Wed., Sept. 27     Miles today: 22.3      Total so far: 2,455.9     Miles to go: 183.9      No. CA Section P

We woke up to a beautiful, cool, breezy morning, with almost all of yesterday’s forest fire smoke gone.  And our campsite on a very dramatic-looking, rocky ridge also had a great view of Mt. Shasta, so we got to see it in the glow of pre-sunrise light.  Gorgeous!  We hiked for awhile before stopping for breakfast, and I became concerned, because Bill was just dragging along.  He said he felt very tired and somewhat sick.  “Oh no!” I thought.  “Yesterday was a good day, so I guess we’re still in the good day/bad day pattern.”   But he did manage to eat all of his breakfast, which today included some Fruit Loops in the granola.  For the last couple of resupplies, I’ve started buying those packages of cereal where you get a whole bunch of little cereal boxes instead of one big one, and adding the contents of the little ones to our granola.  The granola amounts that seemed quite adequate a few months ago when we were at home are nowhere near enough for us now.  We eat up our whole serving and joke, “That was a nice appetizer–when’s breakfast?”  So I was encouraged by the fact that Bill could eat his whole breakfast.

But the encouragement didn’t last long.  We put on our packs and headed out on the nice, easy trail.  Bill was still draggy, and then he was draggier, down to a very slow plod.  After only 20 minutes of walking, he said he was tired and needed to rest!  So we did–a long rest, with Bill more or less collapsed.  Then we started out again, but after only a half hour,  Bill said, “Find a campsite.  We’re stopping here.  I can’t go any farther.”  He said he felt very weak, sick and nauseous.  I was horrified.  We had a long way to go before reaching our next resupply at Seiad Valley, and we were not carrying enough food to be able to stop and camp all day on the trail.  We would run out of food long before Seiad if we stopped.  So I said, “OK, I can go scout for a campsite–BUT as soon as you are able, we’ll have to turn around and go back to Castella and get more food, and then we’ll have to do that killer climb out of Castella all over again.  We don’t have enough food to CAMP on, only enough to keep HIKING on.”  And I offered to carry ALL our food myself so that Bill’s pack would be lighter.  Bill thought it over and decided maybe after resting some more, he could go on. 

While he was lying down, I took his food bag and managed to fit all of its contents except for some candy bars and a box of crackers into my pack.  My poor pack was absolutely crammed as full as it could possibly be, and it was so heavy that I had quite a struggle to lift it and put it on.  But at least Bill’s pack was WAY lighter, and I hoped he could manage to carry it.  Bill was so wiped out that even without a pack on, he had a hard time just getting back on his feet.  He struggled even to stand up.

For the rest of the day, what we did was stop often for Bill to rest, but at least he was able to keep moving.  And what really helped was how nice and easy the trail was.  Man, it was frustrating to be moving so slowly on a trail where normally we could just FLY!  But the easy trail really helped Bill.  When we got to a water source, sometimes he would lie down while I got water, and sometimes he would just keep slowly plodding on, and I would catch up with him.  I was feeling very upset and perplexed, though.  What was wrong with Bill?  Why was he sick one day and better the next?  Then I started looking at how painfully thin he had become.  He looked like somebody who had just come out of the WW 2 death camps.  Could it be that his calorie deficit had reached the point where his body was just collapsing?  I’d heard of a number of thruhikers (all guys; girls don’t seem to have this problem–our bodies hang on to their fat reserve!) who literally had to quit the trail because they were too weak to go on.  After today, we would have only a week of hiking till we reached Ashland.  To stop now would just be awful. 

I had no clue how to help Bill except to pray like crazy, carry as much of his packweight as I could, and try to coax him to eat as much as he could.  And my prayers weren’t just for Bill, but also for me, because I was feeling so frustrated–and so sore-shouldered!  It was hard for me to walk with so much weight.  I felt very top-heavy and “tippy”, and was VERY glad of the help of my trek poles for keeping my balance!  But there was one benefit of Bill going so slowly–I had more time to take pictures.  One was of a mountainside that looked just like a pillow.  Others were of the many little plants and ferns by the trail that were turning autumn colors, and even some wildflowers!  And of course, there were continual awesome views of Mt. Shasta!  We also passed several lakes, including Toad Lake, which was very pretty, despite the name.  But in the end, it got to be lunchtime, and my heart sank when I looked at our mileage.  It had taken us the whole morning just to do 8 miles.  Our food is based on covering at least 22 miles a day, so that meant we were at least 3 miles “behind.”  However,  we had managed to reach the highest point of Section P–7,620 feet elevation, on a very rocky ridge. 

Bill said he just could not face food, and felt nauseous, but I did persuade him to eat a couple of cookies.  And I worried.  The info I had from hikers who’d had to quit the trail was that one of the symptoms (ironically) of severe calorie deficit is nausea.  I ended up eating the lunch food myself.  I was HUNGRY!  I wished very fervently that Bill could eat, too.

