Day 50
Old Station
After yesterday’s slog and last night’s incredible cold, it was hard to get out of bed this morning. The condensation in our tent and on our quilts had frozen into ice, and my shoes, gaiters, and socks from yesterday were frozen solid. Still, I didn’t want to hold up the others nor did I want to posthole the remaining 7.5 miles out of Lassen, so I forced my frozen foot coverings on and we hit the trail. The section near where we camped was gorgeous, but it was made all the more enjoyable by the solidly frozen snow and the early morning light. The nearby ranger’s cabin was still partially buried in snow and there were rabbit and deer tracks everywhere, but no further signs of bears. We crossed a few large snowfields with awesome views of Lassen Peak, and we managed to keep our feet dry for the few unmarked creek crossings we encountered which were no doubt exacerbated by the snowmelt. A few miles in, the snow broke up and we were able to return to flying down the trail. We did have to scoot around a few bogs towards the end, but we made it out of Lassen!
From the boundary sign on, the trail was completely snow free and easygoing. We passed through another large burn scar remnant of the Dixie Fire before descending into a dense pine forest, filled with blooming manzanitas. From there, we continued on the dusty pine duff trail until we arrived at Hat Creek Resort where we stopped in for ice cream and to dry our tent. A local monk chatted with us about the trail for a bit and expressed that he wanted his monastery to host hikers this season! We then packed up and hiked the remaining few miles into Old Station at mile 1378.8 where we set up for the night behind the Old Station Fill Up. The new owner of JJ’s Cafe gave us the lowdown on showers and laundry, so we finally washed up and enjoyed hot food from the store. Despite being pretty cooked from yesterday, we still clocked a little over 20 miles today! That being said, we’re probably sleeping in tomorrow for pancakes!
Day 51
Our first view of Mt. Shasta!
Knowing that JJ’s served an awesome breakfast, we slept in a bit and then ended up being the first customers of the day at the restaurant. I had some monster pancakes and enjoyed the brief feeling of being totally clean for once. The laundry has to be the best we have encountered on trail so far! After our feast, we made our way over to Subway Tunnel, a massive lava tube from Lassen, where we explored for a bit before hitting the trail. At the Hat Creek Overlook, we chatted with a local named Boots who told us a bit about what the area was like before the fire, and informed us that he normally fed hikers breakfast but that we were a bit early in the season.
After we chatted with him a bit, we continued on, just following the edge of a cliff while the sky clouded up and the wind picked up. We continued on like this for a while until the wind became quite obnoxious, with the odd gust or exposed area just about blowing us over! It was around this time that we also met two German women who were thru-hiking but who had flipped up to Dunsmuir and were heading south to Chester before flipping back down to Kennedy Meadows South. We traded trail conditions info, and learned sadly that they had been absolutely annihilated by mosquitoes in the area we were headed towards. We then pushed on, stopping to fill out a practically empty trail register until I ran out of steam. We camped at mile 1396.9, and had a hell of a time getting the stakes into the rocky volcanic soil. With our extended corner stays, we were able to rock pitch the bad corner and the wind side guy lines. I’m still dirt tired and beat up from Lassen and my pad leaking last night. I’m hoping it was a fluke and that I can get some decent sleep tonight!
Day 52
The Sculpture Garden
The wind kept up most of the night, only tapering slightly in the early morning, but also being accompanied by slightly warmer, more humid air. Between the warmer temperature and my deflating pad, I slept terrible. Since we were expecting rain, we woke up a bit earlier than normal to try and beat the rain. Unfortunately though, it hit us early while we were packing up, soaking some of our gear. Tragically, while we were packing the tent, the second zipper door failed as well, rendering both of our doors inoperable… Anna and Imi still had a few things to pack up and I’ve always been the slowest of our little crew, so they sent me on ahead to start hiking. I was pretty sleepy and my stomach hurt, so I sort of just zoned out in the rain for a while. I passed a few random cows and the rain picked up, and at some point I realized that the girls should have caught up to me by now. We had discussed potentially road walking if the weather was bad, so I tried to fire off a text in the rain but couldn’t get the touch screen to work. I pulled an audible and headed towards the road. Eventually, I was able to get a text through, and the rain let up, so I put an earphone in and picked up my pace. After a mile or so, Anna called me and apparently they were a mile ahead of me so I hurried along. Now all together, we road walked into the town of Cassel since the trail was a muddy mess. Along the way we passed a very unique sculpture garden of various figures made of welded scrap metal. We took a bit of time to check it out before heading down to Highway 299 where we quickly got a hitch into Burney by a local named Debbie.
