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. 

Sat. Sept. 17        Miles today: 22.9          Total so far: 2,233.3 miles    No. CA Section N

It was not too cold last night, and the rain stopped, too, so this morning was only partly cloudy.  We got up at 5:45, but it was awfuly dark–we may need to switch to 6:00!  Wow–back at the beginning of our hike we were getting up sometimes at 4:30! 

We continued the big climb up out of Belden.  Bill had to go very slowly–he still feels weak and tired, and still doesn’t feel like eating.  But he did manage a few mouthfuls of granola and some Emer-gen-C for breakfast.  We did not have mochas today–we don’t have enough fuel. 

One nice thing was that we got OUT of the fire zone!  The forest was beautiful–very green, with shining leaves.  But the TRAIL was hard.  First, it was mostly up, sometimes steeply, which was very hard on poor sick Bill.  Second, several places were totally washed out, so that we had to scramble down into a rough gully, then scrabble up out of it.  Third, there were many springs running down the trail, and many creeks to cross, a couple of them a bit of a challenge, with roaring crek and slippery rocks.  Bill normally just zips right across such things, but now he’s as teetery as I am.

At 10:00 am we stopped for a rest and a candy bar; or I should say, I ate a candy bar.  Bill could not face eating anything, not even a bite from my Snickers.  But shortly after that, our climbing PCT came to a lovely meadow with a wonderful little sign that siad, “Welcome to the Cascade Range.”  What an encouragement!  It really cheered us up big time!  On we went, and reached Poison Spring (actually, it has EXCELLENT water!) only to find several trucks and lots of people–hunters!  Turned out that today was opening day of DEER SEASON.  Oh boy.  From that point on it was hunters and more hunters.  We met a couple of local ranchers out hunting on horseback, and saw lots of guys who just drive their pickups along the logging roads, looking for a deer to shoot.  We met one hunter on foot, and he was quick to give his opinion on the subject.  “Road hunters!” he said in disgust.  “That’s NOT hunting.”  He wished us well on our PCT trek, and we wished him a big fat buck.  “Oh, it’s all right if I don’t get one,” he told us.  “What I’m doing now is just getting myself in shape for the REAL thing– ELK hunting.  Now THAT’S hunting!”

AT lunchtime, I cooked over a tiny twig fire, to save on fuel.  Bill was able to eat a little, plus he drank some lemonade.  He says he is slowly feeling better.  Not long after that, we reached the top of our climb–hurray!  Most of our afternoon walking was through forest, some of which was being selectively harvested, which we think is a great idea.  The trees have different colored bands and spots marked on them.  We reached Cold Spring and took on enough water to last 24 miles!  Hunters were driving by as we collected the water.  We haven’t been hearing gunshots much.  I guess the deer all went into hiding.

After Cold Spring, we were into “volcanic country”, with many lava formations.  Eagle Rock was a large one, but all along the trail there were interesting smaller ones with rock plants growing on them.  At Humboldt Summit, there was a large hunter camp with big oldfashioned canvas tent, cookstove, and a lot of frustrated hunters who’d been out all day and not even SEEN a deer.  We talked to them a bit, and  one guy kept asking, “Where’d you park your car?”  No matter how much we tried to explain to him that our car was at home, and we’d walked up from Mexico, he just didn’t get it.

From there, the PCT comfortably cruised along the crest, and when the sun was almost down we stopped to camp in a “research area.”  We stopped there because it was obvious that researchers camped in that spot, so it was a KNOWN campsite where Bill and I were (hopefully) less likely to be mistaken for deer!  It was a cold, gray, overcast evening, so we put up the tarp.  I was very grateful that we didn’t have to stop early, and that Bill was able to hike all day, even though he did hike very slowly.