Last night was the warmest night we had experienced in a long time. I didn’t even get under my quilt until Bunny snortled and woke me up at about 4a. It was pitch dark outside. This is the most familiar camping we have felt so far. We had a full forrest canopy that let no light in. We could hear every stick getting broken or leaf getting crunched by animals wandering around our camp. It was possible to finally let your imagination run wild and imagine a bear was stalking us. I slept like a baby.
Why in god’s name did we set the alarm for 6:15? Neither of us was ready to even think about getting up after yesterday’s 20. I reset the alarm for 7 and fell back asleep. At 6:55, I woke up and began coffee. When it was cooled to the proper drinking temperature, I gently woke up Bunny at 7:40. This just proves my point that it doesn’t matter what time we wake up. We will always hit the trail between 8:15 and 8:40. We were on the trail at 8:39.
It was a town day so that means happy hiking. Someone forgot to let the gnats know. The little bastards did their best to ruin my day, and damn near did, but…town day. I was forced to wear my head net for another 7 miles. I tried taking it off a couple of times and made it a tenth or two before I was forced to put it back on. Sassy, I miss you more than ever!
Bunny and I have hiked almost 1000 miles of California after today. In all those miles, the section between Etna and Dunsmuir is absolutely our favorite so far. (Yes, I know. We haven’t hiked the Sierra yet.) Even with the 10 miles of gnats, I still rank it higher than any other 100 mile section of CA. For that matter, I liked it better than most of Oregon, as well. But, Washington is still my favorite of the PCT. We’ll wait and see how that holds of to John Muir’s favorite.
We had a message waiting for us when we turned on the inReach. Bear told us he had no knew information for us. In fact, the incident wasn’t even on the fire map today. He told us we had 2.5 miles to go until the location that had been indicated yesterday. It was easy downhill hiking for us. We were there in an hour and saw no signs of smoke or fire. We did see a few house below us in the valley. I’m guessing it was probably a small fire that got accidentally started at the Dog Creek trailhead and the local fire department was able to put it out before it got out of control. Bullet dodged this time.
Castle Crags was still above us. We were walking under its shadow most of the morning. We were really too close to appreciate it today. Most of the dry creek beds we passed were filled with white boulders that had washed all the way down the mountain. There were several flowing streams as well. This is a very fertile and wet area (that fact also kept the fire from spreading).
There is a state park area closer to I-5 as we kept descending. State parks mean something to PCT hikers. The trail quality improves greatly (not that PCT trail quality is bad to begin with). The trail became very wide and smooth. This was ADA accessible trail. A motorized wheel chair could easily handle the final 3.5 miles down to the interstate. There was lots of evidence of recent trail work and thinning out of undergrowth and downed trees.
Even with our late start this morning, we were on the interstate thumbing a ride by 1:30. It only took about 10 minutes before a young gal from Florida pulled over and offered us a ride. She didn’t know anything about the PCT or the area where we were. She was just running from bad times in Florida and was feeling a bit lonely. We tried to talk to her, but she was a bit tight lipped. We bought her some gas for her help, then she dropped us off at our hotel. It was 2p, just in time for Bunny to join her weekly family zoom call.
Dunsmuir was actually a bit disappointing to us. The only place open was a pizza place that only offered carry out. We had hoped to sit down in a place and drink unlimited iced tea while we slowly rehydrated our bodies. Instead, we grabbed a pizza, a couple of salads, and 2 liters of Diet Coke and returned to our room. All we could do was shower because there wasn’t anyplace in the entire town to even do laundry. Dunsmuir is a bust as far as hiker towns go.
We decided that we’d just head up to Mt Shasta tomorrow on the free bus and do our shopping there. We still have no idea how we’re going to get to Old Station, but we’re hoping the extra day we got by getting to town today, instead of tomorrow, will give us the time to figure it out. We told Charcoal B and Struggles we’d be ready to hike out Wednesday morning. Hopefully, the trail will find a way for us to stay true to our word.
EFG