After lunch, hooray, the trail headed DOWNhill!  Looking back, we had a very dramatic view of the jagged rocks of the ridge with Mt. Shasta (clad in gray & white) right behind.  And Bill was GREATLY helped by the downhill.  As before, he said, “I just let gravity take me down”, and he really picked up speed, in fact so much speed that with my superheavy pack, I could not keep up.  I had been experimenting, and found that if I cinched my waistbelt REALLY tight, it helped my shoulders, but my ankles and feet were not happy hikers.  I also had to be very careful on the rocky trail because I was so top-heavy.  But I managed, and was very cheered to see the miles begin to tick off again.

At one point in the afternoon, we crossed a road where there was a great view down, WAY down into the valley where the town of Yreka is located, then if you turned and looked the other way, you could see the very forested valley of the Trinity River, where we could hear loggers at work.  The PCT circles around the head of the valley, nicely contouring, which was great for Bill–he was able to walk right along.  And at supper (thankyou, Lord!) he said he was feeling better, and he ate his whole share.  He’d been talking about stopping early to camp because he felt so weak, but at supper he said he could go on–and off he went, at a great pace!  I could not keep up with him at all, because of my extremely heavy load, and soon he was totally out of sight.  When he finally did stop (some time later) and I finally caught up with him, it was about our normal stopping time anyway.  Bill was sitting by a bush with plump, dark blue berries, and wondering if they were edible.  That was a promising sign–maybe he would be all right!

We camped by very dry Chilcoot Creek, and I was so glad when I did the “mileage math” that somehow, by God’s grace, we had managed to make our 22 mile quota.  And I prayed very fervently that Bill would feel better tomorrow AND the next day, too.

Tues. Sept. 27      Miles today: 23.7     Total so far: 2,432.7      Miles to go: 206.2     No. CA Section P

Bill and I slept very well last night!  It was a pleasant night, not cold at all, and we were very comfortable.  Bill wanted to wait till a little later to get up, so it was 6:30 before we left our sleeping bags, packed up, and then (very civilized, indeed!) we ate breakfast at the TABLE of the hiker campsite.  It was our usual granola, but with the addition of some V-8 Juice to drink.  But when we went to put on our packs, you should have heard the groans and moans!  We had FULL loads of water (because the guidebook said it was over 22 miles to the next reliable water source) and SEVEN days of food.  Oh man–I could hardly even lift my pack to put it on.  I told myself, “Too bad, so sad–and it won’t be this heavy once we drink the water and eat the food!”

We had a bit of trouble finding the PCT, but in the end, there it was, just running a nice level course through the forest.  We couldn’t see Castle Crags at all.  But we walked along saying, “On to Seiad Valley, and we’re almost done!”  Then surprise!  We began to run into FLOWING creeks, which this time of year is very unusual.  We crossed one after another, saying, “Murphy’s Law–when you carry lots of water, you will find lots of water.”  Oh well.  And at last we began to see the Crags again.  At first the jagged peaks were just visible above the treetops, but as we circled to the west of them, the views became more and more stunning.  We were amazed to find even MORE creeks!  What a contrast to Section O, where a lot of the “creeks” were dried up.  The creeks here in section P are sliding over slabs of smooth granitic rock, which is very hard and very slippery.  We had to be careful when we crossed them!

The PCT climbs and switchbacks steadily up right alongside the Crags.  We felt as if we were in the High Sierra again, with heavy packs, rocky trail and awesome views.  And thankyou, Lord, Bill was having a “good” day today.  He was able to climb steadily, without plodding and having to stop a lot.  In fact, he was doing better than I was! Because I was worried about his health, when I loaded the food bags, I gave myself a lot more weight to carry than I gave him, so I was actually carrying a heavier pack.  Not only that, but it had turned into a very warm, sunny day, and I never do well on big uphills when it’s hot.  So this morning, it was ME who had to ask a couple of times, “Could we stop a minute so I can rest?”  Actually, till about 11:00 in the morning, there was a little cloud holding steady overhead, which was just big enough to block the sun.  I started calling it “God’s umbrella” because it didn’t blow away, and boy, was I grateful to have it there!  Once it finally did blow away, it got HOT on the trail!

We climbed and climbed all morning and into the afternoon.  One of the springs we came across was still running and it had a whole “grove” of pitcher plants growing around it.  I had never seen anything like it, and had to stop and do some “ooh and aah”-ing.  I also saw the leaves of many, many Douglas Iris plants, which  also surprised me because I didn’t know they grew up here. 

The PCT finally turned to the west and away from Castle Crags, but that just made for more awesome views as we looked back!  To be honest, I think that the SOBOs on the PCT have it better in this part of Section P, because the Crags are ahead of them instead of behind them.  AND they can see Mt. Shasta, too, while we NOBOs have to turn around to see any of it.  Finally we began a 3 mile westward crest walk toward the Trinity Divide, which separates the Sacramento and Trinity River drainages.  The air looked and smelled rather smoky, so we figured there must be a forest fire somewhere.  Down below us, looking lovely in the early evening light, were a number of pretty lakes.  We pushed on till we reached the Divide, thought about camping there, but Bill said (hooray!  Thankyou, Lord!) that he felt OK and could go on a bit. 

So we did mush on, and finally ended up in a tiny campsite on a ridge near the trail.  Oh, boy, did it feel good to lie down!  Our poor feet were SO tired from the constant climbing, heavy packs and rocky trail.  But it was a beautiful night–clear, pleasant, and calm, with a skyfull of stars.