Mon. Sept. 19             Miles today: 22.3        Total so far: 2,280.9      Miles to go: 358.7        No. CA Sect. N

Brrrr, again!  It was cold last night!  We stayed well-burrowed into our sleeping bags!  This morning, Bill was still not feeling well.  He said he felt so tired he’d just like to stay in bed all day, but we have to keep going, so he dragged himself up and off we went, but walking slowly.  Still, it didn’t take long to reach the Feather River, where Bill collected some water for himself, and I admired the engineering on the beautifully made bridge–a strong but graceful steel arch (all one piece) supports the bridge over the roaring river. 

Then came a climb up above the valley, where we got a great view of Stump Ranch meadow.  (What’s with the place names around here?  STUMP Ranch?  BUTT Mountain?  Odd names for very pretty places!)  Not far below where we ate breakfast (and Bill did manage to eat a bit, hurray!) a hunter truck drove up and parked, and a little while after we left, we heard a rifle shot.  Hope he got his deer!  I have to admit, every time I hear the hunter gunshots, I pray something like this: “Lord, please help that shot go where it’s supposed to, so that hunter will be able to go HOME and not be running around in the woods where we are hiking!”

Some more climbing brought us to the border of Lassen National Park.  I had been expecting some nicely made sign like all the ones we’ve seen for “Entering XYZ Wilderness”, but no–there was just a faded old orange card nailed to a tree!  The PCT guidebook warned that Lassen trails tend to be the oldfashioned kind that just go from Point A to Point B without any contouring or modern “finesse”.  No kidding!  Almost immediately, we were climbing straight up the mountain.  It was very hard on Bill, who was really dragging, and at our 10 am rest break,he just collapsed and would not eat a snack.  But maybe that was partly because of the lovely “rotten eggs” smell coming from the Terminal Geyser nearby.  I still scarfed up my Snickers, but eau de sulfur does NOT help your appetite! 

A bit more hiking got us to Cold Boiling Lake with its warning sign.  We’ve been here before and we “know the drill” for safety in geothermal areas.  The lake has not changed–it still stinks of sulfur and it’s a weird pale green color, surrounded by fumaroles, bubbling, boiling mudpots, etc.  Very, very interesting stuff!  I’m glad we were here before, so we’ve had plenty of time to enjoy the sights (and smells!) of this amazing area.  Today we just needed to keep going.  At the far end of the lake, windblown fumes had discolored the ground and hardly anything will grow there.  A bit more walking took us near Drakesbad Guest Ranch, and that’s when we discovered that somebody changed all the trails around.  It used to be that you could just walk straight over to the Ranch, but now, to protect the meadow,  the new trail takes you a LONG, long way around, above the meadow and down to the picnic area.  Then, and only then, can you walk BACK to the Ranch on the road.  Well, we did that little roadwalk so we could buy a soda for Bill.  His stomach was feeling very upset and making him uncomfortable and downright miserable.  It’s been our experience that the fizz in a soda is good for upset stomachs, and it proved true again.  After slowly sipping the soda, Bill said he felt much better.

The Ranch is a fun place.  We enjoyed the PCT sign on the wall of the dining hall.  It shows that basically, you are a bit over halfway between Mexico and Canada when you reach Drakesbad!  The people at Drakesbad are supernice.  They were busy getting lunch ready–lots of salads, yum!  If Bill had not been feeling sick, we would have asked if we could have some lunch with the guests.  But instead, we walked back to the picnic area, where I had to mend my pack’s sternum strap, which had suddenly popped off, and we had a plain chicken and rice freezedried lunch for the sake of Bill’s uneasy stomach.  After lunch, he was so wiped out that he just lay down on one of the picnic tables for awhile.  I had fun talking to a couple who were very interested in what we were doing.  After over an hour of lying on the picnic table, Bill decided he could manage to go on. 

As we headed out of the picnic area, I cheered about a VERY nice sign there which actually told which way to go in order to follow the PCT!  Man, I wish they would have more of those signs!  But from this point on, Bill and I didn’t need any more PCT signs–we had “come home to Lassen.”  This is where we first learned to backpack, and we’ve been here so often that we pretty much know all the trails in the park.  Up the Flatiron Ridge we went, then down into Grassy Swale with its fun boardwalks.  Bill was feeling better after his long nap, and at 3:30 when we stopped for a rest, he totally surprised me by eating a whole Snickers bar.  (Our “standard snack” is a Snickers bar each).  But he soon regretted what he’d done–his stomach rebelled, and we were back to slow hiking.  Poor Bill–even at home sometimes his stomach gives him fits.  I’m afraid I don’t have that problem–I must be part hobbit; for me, food is always welcome; bring it on!