On a tip from the Germans we ran into the other day, we had Debbie drop us off at the Word of Life Church which apparently hosts hikers. Right away, the receptionist welcomed us in, gave us a tour, and handed us off to John, one of the church members who ran the hiker support program. We were able to hang out in the gymnasium, shower, have town clothing, and use their kitchen! John was an absolute gem and chatted us up while simultaneously entertaining his granddaughter. He gave us a few suggestions on ways to acquire a new tent and sleeping pad and told us about the town. Mid conversation, a trail angel stopped by and dropped off 3 other hikers who had just flipped up, two of them, Gravity and Freefall, we knew from just before Big Bear! We took care of town chores, Anna sorted out local transit to get us to Redding tomorrow, and I called and reserved our gear. By the end of the day, I was absolutely worn out. I tucked in early in anticipation of our 5am bus tomorrow. Fingers crossed it all goes smoothly tomorrow!
Day 53
Burney Falls
I woke up early around 4:30am from my pad deflating, not well rested but anxious to not miss our bus to Redding. Anna and I quietly grabbed our things, careful not to wake up the 4 others in the church gym, and we snuck out into the cold misty predawn gloom. The bus arrived a few minutes late, and for once we had perfect change! We then departed for a 2ish hour ride to Redding, while I battled mild car sickness the whole way there. Once in town, Anna grabbed breakfast at Heavenly Donuts while I slowly regained my composure until I felt good enough to chance a cruller. Reddings Sports Ltd didn’t open until 10am, so we killed time by trying to find a few resupply foods we weren’t able to find in Burney. Strangely, the selection here was equally bad, so we eventually hopped a bus to the other side of town to stop at Trader Joe’s and grab some of their famous peanut butter cups and instant coffee. It was there that I discovered their instant pre-dosed spiced chai, which I picked up for the inevitable snow days ahead. Along the way there, we saw a few floats go by advertising the upcoming rodeo! If we had brought our bags, there’s a good chance we would have stayed for it…
By this time, we had ran out of things to do so we went and sat on the ski lift chair in front of the gear shop before they opened, and 20 minutes early one of their employees graciously let us in! I was able to grab the exact replacement sleeping pad I wanted along with a Big Agnes Tiger Wall Platinum UL2 to replace our broken beloved Durston Xmid 2 Pro. Since we had been able to get in the store early, we were easily able to catch the 10:20am bus back to Burney! After another 2 hours of half asleep nausea we made it back to the church gym and chatted with Imi for a bit. She kindly offered to grab us sandwiches while we tested our new gear to make sure it all worked. After our delicious lunch of Subway, I packed up the Durston and my leaking pad and mailed them home to repair or warranty at a later date. Finally ready to go, we said our goodbyes to John, our gracious host at Word of Life, grabbed a ride from trail angel Dennis, and hit the trail. As soon as we hopped on trail, it started to rain, but thankfully it petered out after 15 minutes and we had a blissful cruisy 8 miles through gorgeous forest to arrive at our goal for the evening, Burney Falls State Park. The 2 bridges we crossed, Burney Creek, and the falls were all incredibly pretty and we had a wonderful spot tucked away in the pines. I’m glad today went so well, and I’m stoked to finally get a good night of sleep for once!
Day 54
A good nights sleep was finally had in our shiny new tent, but when I woke up, I found Anna fuming at the tent. Apparently the vestibules are difficult to open from inside, and the ties for them are all but worthless as it only ties down the bottom foot or so of the door. So when Anna woke up early for her morning coffee ritual, she was side tracked from the vestibule door dumping condensation on her and quilt. For a tent this pricey, you’d think there would be a better way of doing it… Once we were all packed, we said goodbye to our cozy site and hit the trail early. The air was quite cold and had a damp bite to it making us wish we had gotten our gloves out. We passed the falls again, and were rewarded with a very cushy 6 or so miles past the Lake Britton Dam and the Rock Creek Falls. We passed a dude sleeping under a heap of gear next to the falls but otherwise saw no one.
