As near as I can tell, we had a mild form of heat exhaustion from the last two days of 100+ temperatures. Bunny and I slept straight through to 8:30. To drive the point home, it was Bunny that woke up first. Altogether, we have slept over 14 hours since we arrived at the hotel less than 20 hours ago. This was almost as bad when we spent 18 hours straight sleeping in New Jersey after hiking 11 miles in 107 degree heat.
I checked the phone and saw that Bear and Sassy had texted us over 6 times and we missed all of them. We were out! We ate the muffins and yogurts we had gotten from the store along with a pot of coffee we brewed in the room. Bunny insisted upon the futile effort of showering before heading out. I felt it was a waste of time because 15 minutes after we’re on the trail, no one giving us a sniff test will be able to tell who showered and who didn’t. Nonetheless, Bunny felt compelled to try to shame me into showering. I chose the additional relaxation time instead. We were both ready by 10.
Cat picked us up at 10:30. When we left the room, it was the first time I’d seen sky all day. It was overcast and cool—not even 80 out. With any luck, we’ll be able to make the 14 mile climb out of the valley without dying. That’s the ideal scenario. I’d be happy if we make it up to around 5000’ elevation before one of us (Sassy) has heat stroke. I accept the fact that Bunny is going to miserable and vocal about it.
The first 8 miles of trail follows Grider Creek with a very modest elevation gain. We go from 1400’ to just around 3000’ elevation. During this time, the overcast sky fades away to full sun. It was also unusually high humidity for California—it was probably 60% (nothing compared to a sweltering day in the Midwest or South where 80% is considered “not that bad”). We had been warned by several hikers that there was a lot of bushwhacking for the first 4 miles. Bunny and I had fallen for the hype and wore long pants. We were both overheating.
After 5 miles of the easy, bushwhacking section, I took the legs of my pants off and Bunny changed back into her shorts. We came to the conclusion that there are just a bunch of whiners hiking the trail. The bushwhacking on NorCal is the equivalent of all the whiners on the AT screaming “Rocksylvania” when encountering a few pebbles in the trail in Pennsylvania. We did notice that most of the bridges in this section were relatively new. One of the few benefits of wildfires is new trail infrastructure.
As we neared the 8 mile mark where we would leave the close proximity to Grider Creek, we decided to get under the bridge to get out of sun and cool off. Bear was the most reluctant to stop and cool off. He seems a bit out of sort today and is often way ahead of the rest of us. It’s easy to see that he’s not enjoying today and he wants to just get it over with. We all soaked our bandannas or hats and wiped ourselves off. I didn’t realize how hot I actually was until I started cooling down. I even took my shirt off and soaked it in the creek. We ended the break with Sassy passing out salt tablets to everyone.
We only saw 6 nobos all day. I suppose that’s a good thing, meaning that we are past the bubble. Anyone still this far south is going to have a hard time finishing this year. A lot of testosterone driven hikers consider this negative input if it gets mentioned they are probably going to get stuck in snow in Washington. Everyone seems to forget Sherpa who has been missing for the last 5 years. He insisted upon pushing on from White Pass in WA when a snow came in. His family still leads multiple searches every year in the hopes of finding his body so they can have some closure.
We were all dragging from the heat in the valley and all the uphill climbing. Even though we started out with an overcast sky, it was probably much hotter than we realized. As I predicted, no one would be able to give us a sniff test and tell which of us had showered today. The closest result anyone would come up with would be “you must have showered more than a week ago. Why would you want me sniffing you? Get away!”
Well before we made it to 10 miles, we all knew our goal of 14 miles for today was a pipe dream. At our water stop around 10 miles, we decided on an earlier bail out spot at an old road that probably had water 0.3 miles off the trail. We decided we’d stop here. There was another spot about a mile before that, but it definitely didn’t have water. I thought we had all agreed on the road. Bear, always the contingency planner, decided to carry enough water to stop at the earlier campsite to give himself more options. Bunny and I just carried enough to make the road and no more. We were all in.
Before we made it to the earlier campsite, deer started following us on the trail. It wasn’t that we caught a glimpse of a deer while we were walking, it was two deer actually walking on the trail behind us showing no fear of us. I knew what they wanted. When we got to Bears option #1 campsite, he was willing to stop, but I said Bunny and I couldn’t. The deer just kept circling us while we talked. I finally mustered all I had and walked over to the edge of the site with my back to everyone. I concentrated hard and managed to push out a small stream. I returned to everyone and said “you’re not going to think the deer are so cute now.” Before I even finished talking, they were munching on my muddy pee spot. They wanted salt and minerals. I gave them gold.
We had no choice but push on. We thought we had seen the last of the deer now that I had given them what they wanted and we didn’t see anyone following us. We made it to the road and found trees had fallen across it. This was a relief because Bear was afraid there might not be spots to set up tents if the road was still in use. To be safe, Bear and Sassy set up their tent closest to the downed trees and we went a bit further. That way, if a vehicle came up the road, the sound of our screams might give them the time they needed to get out of the tent and survive. As always, I’m only here to help.
Bear and I walked down the road and found a great water source. Once we had enough collected, we headed back so we could cook our women folk their ho5 suppers. Because it was already almost dark, we just cooked and ate in our tents. Bunny and I got out to pee one last time before bed. I was tired and didn’t feel like walking very far since it was so dark. Before I managed to get back inside, I could hear the familiar “munch, munch” as my pee was being eaten. We had been followed, after all.
EFG