The alarm went off at 6:30. This was bad. We’ve gotten used to sleeping past 8. Bunny hit the snooze. I suppose it went of at 6:39 when she hit it again. I woke up at 6:51 and asked if we could stay another day. The mean woman next to me said no. When all else fails, start packing up.
Jeannie came out a little after 7 to say goodbye to us. She has to work one of her jobs today and had to leave by 7:15. I think she might have been on a ‘verification mission’ to make sure we were really going to leave. We actually did start walking right at 7:30 when we said we would. Georgi was going to meet us at JJ’s at 8:45.
Bunny and I have hiked close to 4500 miles together. In all that time, I can clearly recount the number of times we have walked in excess of 3 mph. The common threads between those occurrences is that they were all downhill and did not last for more than an hour. Today, Bunny has decided we are going to maintain a 3.5 mph rate for well over an hour. I hope Georgi doesn’t mind waiting for us because I don’t see us getting there until 9:30. What do I know? I was only an engineer for 30 years and had a math minor in college. Bunny knows best.
Yada yada yada, we got to JJ’s at 9:30. Georgi said she was just about to give up on us or call in a search and rescue. We had a really nice breakfast with Georgi. We took our time knowing that we only had another 8 miles to go for today. In fact, we’ve only got to cover 30 miles in the next 5 days to get our package that is coming to Burney. We might resurrect the 8 o’clock wake up time for the next few days…ease back into this hiking thing.
It was a pretty easy walk today, but I wasn’t fluid in my movements (other than bowel, but that’s something else entirely). I felt very stiff, almost like I was Frankenstein’s monster. My right heel was acting up. Probably from our road walk from JJ’s to Georgi’s yesterday. If we had been thinking, we would have walked the trail back yesterday then slept in until 8:30 again today and catch a ride with Georgi to the restaurant. We haven’t slack packed yet on the PCT but I might consider it in exchange for sleep.
The rim is about 600’ higher than Hat Creek Valley. Fires have swept through this area within the past 10 years making trees almost nonexistent on the rim. In effect, we are still walking in a desert. And like a desert, I saw snakes today. Lots of them, but no poisonous ones. I almost stepped on two of them before they started moving and scared the crap out of me. They just haven’t been exposed to many people yet. We believe there are at least 4 people ahead of us.
We made it to our campsite right at 4. As soon as I set the tent up, I started cooking supper because I’ve put a lot of dried veggies in it and it needs to soak for quite a while. While it was soaking, I climbed down to Lost Creek to get water for tomorrow. Climb is the proper word, not hike. It’s a 600’ drop in 1/4 of a mile. Very reminiscent of a typical day in the Whites on the AT (which we thru-hiked last year, drink up, the game is still on).
Bunny and I tried to stay up, but with full stomachs, a light breeze, and too many flying insects, we were forced into our tent by 5:30. Maybe we’ll be able to get a full 14 hours of sleep in tonight.
EFG
Episode 11, jumping north!