Day 80
After three zero days of rest and fun in Tahoe, where I paddled and even rented a jet ski for the first time in my life, it was time to get back on the trail from Echo Lake at mile 1093. I went through the Desolation Wilderness area and it was absolutely stunning. Beautiful, rugged, lots of lakes and I saw some bears. Seeing bears this big definitely made me feel a little uncomfortable, but I had my bear can and food safety methods to keep the bears and me safe. After walking a few more miles, I camped at mile 1111, hoping that would bring me some luck.
Day 81
As I continued the next day into the Granite Chief Wilderness, it was another beautiful section with views of Lake Tahoe. There are some sections where you walk between the lifts at a couple of different ski resorts, even though there was no snow left on the mountain. The wind started to pick up as I reached the ridge and easily reached 40 mph trying to blow me off the mountain. At the ridge I ended up slipping on a loose rock and sprained my knee, which didn’t hurt much at first, but as the miles added up it really hurt. It’s been bothering me on and off ever since. It hurts in the morning but gets better in the afternoon. I found a campsite at mile 1137 along a creek.
Day 82 and 83
The next day I continued to Donner Pass and decided to push really hard to try to get to the other side of I-80. I wasn’t going into Truckee and continued on to Peter Grubb’s cabin, which is a Sierra club cabin built in 1938, with an incredible backstory of a young Sierra club member and backpacking enthusiast who died and the cabin was memorialized in his memory. It was a great place, one of my favorite places to stay on the PCT. I installed my sleeping pad and attic, and slept very well at night.
Continuing on, the next section had the most beautiful forests. Meadows covered with grass, ferns, between pines and spruces. Lots of lakes, great views, it was really quiet. I only saw 1 or 2 hikers coming in the other direction other than that I didn’t really see many people. I found a less than ideal campground with lots of mosquitoes just past Jackson Meadows Reservoir.
Day 84
The next day was a city day, Sierra City, which is a very small town along the North Yuba River. Shortly after, I arrived at the general store and plugged in all my devices: the power went out throughout the city. The general store had a generator, but it wasn’t installed in the outdoor outlets that hikers use, so we just stayed for a while. Eventually, PG&E came out and restored power. The Sierra City general store had very good smoothies and made to order food. It was kind of a typical remote hiker resupply stop and had almost everything you needed. I left late in the afternoon, around 4pm, to hike about 7 miles to a junction on the PCT, just below the climb into the Sierra foothills. The hike from Sierra City was a hike along a ridge full of wild-looking taluses. I arrived just as the sun was setting and the cowboy camped at the junction at mile 1203. I had intentions of trying to get up before dawn for a sunrise fire lookout summit. But I felt very tired and decided to sleep in and finally left the camp around 6 in the morning to start the hour-long climb to the viewpoint. I met two other hikers who came the night before and camped at the fire lookout overnight; They were much more daring than I could bear, but enjoyed a pleasant sunrise. The Sierra Buttes overlook had some really incredible views, especially looking northwest at the next section of mountains that the PCT passes through.
Day 85
It was another really beautiful day but it was also starting to get quite hot. That, you know, there’s a cold front that’s coming through. Fortunately, being in the mountains adds a nice breeze. It’s still very hot though. Camping options were limited and I wasn’t happy with the sloping, dusty campsite I ended up at, but after 25 miles that day I didn’t want to spend another hour to the next tense location. Some days, even though we can walk through some really beautiful areas and amazing experiences like the fire lookout, you can end the day in a terrible mood, exhausted and just not feeling well. Questioning why I would want to get up and spend another day walking until I was exhausted. On top of that, my smell proof bags I was using broke, causing me to mildly panic about bears and food protection now that I had shipped my bear can home to Sierra City since it was no longer required. Fortunately, I was able to use my Garmin satellite messenger to coordinate with my girlfriend to send some replacements ahead of time. But with these small towns I wouldn’t be able to get to a town to pick it up for a week.
Day 86
The next day I began to dig into the beginnings of the burn scars from the previous year’s wildfires. They have worked hard to remove many of the fallen trees, but there are still many there and there are still more that are falling. A lot of effort goes into circling and climbing over at least 100 different trees each day. Throughout the day I continued to push myself, now that I have adopted listening to music to help me get through some of those climbs and some of those difficult days. Even with the heat and storms, I was trying to cover as much ground as possible, and I surprised myself by making it 29 miles that day and finally camped at a small creek called Bear Creek at mile 1254. I finally took off my shoes and my feet were disgustingly covered in dust. So I washed my socks in the river and even took a quick dip in the stream to wash my feet. It was cold but refreshing after a long hot day.
Day 87
The next day, up to about mile 1259. The explosions were still very, very bad and the road was extremely steep. You are trying to lift your legs over the trees along the trail at a 45 degree angle and you have to be very careful with the placement of your feet. Because if you slip, you could be going down a very steep embankment. I’m sure the PCTA is doing the best they can, but it seemed a little dangerous trying to navigate all of these obstacles safely. I had to take off my backpack several times to get over or under some of the larger obstacles. After reaching the top of the climb, it became really beautiful. The forests seem to be starting to come back to life. There is new growth with young trees, more wildflowers, and I really enjoyed the Bucks Lake area that the PCT passes through. I didn’t take the blue flame to the lake or camp because my goal was the town of Belden for my next resupply. As I entered the Bucks Lake Wilderness Area, there were even more takedowns. It’s a very interesting mix of trees that have been burned and trees that have somehow survived the burns. Everything is interwoven with each other without clear demarcation. My knee was really bothering me and the last 6 miles I limped quite a bit. But since I was walking through a completely burned area, there was no safe place to camp. Burnt dead trees are often called widowers as they can fall at any time, so it is never safe to camp among dead trees. So I had to keep going to get to an exposed ridge that had no trees, which made for a 28 mile day. To redeem the painful last few miles I got a fantastic campsite with sunset views and beautiful cell phone service.
Day 88
It was only 6 miles to get to the town of Belden the next day, and then a 1.5 mile road hike to get to my resupply stop at Caribou Crossings, where I had some warranty spare injinji socks I was hoping to pick up. Well, they were never delivered, but I was able to charge my electronics, shower, do some laundry, resupply, and get some food for the city. Including a big breakfast with French toast, a burger in the afternoon and a smoothie to top it off. After spending 8 days on the trail, you really appreciate the opportunity to cleanse yourself and fill up on all you can eat. I returned to the trail in the afternoon to do another big climb. After setting up camp, I discovered that the zipper on my tent got stuck. In mild panic, I tried to crawl under the fly and ended up stretching and tearing my tent at the zipper point. I tried my best to cover it with tape, but I’m not sure how well it will hold up. The trail always has new ways to test you. Tune in to the next post to see how the tent has held up!
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