Last night I had made plans with Taylor to get a ride back to trail this morning around 6:30 AM. My hope is to be hiking north once again right around 7 AM. Which considering I stayed in town last night, is about as good as it’s going to get. It was hard waking up this morning because I stayed up super late last night. But I had bought myself a giant piece of raspberry cake which I ate for breakfast. That sure helped. Then Taylor drove me back to trail.
There’s nothing quite like eating cake for breakfast.
Even though I didn’t spend a ton of time in Quincy last night, that was absolutely amazing. It’s crazy how just sleeping in a bed and taking a shower can be such a major reset. Even after doing a big day and not getting much rest. It definitely feels like more of a reset than just ending the day in my tent for the night. Plus, I got to get in tons of calories last night.
Heading into the Bucks Lake wilderness.
Now today, I am only about 23 miles from the town of Belden. A tiny town with a general store, motel, and RV park, which the trail passes right through. And the overall structure of the day today is actually very similar to yesterday. The first 23 miles of the day there isn’t a ton of elevation gain. I think I’ll have one or two small climbs. Then I drop down 4000 feet to get into Belden. And leaving Belden I have to climb back up 4000 feet again.
The views through the Dixie burn are beautiful in their own way. You just need to change your perspective a little bit.
The morning wound up being really nice and easy. Plus the temperature was super cool. When I was in this part of Northern California in 2022 it was during a heat wave. And this area is just absolutely brutal when it’s over 100°. Because of all the damage from the Dixie burn there really isn’t a lot of coverage. So I’m incredibly grateful that this time around my experience has been the polar opposite. The temperature has been really moderate most days and even cool at times.
Heading to Belden!
Yesterday it felt like there were a ton of blowdown along the trail, and I went through a good bit of fire damage. But today it was basically all fire damage all day. The entire trail is just completely burnt, and the trees are left behind like a little black toothpicks. Some sections of trail do have a good bit of new growth. But shocking other sections of the trail really don’t.
Bucks Lake! It easy to imagine how glorious this wilderness must have been prior to the fire.
About 4 miles into the day I crossed over another major road. This is the second road where you can hitch into Quincy. And it’s the recommended road for hitching into Quincy because it’s a lot more populated than the road that I got picked up that last night. After crossing over the road, I began a very gradual climb for the next few miles. Then I was basically just up for a while riding along the ridge. Even though I was mostly just looking at burn, I did get some really beautiful views of Bucks Lake in the distance. I can only imagine what the Bucks Lake wilderness looked like prior to this fire. It must have been really beautiful.
The walking today felt a little monotonous at times. But on a bright side, it also felt like the time went by really quickly. It looked like I would be getting into Belden before 4 PM. Which was amazing because I was planning on going in and out quickly and then hopefully doing another 10–12 miles. I was also really dreading the descent into Belden. In 2022 this is where Peg Leg came to be. I was having really mild IT band problems prior to this decent. Then the trail dropped 4000 feet over 5 miles into Belden. And I think on that downhill I was going about a mile an hour.
Today there were a lot of wide open and exposed segments of the trail.
I wound up spending a couple days at the RV park in Belden. Then somehow continued along and made it to the town of Chester. In Chester, I took another few days off for injury and eventually got everything sorted and started my road to recovery. It’s just so funny being back here where the name was born. This time around though I was pleasantly surprised by the downhill. It was graded really well and wasn’t nearly as bad as I remembered. I actually wound up enjoying it honestly.
I got down into Belden just before 4 PM and headed into the store. OutsideJay had left me a box with some resupply goodies. I also bought some cold drinks and soda. I knew it was going to be a very hot and exposed climb coming out of town. So I wanted to hydrate a bunch and also take a lot of goodies with me.
In my memory, I picture this porch covered in hikers hiding from the heat of the day. But today when I arrived, there wasn’t a soul in sight.
At this point, I was planning on potentially doing this entire upcoming climb this evening. It was about 13 miles of uphill. So I chugged a Red Bull, ate an ice cream, and got rolling. I had seen one other backpack outside of the store while I was there, but the hiker never came by. Not long after I got moving again, though, they came running up behind me. They must’ve asked the clerk about me or something like that. Because the clerk told them my name and I think they came to catch up to me.
Leaving Belden to begin the 13 mile climb out of town!
This hikers name was Data, and our paths actually crossed earlier in the year. There was one late night where I set up my tent by a water source with one other tent nearby. Apparently next to him and his wife’s tent. The next morning when they got up, I was super apologetic about whether I might have woken them up the night before. But they said they hadn’t even heard me. Since then, his wife has gotten off trail because of a combination of things. But he’s planning on continuing to finish.
Warning: now leaving Belden.
We got to talking and then fell in line together and making our way up the climb. I think sometimes it’s hard for me to hike with other people. I simultaneously crave the connection while also craving the routine that I’ve created for myself. I find it really easy to hike by myself, make big miles, and allow time to slip away. I think sometimes when I hike with other people that time also flies by quickly. And sometimes when I hike with other people, it makes it more difficult for time to go by quickly. That might not make a lot of sense, but it’s just something that I’ve thought about recently. Every instance is different.
It was nice having someone to talk to and we walked and talked for the next few hours. The climb was graded pretty well, which allowed us to keep chatting. We were basically just continuously going uphill for the entire rest of the day. Thought it was the perfect time a day and was starting to get a little cooler. We also started getting brief segments of shaded trail. As the day went on the trail would get more and more shaded as well.