After the falls we hit our big 2600ft climb up and on the way passed Gravity and Freefall who we had reunited with at the church in town. They had slept in amazing grove of older pines, and had decided to sleep in. After we chatted for a bit, we continued on up, enjoying the gorgeous forest around us. We had been worried about hitting snow based on previous FarOut comments, but all we found were a few annoying blow downs. Finally at the top, we stopped for lunch and to enjoy the incredible view from the top. We could see large snowy peaks far off in the distance, and Mount Shasta suddenly looming up close. After lunch, we continued on across the ridge, and quickly hit our first snowfield, miles after where the last comment said it started. Along the snow we noticed two sets of sizable bear prints, but otherwise nothing of note. The trail became increasingly overgrown and covered in pollen so Anna and I took our chances with a forest road while Imi continued on the trail. Maybe a quarter mile in, our road ended abruptly so Anna and I trudged through the snow back to trail in an effort to catch Imi. The rest of 7 miles of the 24.3 we did in total ended up taking from 12:30pm to 7pm due to the snow, blowdowns from shoddy logging, and overgrown trail. Annoyingly, all of the plants we rubbed up against were also coated in thick layers of pollen and dust from logging, so we quickly became coated in the stuff. Notably, we did see a shrew-like creature near a watering hole, but nothing else exciting until we found Imi and ended our 13 hour day at mile 1444.6. Hopeful the trail improves a bit tomorrow and we can return to forest cruising.
Day 55
We woke up bright and early in an effort to knock out the snow section we were anticipating. Despite sleeping all night for 7 hours, I woke up feeling completely drained. After breaking camp, we hit the trail and immediately hit snow. We saw a few bear tracks and the snow was mostly flat, but soon became deeper and slightly sloped around mile 4.2. From then on the trail basically disappeared and around mile 6.5 it turned into full blown mountaineering. We soon ditched the trail since it went into avalanche terrain and headed up to the top of the ridgeline for flatter terrain. Once up top, we could clearly see that all of the terrain to the south was snow free and that everything else had at least 10ft of highly sloped snow. We managed to pull a few bars and determined that our nearest bailout point required us to make it a mile to an abandoned forest road at mile 1452.9. That one mile ended up taking 2 very careful hours to get to, but we managed to avoid any high risk terrain. One we arrived at the road, we found the trail crossed over to the south aspect of the ridge and was totally snow free. Meanwhile, the supposed road was buried in snow and nonexistent. We could also see bits of the trail in the distance that appeared to be snow free as well.
Armed with this info, we stuck to the trail until mile 1454.1 where we noticed yet again a forest road out was nonexistent and the trail crossed back over into the snow. We found the remnants of another forest road that stayed on the south aspect and bushwhacked our way across that and the occasional patch of snow until we arrived at a campsite at mile 1456.6 around 5pm. All in all, after 11.5 hours of hiking, we managed 12.1 miles. Hopeful the comments are right and we only have 5.4 miles of this mess. That, or hopefully we can locate a sooner bailout.
Day 56
Anna enjoying the McCloud River
Short entry today as I’m feeling a bit burned out. We slept in 30 minutes today since we were all fried from yesterday. We had heard from other hikers that the trail below Grizzly Peak had some dangerous narrow high angle snow, and that the next 10 miles were blowdowns, so we made the call to route around it via some forest roads via Gold Creek that were ostensibly the same distance. Most of our route around it went fine until one of the roads simply did not exist. We then had to backtrack and find another road which added miles to our trip. We did get to walk the length of gorgeous Lake McCloud, but when we arrived at Ash Camp at mile 1472.5 around 3:30pm, we were all cooked and loved the area so we called it a day. I think all 3 of us were feeling it today as we talked a lot less than usual. 30 miles left to get into town, with potentially miles of blowdowns. We managed only 16 trail miles, but a little more than 20 miles walked today. Town can’t come soon enough this time.
Day 57
I awoke suddenly around 5am to my glasses falling and Anna shining her light around the tent. Apparently her coffee bag had exploded and instant coffee was all over the “new” tent. She was able to contain the mess for the most part, and now our tent refreshingly smells like coffee (and feet)… We then packed up quickly and quietly, eager to finally get some mileage done this morning. Since Imi is a faster hiker than us, she was sleeping in today, so we tip-toed out of our campsite, saw a bunch of bats flying out of the privy, and hit the trail. Unlike most of this section, the trail was incredibly flat and easy going. We were able to easily knock out the first 8 miles (and our first climb of 1800ft) before 9am. On the way up, we saw a massive moth and a large Shasta Alligator Lizard. Once at the top, we stopped for breakfast and had Imi pass us by. Along the way downhill, we encountered a bunch of blowdowns, and while I was stepping over one, the edge of the trail gave away, causing me to fall and slam my shin into the tree with my full weight. Thankfully, I was able to catch the tree so I didn’t slide down the slope but man does my leg hurt, even now as I’m writing this. I carefully hobbled on it for a bit until the sharp pain turned into a dull throbbing and we continued on.
