I give up. It rained all night. I woke up at 2:30 and had to pee really bad, but I didn’t want to go out in the downpour. I tossed and turned, falling asleep intermittently only to be woken up by a water dream (my subconscious signal to wake up if I have a dream with any sort of water in it—it beats wetting the bed) or from falling off the back of Grizzly Peak. I kicked wildly while falling at least 3 different times. Finally, at 5:30, the full bladder won out and I decided to brave the rain.
Only, it wasn’t rain. It was snow! May 26 in sunny California, it’s snowing. I went back in the tent and shut off the alarm. I’m guessing, the night crew in my kidney factory had gotten time off to play cards while they waited for the bladder to get emptied. Once that was accomplished, they could return to work. It’s a holiday weekend at the end of the month and they get paid piecemeal. They hurried up to make their monthly quota in time to enjoy the holiday weekend. In other words, by 7:30, even though the alarm was off, I had to get up to go again.
The snow was melting some. It was just a dusting, but I worried about the people at higher elevation. In particular, Tom who passed us yesterday and didn’t have spikes. If we got a dusting at 3400’ they had to get several inches at 5500’. That would be enough to cover the tracks in the snow making everyone up there have to break their own trail. I hope he’s ok.
The deer were still hanging around our tent eager to eat whatever pee we could spare. They came right up to the tent. I thought they wanted to drink straight from the source, but they backed away each time I got up. They accepted my contributions, but craved Bunny’s. The minute she emerged, the gang all gathered, watched, and waited until she cleared the area.
We had planned to get an early start, but Bunny had put her foot down that she was not walking on anymore snow. By 9:30, most of it had melted and the mistress of the trail agreed to emerge. The original goal was to get in 19 miles today so we’d only have 15 to get to the road for Mount Shasta. Now, we have 19 for tomorrow which will put us in too late to catch a bus or hitch leaving us with the only option of spending another night on the trail. No problem, at least we’ll save some hotel money. Problem, we took a day longer than planned getting from Peavine Creek past Grizzly Peak…we ate our extra day’s food. If we don’t make it to town tomorrow, we will be eating chia pudding 3 of the next 4 meals. Good husband that I am, I’m trying to come up with chia variants for supper tomorrow night. No waiting for the last minute for me.
There were no Americans to be found on the trail today. We met one French couple heading up to Grizzly as we were coming down. We shared our knowledge of what’s ahead for them. We also leapfrogged with a trio from Israel. They passed us as we were getting ready (and scaring our pee-licking deer away). We passed them as they were drying their tents in a parking lot. And then they passed us while we were drying our tent next to a privy. The privy odor enhances Bunny fart residue in the tent. Other than those few encounters, we saw no one else today.
After we nearly got our tent dry by the privy, it started raining. It rained on us for the next 10 miles of trail. Some times it let up enough that we got heated up to the point that we had to stop and take our rain coats off. Then, Mother Nature, seeing that we were comfortable, increased the drizzle rate. We spent the whole day dropping our packs and changing clothes.
As we neared our camping spot, the rain stopped so we could set up camp, eat, and go to bed in the comfort of cloudy skies in the low 50s/upper 40s. I don’t believe it ever gets warm in California. We’ve been out here 3 months already and have only seen it above 80 twice.
I made my first half-hearted attempt at hanging a bear bag tonight. Two things caused me to do this: 1) a f#$ing mouse ate through the bottom of our $700 tent last night to get into our garbage, and 2) there were comments in Guthook about a bear hanging out in this area running hikers off the trail. I hung the bag “Mizman style” tonight. Last year the second night we stayed with Mizman, he asked me to look at his bear bag hang and give him my thoughts. It was so low to the ground I couldn’t walk under it. A dying bear on his back could get the sustenance he needed without even doing a sit-up.
Mizman is getting ready to head back out on the AT right now. I always liked hanging my bag near his. You don’t have to be the fastest to avoid being eaten by a bear, just don’t be the slowest. The same goes for bear bag hangs. I put my food at 7’ and our garbage at 5’.
EFG
I have been following you two from the beginning. I wish I had known when you were in Burney, my son and his family are Trail Angels there and would of loved to help you in any way. I love that little town, great place to raise kids.
My husband, son and two grandsons were going to do some section hike between Sonora Pass and Truckee but not this year with all the snow!! Maybe up north more in July at a lower elevation.
Good luck..love your you-tube and your blog!!
Thank you. We’re going to get off the PCT for a while and hike the Oregon Coast Trail and then get back on when the snow melts. We’re still going.