An hour or two after leaving Beldon though I took a really bad fall. It was just one of those perfect falls where your foot get stuck on some thing and you’re not able to free it. But my backpack is super light right now so I’m hiking without my hip belt attached. Which means when I fell forward, my backpack basically tried to jump up and over me. Which just made for a much harder hit onto the dirt and rock covered trail.
I knew almost immediately that I was completely fine. I could tell I had definitely roughed myself up a bit, but hadn’t done any major damage. Data seemed super concerned as I sat there on the ground. But I just always need to take a minute and slowly get up on my own.
A couple days ago I took a soft fall and scraped my knee a little bit. Now this time I re-scraped the knee and had ripped all of the skin off. So that was bleeding a little bit. But it definitely didn’t hurt as bad as the time earlier this year when I fell and smashed my knee on a rock. The only other damage done was that I smashed my left hand into a rock or onto the hard ground. It was super sore pretty much right away. But considering how hard I hit the ground, that actually didn’t seem to be too much damage.
My fingers don’t look super hurt, but the bruise took a while to come in.
We kept moving after that and the climb just went on and on. As time went on, though, I could definitely tell that my left hand was more hurt than I’d realize. It was very clear that it wasn’t broken. I took a similar fall on the Appalachian Trail in 2023 and my right hand hit a rock so hard that it turned purple almost immediately. This was clearly not as bad as that. And that also wasn’t broken. But over the next hour or two my hand started to throb and was incredibly uncomfortable. I also basically couldn’t use my left hand at all for anything. Which meant I couldn’t take my water bottle out of my pockets or do just about anything with my hand.
Are hands supposed to be purple? Probably not.
As we continued up the climb, the trail crossed over a lot of water crossings. A couple of them were a little bit tricky to get across with dry feet. I had actually read someone’s comment that they wished they had just gotten their feet wet because they hurt themselves doing one of the crossings. And at one point when I was crossing one particularly easy river I made a grave error.
I stepped out onto a rock that seemed super sturdy. But it was slick like oil and I just couldn’t tell. When I actually put weight onto it, my foot immediately slipped off of it, and I fell sideways partially into the river and partially onto some rocks. Once again, it was the type of fall that I knew immediately that I was ok. Honestly, the worst part was now half of my body was wet at 7 PM.
Data was behind me and saw this happen and ran over so quick. I thought it was hilarious that this man was here to witness two of the only falls I’ve taken in the last thousand miles. He seemed so incredibly concerned when he ran up to me. But I said that I was definitely fine, just soaking wet. The only thing that I did notice right away is that I had hit my right hand on a rock when I went down. I had a couple cuts on two of my fingers from smashing into a rock. So now both of my hands were sore.
On the bright side, it was only 7 PM and we were planning on hiking until just around dark. Which meant I had plenty of time to dry out before camp. I figured I’d still be a little damp later, but definitely not as wet as I was after falling in the river. It seemed like Data was originally planning on doing a slightly shorter day. But I said I was going to go up to the top of the climb and he wanted to tag along. Sometimes it’s easier to hike later into the evening or go further when you’re hiking with somebody else.
The last couple hours of the day the trail was basically the same as it had been. The elevation gain wasn’t too bad and was just very continuous. Honestly, though, I was feeling super sore after the two falls. Both my hands were throbbing and my right knee really hurt. It was scraped open and bleeding. Neither fall was that particularly bad. But it’s always jarring and bruises you up a little bit to say the least. I was definitely excited to get to camp for the night.
Making my way to the top of the climb right before the sun went down.
We wound up grabbing water a couple miles before the end of the day. Then had the freedom to continue up to the top of the climb and camp wherever we wanted to. As we continued along, the sun began to set, and it was absolutely beautiful. Then just before it got dark, we got up to the top of the climb. The views of the sunset from up there or even better. Unfortunately, there weren’t a ton of flat spots anywhere anywhere nearby. We just kept walking and walking and hoping we would find something. But eventually we went past some mediocre spots and decided to make the most of them. It just didn’t seem like we were going to be getting a significantly better option anytime soon.
It felt really good to be done for the day to finally be able to lay down. But setting up camp was already ridiculously annoying with my bad hand. You don’t really realize how much you use both of your hands until you can’t use one of them. This is exactly what happened on the AT in 2023 when I bruised my other hand. I’m just hoping that it feels significantly better tomorrow.
Entering into the cascade range.
Of course, though, after everything that transpired today, the possibility of taking a zero on Friday was sounding a whole lot better. And there was a slight change of plans today that made that dream seemed like a possibility. OutsideJay texted me today and asked if I wanted him to put me in touch with any Trail Angel’s from Chester. I told him that I was contemplating taking a zero on Friday but that there were no rooms available in town. He said he was on it and he would find a person to host me for the night on Friday. So it looks like I might get that zero day after all!
It was great to get to the top of the climb just in time for sunset.
Inside my tent, I didn’t have the energy to do hot dinner. I just decided to eat a bunch of snacks instead. I also didn’t have service so I wasn’t able to do too much on my phone. But I got a little bit of writing and video work done before calling it a night. Thanks to doing a big mile day today, now tomorrow I’m only 31 miles out from Chester.
My plan for tomorrow is to start early and get into town as quickly as possible. I’m going to stay in a room tomorrow night, which will be nice. I’ll be able to get a bunch of writing and video work done and enjoy some privacy. Then the following day, I will hopefully be staying with someone in Chester for the night. Jay makes magic happen so I know that I don’t have to have all of the details to have faith that it will work out.
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