PCT Field Notes

Grinding Down Stone I feel I am starting to really grind through Northern California. Small things are changing and my body remains responsive to the great ups and downs of the trail. I finish up my time in the Trinity Alps Wilderness and skip going down to Etna. I hear it’s a great place, but it will be too much time for me right now. I cruise along the day. I hear a strange noise as I come around hill. Music? No, bells. There are cows with bells all along the hills, very Swiss-like. They don’t seem to mind me much. I continue on through the Russian Wilderness. I see my first grouse of many, something I failed to do in the Sierras when they gave off their booming calls. White Marble Mountain At night I head all sorts of critters around. I’m not concerned about bears at all anymore, it’s the damn deer. They make a racket at night and don’t mind coming right up to the tent. I hear something rummaging around my bag late in the night and shoo it off. I find in the morning one of my gaiter...

Making my way Downtown Today I don’t have to make too many miles, which is great as my assumption the mosquitoes would not be as bad at night next to the road was wrong. I feel tired, but it’s all downhill, literally, from here on down to I-5. I got a surprise a few days ago that prompted me to move a bit faster, completing about 28 miles the day before. The Kababik Family would be here a day before I thought they would be getting to Mount Shasta. Meeting with the Hickeys was a moving target, but I had this date with the Kababiks for a while now, which really was perfect, I could use all the comforts in NorCal. Who are the Kababiks? Garrett, Kaia, and the three rascals. I had lived on their property, Ahu Lani, on Hawaii Island, for years. We had developed a close relationship, and it was a relationship I made sure to keep after leaving Hawaii, they’re family. So, Garrett, the kids, and one of Garrett’s close friends whom I had met before, Tamlorn, picked me up off of I-5. We immediatel...

  Roaming the Rim The morning is chilly so I take a little longer to get up. I foresee the miles coming a bit easier than they did the last 200. I fell asleep among some pines, and a talkative squirrel chirps at me while I rustle around in my bag. I respond in kind, and we have a quick conversation. I have no idea what was said, seemed well intentioned though. My spirit is a bit lifted after being the trees again, I had a moment after Chester where I didn’t think I could continue on, which was a jarring experience. The early morning walk reminds me of a Devil’s Garden, or a patch of forest/jungle that is dominated by one species, so travelers get lost. In here it’s a type of pine. It reminds me a tree farm near me growing up, the company name was Potlatch, and they grew trees for paper. You could look 20 feet into those trees before it became nearly pitch black in the middle of the day, and it went for thousands of acres. I always wondered how someone would fare if they ended up in...