Mile 1251 - 1372: Ohhhh, We’re Halfway There!

Out of the River into the Lake

The heat comes early. Just like the flowers, summer is in full bloom. I had a morning dream, a blue bird was telling to get up and get moving as “the adventure was starting.” So I woke excitedly and quickly open my tent, a moment in time between reality and dream. I then sit there with my head out of my tent, wondering what the hell just happened. The day is full of tree blowdowns. I find myself balancing and climbing throughout the day. One balancing act has me landing in a thicket of thistles. The trail sings to me, but she also tests me. In the second patch of dense overgrowth and blowdowns, I have a moment where I feel I may lose my cool. I take a deep breath, and continue on, there’s nothing to gain from losing my temper, though I’ll curse the trail later. The trail gives way, sending me crashing into the ground multiple times. Gnarled roots stick out like hands looking to drag me under. I take a break finally, the heat has me sweating furiously. I eat a little food, have some caffeine powder, and turn on some music. It was if I was destined to stop there for a break, as from that point on, there were no more blowdowns or overgrowth, and a breeze picked up. I started to fly up the trail with a bounce in my step. I’ve been listening to a lot of Elliott Smith and Daniel Johnston, I’m finding my taste in the 90s today. I feel like an island out here, I see no other hikers. I think about what it takes to drive me to heat exhaustion. I drove myself there a few times while doing landscaping work in Hawaii.

Sierran Treefrog

Morning laundry and bathhouse 

 I find Joe again but we’ll soon divide again as he’ll continue on the trail and I’ll stop off at Bucks Lake, a small lake town with some hot food and a mild resupply. I have to walk on an asphalt road for a few miles, and as I walk in, I see Yukon, Hot2Go, and Reroll. They decide to spend the night here as well. They let me know they’ll be going down the road for some hot food. I quickly set up camp and make my way to the restaurant. I try running for a bit, just to test out the muscles. It feels incredible, which shocks me a little. Not 100 yards and I immediately have to poop, so that liberating expression of movement is cut short. We eat well and I hop in the lake to rinse off. 

The Climb

I hike out with Hot2Go and we get a hitch immediately out of town, a good sign. We separate as I stop to rinse some clothes out. As I climb the hill I come face to face with a small buck, seems fitting. I decide to take a quick detour to go to Spanish Peak, its pronounced ledge has interested me for days now.

View of Spanish Peak

 I am able to see nearly all around me, from Lassen Peak to the Sierras Buttes. It gives me an idea just how fast I’m covering ground. I stop and have a conversation with a retired firefighter who served in the area. I learn about the Bear Creek fire that I walked through the previous days, and about the Dixie fire, whose scar I will soon be walking through. 

I text folks as I walk the ridge. I still talk with Harmonee, my supervisor and mentor while working at the Hawaii Good Food Alliance, and catch up on things happening. I lose service and let it be. I come across a young boy, likely 12 or so years old. He’s up here hiking by himself. I ask if he needs anything but he’s good to go, he’s comfortable up here. We say our polite goodbyes and I couldn’t feel anything but pride for this kid. The landscape becomes wider and drier as I get higher. I look now upon a once  rich and forested region, now desert. It reminds me of Mount Laguna in the first week of my travels. I grab a meal in the strange place that is Belden. I meet up with all the other hikers, and we share a similar discomfort with the area, all eager to get moving. I cowboy camp for the first time in a while.

We’ve been talking of this climb ahead of us for days now. It has struck hesitancy and maybe a little fear in our hearts. About 6,500 of climb, but over 20 miles. I feel a bit of worry as each day I feel I take a little bit more from my legs. I am getting enough calories, but I’m not resting, and I do begin to wonder if I even need a rest day.

