We have a new four letter word—snow. The PCTA satellite snow map doesn’t look promising that we will have a lot of clear trail in Northern California. We did decide to take Devil Fish’s advice and head to Old Station. It does look like we have a few miles of open trail there. We plan to take our time getting there and maybe kill a few days before we actually hit the trail once we get there.
Before we headed into town last night, we arranged for a rental from Budget. We were able to get a one way rental for about the same price as two one way bus tickets. This gave us the rare opportunity for a leisurely breakfast and morning of packing before getting an Uber to take us into Palmdale to pick up our car. First thing on the agenda after getting the car? Eat!
Budget worked out for us to get an extra day on our rental at the same price. We felt even more relaxed about the driving now. We headed back up the desert towards Walkers Pass to see if we might find some other hikers that were interested in jumping ahead. No one was around so we gave up on the idea of having someone else to hike with. The only place between us and Old Station that had an outfitter was Bishop. I’m hell on my trail pants. Last year, I kept ripping out the zippers on them causing me to get temporary moniker of “Easily Exposed”. This year, my ass is the problem zone. I picked up a new pair of convertible hiking pants and some tent stakes to replace the two nonbreakable MSR stakes I’ve broken in the last week.
We continued the drive up the eastern side of the Sierra. I’m telling you we’ve made the right decision to jump north. There is no break in the snow above 8000’. Even driving in the desert, we encountered snow down to the road as low as 7000’. Since the drive, we’ve heard that Mt Whitney may not be able to be summitted at all this year without crampons and ice axes (requiring a level of skill way beyond our comfort zone). We stopped in Gardner, NV for supper before stopping in Carson City for the night.
After seeing all the snow, we were sufficiently concerned as to whether we will even find clear trail once we got to Old Station. Our uncertainty combined with an extra day of car rental helped us decide to take a detour up to Lake Tahoe. The roads were clear and dry, but almost entirely snowed in otherwise. When there wasn’t snow on the ground, it was swampy from all the melt. We stopped for lunch in Incline Village which was snow everywhere more than a mile from the lake.
I can see why Mark Twain loved Lake Tahoe. It’s the largest lake in the USA by volume outside of the Great Lakes. It’s the second deepest Lake in the US at 1600’ just behind Crater Lake in Oregon at 1900’. Lake Tahoe sits at 6400’ and is ringed by a series of 10,000’ peaks (all covered in snow). The lake is so large that the circumference of the earth comes into play when trying to look across its surface. You cannot see the opposite shore from shore level. I instantly hated all the little kids growing up there since they don’t know how good they’ve got it. They are all just dreaming of the day when they grow up and can move away. I’m just dreaming of the day when I win the lottery and can move in (although I’m sure their parents, as most adults in the world, dread the thought of someone like me as a neighbor).
After lunch, we continued our drive up to Old Station. We still haven’t figured out how we’re going to return the car in Redding, but we know the trail has a plan. The plan might be for us to walk 60 miles back up to Old Station, but, a plan is a plan. As we were dropping into Old Station, we got a full frontal of Mt Lassen. It is nothing but snow from about 5000’ up. The road isn’t even opened up through the National Park yet. After talking to a few locals, that’s not even expected to happen until mid-July. Old Station is the only possible location for us to hop to at present. Ivy had tried jumping to Beldon and found that to be a waste of time.
I pulled into the first gas station in town (also, the only gas station in town). I went inside and asked the attendant if she knew of anyone that might be willing to drive down to Redding with us to return our car. She said she’d make a call to see if she could find someone. She called a retired trail angel from the area, Georgi. With it being a Saturday night, we weren’t expecting much. We were hoping, at best, we’d drive down to Redding tonight and return the car. We’d get a hotel and maybe someone might be able to pick us up sometime tomorrow. Georgi (FireFly) told us to come by her house right now and drop our gear off. She’d follow us down and bring us back up tonight. The trail has a better plan for us than walking an extra 60 miles.
When we got to Georgi’s house, she showed us to a great little treehouse that she said we could stay in for the night. She has a housemate that was going to ride along with us tonight. This was Jeannie (Afterburner) who hiked the trail in 2017. Georgi is slightly over 80 and needs a little extra help so she can stay at her home in the mountains. Jeannie moved in a little over a year ago. We drove down to the airport to return the car and then we went inside the deserted terminal to eat at a Chinese restaurant. I wasn’t expecting much as we walked into the ghost terminal, but was amazed when we went upstairs to a full restaurant. This is a hidden gem.
We got back after dark. Georgi told us there used to be electricity in the treehouse, but they weren’t sure what happened to it. I said I’d take a look in the morning and see if I could figure out what was going on. After breakfast at JJ’s Cafe, I started tracing out the electric. I managed to eliminate a bad breaker, etc but couldn’t find the problem. It was after the obvious simple solutions were ruled out that I decided to trace the wiring. I opened up all the known junctions and was able to determine the route of the wires by checking wire colors. The route was not what she had told me, but I was able to figure out the route and find another simple solution. It was just unplugged in a corner behind the pump. It was a different simple solution. By figuring out the electricity, we had entered the vortex.
For the next four days, we helped out Georgi by setting up her cook kitchen gazebo, picking up the yard, repairing broken chairs, adjusting sprinkler heads, moving plants, taking down blinds, etc. During that time, we usually ate a meal a day at JJ’s and had a meal a day in the reestablished cooking gazebo. Georgi also took us out to Mexican on Cinco de Mayo and cooked us a ribeye steak dinner one night.
Also, during our stay, Georgi drove us along the trail’s route all the way up to Burney. She told us what to expect along the way and where to find water. She also shared her knowledge of the trail through Oregon and Washington, telling us danger spots as well as sights not to miss.
Before we arrived in Old Station, I had never heard of Lassen Volcanic National Park. It is one of the smaller national parks but one of the more interesting ones. The Cascades are all volcanic in nature. Lassen is the southernmost volcano in the Cascades. We are not be able to enter the NP at present but we will when we return from the Canadian border. The Hat Creek Valley was formed from Lassen’s outbursts over the millennia. Georgi said she was taking us to Subway so I set my tastebuds on a cold cut sandwich. Instead, she took us into Subway Cave which is a lava tube. This was a first for us, but it left me wanting of food (hiker appetite!).
This has been the longest break we have ever taken while hiking. I’m afraid we’ve been off trail so long that we are going to have to retrain our legs for walking and our backs for carrying. We have made contact with some old friends from early on in the AT last year: Pit Boss and Play by Play. They are going to meet us when we do break free of the gravitational pull of having our own tree house. We are pretty sure we will be leaving tomorrow, but there remains a few extenuating circumstances to consider. At present, we only have about 130 miles of clear trail (assuming we can traverse an eleven mile stretch of snow around Red Mountain after Burney Falls) and tomorrow night is the third to last episode of the Big Bang Theory. As everyone knows, the Big Bang involved a tremendous amount of gravity.
EFG
