to
Drakesbad Guest Ranch which we’d heard mixed reports about. We were just about to go in and ask if we could get dinner there, when one of the waitresses approached us and said yeah, we could get dinner but at the moment she was busy with serving the other guests. She sent us to the pool where we could take a shower. Normally hiker dinner is just a sandwich & salad but they had left overs from dinner so we got them - shrimp, veggies with rice, ice cream and coffee for $7.50 each. A lot of the other guests were very interested in our trek so we did some promotional work before going to campground for the night.
15. July 2003 — Day 81 - Warner Valley Campground to Hat Creek Resort - mile 1373
Woke up early and started hiking some easy graded 14 miles through Lassen Volcanic National Park before our lunch break. Stopped at Badger Flat with a nice view of Mt Lassen. Did another 10 miles to reach Old Station at 3:30pm. It was hot, dusty and the last 3-4 miles were on sand which is very tiring/exhausting. Stormed the store for cold drinks, signed the register in the PO and saw that Mr Tea, Masa & Tomo were there. Mr Tea had a motel room that would sleep three, so we are sharing with him. The 5 of us went for dinner together, which was nice. Met an Austrian couple that I talked to for a while. I think we are getting spoiled too much. Third shower in 48 hours, nice dinners - but we are putting in good miles so we deserve it.
16. July 2003 — Day 82 - Hat Creek Resort to two miles before Road 36N18 - mile 1397
Relaxed start into the day. Went for breakfast (same group as last night). So Diesel and I started off along Hwy 89 at 9:30am. Instead of walking the PCT, we wanted to see what Old Station had to offer - not much. Got back to the trail and started climbing Hat Creek Rim, a 30 mile waterless stretch. Thankfully Amigo provides a water cache after 20 miles at Road 22. Had a brief stop at an outlook with nice view of Mt Lassen, Mt Shasta and at Creek Valley. Took our lunch break at 1:30pm. Both of didn’t notice that we had walked for 3 hours straight without break. Finally made it to the water cache at 5pm. It was to nice to sit down in the shade. Decided to cook there instead of carrying the water because we wanted to get a few more miles in . Walked from 6:30 until 8:30 when we finally made it down from the rim. Even though it was a long day I had trouble getting to sleep.
It was warm, mosquitoes were bugging me.