 Joe and I joke about a fellow hiker, which I would normally not do, but he admitted to not having washed his socks the entire trail. This is nearly 1,300 miles in, and I don’t think he’s washed anything the entire time. We promptly name him, “Pigpen” from Charlie Brown. Joe and I take a break and have a good chat on hysteria, as we both feel we are getting close to hitting it. I love the feeling of uncontrollable laughter from exhaustion, it’s makes life a bit lighter. We pass some beautiful pools but it’s too early for me to stop hiking and hop in, I have a desire to get this giant climb done before the temperature climbs too high. The tree blowdowns are still numerous and the Pacific Crest Trail Association put out a warning about this section of the trail, that we may lose it, and we did a few times. A broken limb from a blowdown goes straight through one of my shoes, I jump fast enough for it not to go through my foot. Rock plates are a thick layer built into the sole of some trail shoes, mine do not have these plates I learn. I decide to give myself a little caffeine to get my head in the game. There’s still some live tress, but many missing mean the canopy is opened up, resulting in a lot of mid-level shrubbery. This holds the heat and humidity of the day at walking level. Between the humidity and the intense overgrowth, it feels like I’m no longer just walking the trail, but swimming through it. I think I make it to the top, but hit a false summit, which reminds me of all the false summits I hit when I hiked Mauna Loa a few years ago. After hitting the crest I welcome the descent.

Lassen in the distance

On my way down, I hit a patch of ground that is loose dirt and ash which completely gives way. I strike my right pole into the ground and keep sliding down the hill effortlessly, the whole side has given up its grip. I eventually stop, covered in this loose dusty ash and I’ve bent my pole. I am momentarily furious, as the whole ordeal seemed relatively harmless. I bend it back to some normalcy against a rock, but it can no longer fully retract now. Maybe karma for Pigpen’s name. I take a breath a look out on the horizon. The sun is burning down on me and all in front of me, a graveyard of trees. I am currently in the Bear Creek burn scar, but I see the Dixie burn scar in front of me. I don’t feel a tremble but a hesitation for what is to come. Joe and I had split up for a bit but reunite and find a water source aptly named, “Cold Spring”. It a piped driven into the ground spewing some of the coldest water I’ve come across since the Sierras into a cow trough. In the bottom of the trough are Coca-Colas and Dr.Peppers. I haven’t had a Dr. Pepper in years, so I make it my choice. I continue past where Joe calls it for the day, I want to keep moving. I walk past Yukon and company, I see them cowboy camping, all wrapped up like little bugs. I go about a quarter mile further, where I find a volcanic outcrop that looks north. The sun falls late in the day, past my bedtime, but today, I decide to watch that sun fall. A few feelings wash over me. One I was not expecting was love for this trail, especially after these last few days. I have days where I feel like I want nothing to do with the trail. Most days I don’t think about it. And some days, I can’t imagine going back into society, I want to live out in the woods. The difficulty of the day makes the sunset all the more satisfying. I watch it. Going. Going. Gone. I am calm, but heavy.

Chester

My legs have lost all spring, there’s little to no fuel left. Thankfully, it’s primarily downhill today, and I plan to end my day getting to Chester. I made plans with Yukon and company to split a place for a few nights there, I need a rest day. Today will be 12 days of normal hiking days without a break. There are a few small hills which take me time as I struggle to negotiate with my legs. As I come over a hill I see Lassen Peak, and it reminds me of when I first saw the Sierras. Yesterday we had crossed the divide between the Cascade and Sierra range, and the difference in the rocks is very drastic. They are rougher, porous, jagged, younger. I focus on not tripping on the volcanic rock in the trail, as it looks fairly unforgiving. 

On my way down the last hill, I eat my lunch, and black wasps begin to flock to me. The previous days I’d see bumblebees attach themselves to me, lapping up the salt on my legs. These wasps were doing the same. They’d normally make me uneasy, but I see them in a different light as they begin to cover and tickle my legs. I see other flying creatures come by for some salt as well. The heat feels angry today, and I feel its intensity. I am covered in soot, but this doesn’t prevent me from getting a hitch, which happens with my first try. We stay at an RV park that has a small motel outside of town. I decide that I can skip town for a night and eat my hiker food, I want to get clean more than I want to eat hot food. We do nothing the whole next day, yet I still struggle to feel refreshed.