At the base between the two climbs we ran into Imi again and hiked together for a bit and discussed our town plans. From there we once again split, and Anna and I went down a side trail to check for trail magic she had read about in a FarOut comment. Sure enough, under the bridge on the Cabin Creek Trail, we found large Gatorades and a 6 pack of beer. Score! We took a snack break to enjoy our drinks with, and then headed up the next big climb of 2100ft. We again had to jump over a bunch of blowdowns, but the views of Mt. Shasta and Castle Crags were incredible, not to mention the gorgeous forest we walked through. At one point we passed a woman hiking southbound who said she had seen 3 bears on her way in, but we never even saw one. We did however see 3 snakes and another one of the Shasta Alligator Lizards. We rolled into camp at mile 1498 right before 5pm and found Imi busy setting up her tent. We quickly pitched ours and then had hot drinks followed by the remnants of our main food bags. All in all, we managed 25.5 miles, over 5000ft of gain and about 4000ft of loss in 11ish hours. It was an awesome day, especially in light of our last few days. Needless to say, we are all excited for town and showers tomorrow!
Day 58
Eager for town and hoping to see some bears, we left camp at 6am, which is now bright and sunny due to the long days. The trail was friendly, with few blowdowns, and a soft pine duff covering. Unfortunately, I never got my early morning shot of Castle Crags, but we did have a fantastic walk through a forest full of more old growth and second growth. We quickly covered the 6 miles in a few hours and coasted up to the trail tracks before the on ramp for I5 at mile 1502.7. There, we realized that it would be pretty much impossible to hitch due to the lack of traffic, so on a whim, Anna called local trail angel “Doc” from a comment she found on FarOut. He promptly responded and in no time at all, whipped up and gave us a free ride into the town of Mt. Shasta. Along the way, he cruised through main street and told us where everything was and which places to ignore. He then dropped us off at the Black Bear Diner where we had scored free breakfasts, again from an old FarOut comment Anna had found. Fat and happy, we headed over to the Cold Creek Inn where I got us a discounted hiker rate for the night. While we waited on our room to be ready, we changed into our rain gear and washed our clothes. While doing laundry, the owner, Michael, came by and chatted us up for awhile. I’m still not sure, but I believe that he ended up upgrading us to a two bedroom room afterwards! We gained access to our room a bit after noon, and I promptly hit the showers to scrub all of the mud off from the previous section.
Finally all cleaned up, we headed to the supermarket, Rays, to resupply, and were appalled by the exorbitant prices. Still not sure of the trail ahead, Anna and I decided to hold off on our resupply until after we talked to the Forest Service rangers, which was going to be tomorrow since today was a Sunday. In classic fashion, I did grab a tub of ice cream though, and proceeded to kill most of it back at our room while Anna and I watched the first few episodes of the new season of Taskmaster. Once our show was over, we went out to dinner at a pasta place called Sparky’s Landing since Imi was craving spaghetti. Since I had housed all of my ice cream, I only ended up having an appetizer of fried cheese curds, which was befitting of my trail name. Post dinner, we returned back to our room to research trail conditions some more before passing out pretty early. Hopefully we can get some clear info tomorrow in order to make an informed decision. This section has been gorgeous, but the snow absolutely sucks to hike on, and it still looks to be too early to enter the Sierra.
Day 59
Not sure of our plans, I ended up hardly sleeping last night due to anxiety over only having sketchy snow ahead of us. Thankfully, we had all decided to take a zero to figure out our plans, so we had a slow morning of breakfast sandwiches and hot drinks at a local coffee shop. Afterwards we went to the local gear store to ask for advice on the next section and connected with the local trail angel groups to see if they had any more info. I also pulled the latest high resolution satellite images and found the next section to be mostly covered with a high slope angle snow, despite most of it being south or west facing. We then went to the local forest service office and chatted with the rangers who also did not have any further info as they did not have the staff to scope out the trails or roads fully… With no more info, Imi left to get a massage and Anna and I restlessly caught up on the rest of our show and took care of town chores. Once Imi came back, we went out for chicken and waffles at the Black Bear Diner before calling it a night. I hate this. On the AT, unless the weather forecast was truly awful, you could always just hike. Getting into limbo because of this snow situation is infuriating, but we’re stuck hiking it at this time because of our permit dates, budgets, and because we’re trying to avoid extreme heat and fire season. Hopefully we’ll come up with a plan and get back to it tomorrow. I miss hiking.
