Thurs. Sept. 22   Miles today: 23.7      Total so far: 2,333.5    Miles to go: 306.1     No. CA Section N

The cricket serenade last night did a great job–we both had a very good night’s sleep on our perch high above the Hat Creek Valley, by the old fire lookout.  It turned out to be a beautiful morning–not cold–with plenty of moonlight to make getting up easy.  As we began our hike, we met the first of several groups of Black Angus cows.  I guess none of them like hikers, because they ran for it as soon as they spotted us!  The morning light on the mountains was beautiful, especially on Mt. Shasta.  When we “skipped up” to Ashland back in June, I was looking at Mt. Shasta and saying, “We’ll be back!”  And now we are!  Whenever we feel tired and our feet are hurting, all we have to do is look ahead at Shasta and say, “Here we come!  We are almost there!” 

By breakfast time, we had easily covered the 3 miles to PCT-famous “Cache 22”, a water cache hidden near Forest Road 22.  We had a great breakfast, with entertainment provided by stories from the notebook at the cache.  “Papa Amigo”, who provides the cache, left a note saying, “You don’t need to thank me for the water–I know you’re thankful!  Instead, please write one of your ‘trail tales’ for my son Luke.  He loves hearing them.”  So the notebook was full of great stories, and we added one of our own, about when we were lost and then found in the Three Sisters Wilderness.  We looked for stories by other hikers we knew, and were delighted to find one from Josh & Anna about how they totally ran out of food in the High Sierras and were delighted to find a FOOD cache along the trail.  Even though the food had obviously been “done over” by rodents, Anna said she didn’t care–she was too hungry to fuss about the mess.  Whew! 

Then it was time to head out again, and I made sure my pack was done up in “deer season” mode, with my red bandanna lashed across the top.  I was determined NOT to be mistaken for a deer!  After Cache 22, the PCT sometimes goes away from the Rim, but when it does, there are great views to the east, and also a lot of walking through what looks an awful lot like African savannah.  Even the juniper trees grew in odd, Africanesque shapes.  But finally the trail came back to the Rim and stayed there, with a wonderful view back south toward Mt. Lassen.

Finally the trail began to come down off its Rim perch and travel through an old lava flow area that was very tough on our feet, but otherwise fascinating.  There were caves and pits and all different colors of lava. The black lava looked the “newest.”  Poor Bill’s feet hurt so much from the lumpy lava that where the PCT parallels the highway, he left the trail and walked the road instead.  I stayed with the trail because I was worried that if the trail went “sneaking” across the road (as it often does), we might miss it.  But it turned out I need not have worried.  THIS road crossing was very blatant–painted footprints leading right across the pavement!  We cheered, and headed on through a mixed pine and oak forest till we finally reached the creek we’d been walking towards for 30 miles–Rock Creek!  Here we hesitated.  The guidebook said that there’d been a question as to whether the water was safe to drink, even though it came from a nearby spring.  We looked at it and it looked a bit iffy.  In the end, Bill just took a little for washing his feet and we walked on, admiring the fall foliage near the creek.

The PCT then went right past a still-functioning 1920’s PG &E hydroelectric powerhouse.  When I stopped to take a picture of the modern PG & E truck with the OLD powerhouse, one of the workers came out and asked if we were PCT hikers, and before we knew it, they were giving us all the water we needed, plus a bag of tomatoes and lemon cucumbers from one of the guys’ gardens!  We talked to them awhile, then went on, past the fish hatchery, where the tanks are well-netted to protect the fish from the birds, and on to Baum Lake, where there are LOTS of ducks and geese (no wonder they have to protect the fish!).  The water in the lake comes both from the hatchery and the powerplant.   It’s a pretty lake, and the trail follows the shore for awhile, then it was up the hill and back in the forest, wehre I enjoyed seeing the oak tree leaves turning bright reds and yellows. 