Slow hiking has one benefit, though–I had lots more time to look at things, and I especially enjoyed the silver-leaved lupines that are such a beautiful part of the Lassen backcountry.  The very first backpack trip we ever did was in August of 1982, and the lupines were in full bloom.  Gorgeous!  But this was 2005, and it was September.  Oh well–even lupine leaves are pretty!  But as we hiked on, things got ugly.  Obviously there had been a forest fire, and it had either totally burned or at least scorched a large area around Swan Lake (a very pretty lake; we’ve camped there before) and the Lower Twin Lake.  Very depressing.  We still got water at Twin Lake and hiked on till we reached a junction where we had to decide which way to go:  1) Official PCT (one mile longer, no water, no views except dry forest, BUT level or downhill all the way)  versus  2) Cluster Lakes trail (lots of water, lovely lakes, 1 mile shorter, BUT lots of climbing and rocky, rough trail).  I told Bill that since he was not feeling well, he should choose, and he chose the official PCT because hills are so hard for him.

So off we went, and actually, the dry forest trail was pretty in its own way.  We came to where summer work crews had cleared the flammable debris from the forest floor and made big burn piles.  Great!  We saw them doing that last summer, farther along the PCT.  On we went, and saw where they’d burned some of last year’s piles.  All looked fine.  But not much farther on, it was NOT fine anymore.  The trail became surrounded with miles of blackened, devastated “forest fire zone.”  We were shocked.  When we walked this very section last summer, all was healthy forest.  (We found out later that the fire was a “controlled burn” that got totally OUT of control)  Sigh. 

We kept on walking till sundown, still surrounded by blackened forest.  There was nowhere to camp except right on the trail–everywhere else was full of blackened bits of burned debris.  Oof, the trail is HARD ground to lie on, and it was a very cold night.  Bill and I were both very sad to see our beloved Lassen Park looking so trashed.  I prayed a lot for Bill, hoping he would sleep well and be able to feel better tomorrow.

Sun. Sept. 18      Miles today: 25.3          Total so far: 2,258.6        No. CA Section N        Miles to go: 381!

Brrr!  It was COLD last night!  And very windy, too!  I was hoping the wind would blow away the clouds–and it did! It was a beautiful clear morning, and an almost-full moon made getting up easy.  A little while after we started walking, we heard a gunshot–hope it was on target!  When we stopped for breakfast, Bill was able to eat all of his without having to choke it down.  He saai he was feeling better, and he was certainly able to hike a bit faster today.  We heard more gunshots as we did the big circumnavigation of the Ruffa Ranch valley and began to climb Butt Mountain.  It has an ugly name, but fabulous views of Mt. Lassen, and far to the west we could se the Sacramento Valley.  To the south was big, blue Lake Almanor.  Wow!

We finally reached the summit, and even though it was 9:30 am, there was still frost on the plants, and Bill and I were still in our woolies.  Brrrr.  Then came the descent, and that was a challenge!  The trail was so overgrown, especially with the tall kind of manzanita, that we had to push and bully our way through the tough branches.  Ow!  I don’t know how the hikers in shorts can handle this.  I love my long pants–I wouldn’t want MY legs all scraped and scratched.  We were a little worried, though, because tall manzanita is a favorite place for deer to hide, and we hoped NOT to be mistaken for deer!  Bill has a RED pack, so he was sort of OK.  I tied my red bandana on top of my pack, and we did some praying for God’s protection from over zealous, trigger-happy hunters!  We are not down on hunters–we think that what they do is just fine–but sometimes an inexperienced hunter can make mistakes.  We don’t want to be a part of anyone’s mistakes!

We finally reached our next water supply at Soldier Creek, a wonderful, clean, cold spring.  And what was really fun, somebody had made a mini-waterwheel that when it’s properly rigged, will run off the spring flow.  Very cute!  A long, dusty forest walk after that took us to Hwy. 36, whizzing with cars and trucks.  Technically, this is the halfway point on a Mexico-Canada hike, and lots of thruhikers hitch-hike from here into the town of Chester to celebrate.  But we just plain wanted to finish, and celebrate THEN!  So we scurried across the highway and began walking through a very pretty forest. 

But the afternoon was quite warm, and Bill started fading fast in the heat.  He was very tired and said his stomach was upset and he needed to walk slowly.  So we strolled along toward Stover Spring.  Along the way we passed what’s left (a ditch) of a water delivery system built in the 1870’s to bring water down for hydraulic mining.  Amazing that it is still there!

Stover Spring area had many campers–all hunters.  We passed it by and headed for the climb up Stover Mountain.  It’s not a steep climb–very easy going–which was good, because poor Bill was really dragging.  He did manage to eat a little bit of supper, though, and we began going down toward the Feather River.  I hoped that the downhill would help Bill hike, but at 6:30, Bill sat down and said, “I can’t go on.  I feel awful.”  So (feeling very frustrated, because I’d hoped Bill would be on the mend, not relapsing) I scouted around for a campsite.  When I found one, Bill went straight into his sleeping bag, looking very pale and sick. 

Since it was so early, I had time to read the Bible for awhile, and I asked the Lord for some encouragement.  And He reminded me of the Scripture song (based on Isaiah 40:31) that says, “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles.  They shall run and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint–teach me, Lord, teach me, Lord to WAIT.”  I asked the Lord to help me trust Him and not be impatient OR anxious about Bill, and about whether we could finish our PCT hike in time.