Tues. Sept. 13         Miles today: 28.6        Total so far: 2,157.6 miles       No. CA Section M

It was VERY cold last night!  I should have worn TWO pairs of socks, since we were camped at almost 7,000 feet.  It was so cold that Ihad trouble sleeping till I snuggled up next to Bill.  He is like a hot water bottle–I can feel it even through his sleeping bag AND mine.  We got up at 5:35, in the dark–I was barely able to see the trail when we started hiking.  But soon the rose-and-gold of sunrise colored everything.  We were still seeing a lot of lakes below–they were like blue crystals touched with sunrise, set in silver gray granite.  Beautiful!  We went through a couple of forest areas that seemed to be mostly mountain hemlock, and they were “deep and dark” for sure!

We walked and walked, hoping to reach water before breakfast, but by 8:00, we were both so hungry that we said, “Phooey!  Let’s have breakfast NOW!”  We used up all the water we had to pull it off, but not to worry-a little while later we were at the “A” Tree Spring, a wonderful spring with a pipe driven into it so that the water came out like a faucet.  It was easy to fill our platypuses and water bottles for the 24 waterless miles ahead.  We also looked at our stove fuel level–very low–and we hoped we had enough to reach Belden.

By 10 am, it was still only 45 degrees!  BRRR.  We passed by impressive volcanic rock formations–the biggest one is called “Gibraltar” and for good reason!  The PCT actually wanders around in order to “visit” these.  We also did a lot of climbing gravelly hillsides through dry mule’s ears plants.  When we do that, there are also a lot of grasshoppers trying to get out of our way.  They don’t steer very well when they’re trying to “fly”, and I’ve had a lot of them crash into my glasses!  But as the weather has turned colder, there are fewer of them, which is a relief in one other way, too–less of “Yikes!  Was that noise a rattlesnake buzz, or a grasshopper trying to fly?”  The two sounds are very similar. 

As to wildflowers–they are almost all dried up now, except for a few determined spots of color here and there.  It’s also harvest time for the squirrels–they are feasting on pine seeds.  Under every tree are “pine cone cores”, stripped by the squirresl, and bright piles of fresh pine cone scales.  Bill was worried about the little rascals raiding OUR food bags when we hang them in a tree at night, but I figure they’re too stuffed with pine nuts and seeds to bother with our trail snacks!

The basic pattern of the PCT for most of today was to climb up to the top of a ridge, then follow the ridge, then go down into a canyon–over and over again.  There were some fairly steep ups and downs in all this, but on the ridgetops, I began to catch glimpses of Mt. Lassen in the distance.  Hurrah! 

We found a nice campsite for tonight at only 5,500 feet, in the forest, very peaceful and quiet.  After all the windiness we’ve had to deal with lately, I REALLY appreciate this quietness!