For supper we ate all the tomatoes and cukes and some sandwiches.  It was so good!  If we were back home instead of hiking, we’d be feasting on garden produce like this every day! But this hike has been so fantastic, I would not trade it for anything!  Bill said he was feeling a bit better today, and he was actually able to enjoy eating instead of just choking things down.  He also was able to hike a little bit faster as well, though still not up to his usual speed.  We walked on till we were 3 miles from Burney Falls State Park and stopped early to camp, ’cause we prefer camping out in the woods.  If we kept going, we’d end up having to camp in a noisy campground, AND we’d have to pay for it!  Instead, we got a beautiful campsite in a grove of oak trees that were all turning gorgeous fall colors.  Their fallen leaves plus pine needles from the pine trees made a soft carpet for our ground cloth, and the crickets were singing again.  I looked at our miles for today and was very pleased that even though we weren’t hiking “full speed” and had stopped early, we almost got 24 miles in.  Shasta, here we come!

Wed. Sept. 21   Miles today: 18.1   Total so far: 2,309.8    Miles to go: 329.8     No. CA Section N

Bill and I had a very restful night sleeping on the folding camp cots in the incredible treehouse at the Heitman’s.  At very first light, the rooster next door started crowing, and I decided to get up and do some writing to make up for the computer frustration yesterday.  So I tiptoed into the Heitman’s house and sat down at the dining room table to write and eat some yogurt.  By 7:00, Georgi had coffee going, and  we had a very fun conversation about “fiber arts.”  I had been admiring her spinning and weaving, and was wondering if she ever dyed her own yarn.  Oh yes!  She showed me some more of her work–beautiful colors!  I also have spent a lot of time dyeing (FABRICS, in my case–silk and nylon for dance costumes), so we had fun talking over some of our “dyeing adventures.” 

Breakfast was fabulous, and I ate LOTS of French toast, bacon and fruit.  I LOVE thru-hiking!  I can eat as much as I want!  Then I worked on some lastminute details, till we were packed and ready to go (after a round of picture-taking!).  Georgi and Dennis welcomed, warmed and fed us, and we are very, very grateful!  Georgi dropped us off near the PCT at about 10:30.  It was a pleasant, warm, breezy morning, and we had a final round of hugs and best wishes before Bill and I set off.

We were hiking happily along the PCT, through the forest, so glad to be back on the trail, and with only a bit over 300 miles to go–until we heard several gunshots off to our right.  Oh rats, that’s right! It was hunting season!  We had totally forgotten about it while we were at the Heitmans.   So we stopped and prayed for God’s protection for US and good success for the HUNTERS.

Near the famous Subway Cave, there was a cute sign by the PCT which said, “Water at Cave.”  Since it was almost 12 noon, we turned off and walked to the Cave picnic area to cook lunch and then replenish our water supply for the long, dry haul ahead.  The picnic area is great–it’s a very pretty, peaceful, pine-treed park, and Bill lay down to rest for awhile on the soft pineneedle duff.  He said his stomach feels OK, but the rest of him does NOT–he says he just feels completely tired out/exhausted, all the time, not just at the end of the day.  But tired or not, eventually he had to get up, and we went back to the trail.

Not too long after that came several hundred feet of elevation gain climbing up to the Hat Creek Rim.  Most of the trail up was an abandoned old road, very rough and rocky.  Bill had to stop and rest partway up–climbing seems to be really hard on him.  But finally we were high enough to have great views–wow!  Shasta to the north and Lassen to the south…but the Lassen view made us say, “Oh, no!”  There was forest fire smoke rising into the sky out to the west of Mt. Lassen!  We were glad that the smoke was BEHIND us, but sad to think of more blackened forest. Sigh.

The farther we went along the Rim, the better the views became.  Mt. Lassen stood majesticaly to the south, and Mt. Shasta, crowned with cloud as usual, stood to the north.  We were mostly walking through a forest fire zone, but it was recovering very well, and the young pine trees were already a bit taller than I am.  We also had to walk around a huge canyon that cuts way back into the edge of the Rim.  The afternoon continued very pleasant and breezy–excellent hiking weather!  We had a nice supper, then pushed on to the former fire lookout site, where we set up camp–no tarp tonight!  We wanted to enjoy the gorgeous sunset.  We were serenaded to sleep by crickets singing and an owl hooting.  It was a good place to be!