Lassen

We take what feels like a lazy morning, leaving around 9am. The heat is on. It doesn’t take the four of us to get a hitch. A small Prius crams us in like sardines in a can. I nearly fall out of the car as I couldn’t find an easy way to get out. As our ride turns around the pullout, I realize my trekking poles are in the trunk. I begin to chase the little Prius down, but the driver is off like a bank robber. My poles are gone. I feel unfazed. Am I tired? It doesn’t stir an emotion in me. I say, “oh well”, and decide I’ll figure things out until I can get more poles. I can’t decide if this is some serious internal growth or if I’m just still too worn out to care. The next hour is through a proper burn scar, no live trees, multiple blowdowns, and fire followers. The fire followers? White spiky shrubs that grow at shin height. After the hour, my shins are turning into a bloody mess. I tried to ignore them as I didn’t want to switch to pants with the intense heat. I sit at a small creek as Yukon and company continue on. I continue to sit here. “I don’t want to get up, I don’t want to walk today”, I think to myself. My body feels slow and my steps labored, the spiky shrubs release a constant dose of cortisol, and the scene around me is bleak. Hot, humid, and dusty. The desert had more beauty than this.  “Aw f$&@ it”, I say to myself, stand up and continue on. The thought of turning back to the trailhead occurred like a shooting star, there and gone. I eventually reach a section that the fire avoided after a few hours of hiking and take a break. I also happen to have service so I call my brother and we catch up. I had this feeling that it seemed I was the only one on trail today, but then about 6 hikers passed while I was on the phone, quickly countering evidence. 

The rest of the day very little shade is afforded to me. It reminds me of the desert, and I know I can manage. I make it to Lassen National Park boundaries, but I know I need to get a few more miles in. There’s also no safe camp spots to be found. Every tree is dead as far as I can see, widowmakers that could fall on me at any given time. So I decide to continue until I find a space spot to set up. This just so happens to be the steam vent. It’s technically out of the park, which I was also taking into consideration as you technically need a bear can for the park and I had shipped mine back. I arrive to the vent around 8pm. It’s a fun site to see, the stream coming from it boiling hot and full of sulfur. I wonder what the experience of the deer was as I see their tracks in the hot mud along the sides of the creek. I set up about 50 yards away from the vent, far enough to avoid the scent of sulfur. My tent requires my trekking poles to be set up, so from here on out, I cowboy camp. I downloaded the last episodes of The Boys, a raucous and racy show on Amazon, so I finish up the series that night with the background noise of the hissing steam.

 

I heard a little rain pattering against my sleeping bag early in the morning, but nothing that concerns me yet. I sure hope I don’t need to set up my tent proper this next week. I feel my solemn mood smoothing out. I continue my way through Lassen National Park. It’s not far, about 20 miles in the park in total. I arrive not too long at Boiling Springs Lake, which looks like volcanic mud soup. I can feel the heat off the ground below me. 

As I continue following Hot Spring Creek I get whiffs of sulfur. Another reminder of my time in Hawaii. I go about .5 miles down the King Creek trail, which is not the direction I want to go. I shrug my shoulders and turn around. Still can’t tell if I’m mentally tired or I’m just not having negative reactions to unfortunate events. The length of the trail through the park is nearly all burn scars. It isn’t fun, but it allows me good views of Lassen Peak and of other geological features. I see an American Marten dart across the trail in front of me. Gold in color except the tip of its tail, which looks liked it was dipped in an inkwell. I think of it like a rare Pokémon amongst all these little chipmunks that scatter and scream at the sight of me. Post-PCT plans weigh on my mind again as I walk through the eerie, burnt remnants of the forest. 

I see one of adventure, a life that a reader could follow and be inspired from. I see another that is more stable, community focused, and where I build instead of expand. The fallacy I’m reminded of though is see the two as binary, I guess that’s my tendency to project. Project what my life will look like based on one decision over another. The dead trees continue to swing and sing in the wind. I release the tension I hold over my thoughts for now. As I approach the border of the park, I see the forest regain itself. I stop to bathe in Hat Creek and find myself a patch of pine needles to set up my bed for the night.