Truckee to Chester

Reno Dave was set up in the parking lot by the trail at Donner Pass, cooking hot dogs and handing out beer and sodas to hikers as they came through.  I suddenly realized that I hadn't eaten yet that day, and sat eating and chatting with him and the three that hiked in shortly after I arrived, putting off my hike out for at least another hour. 

Reno Dave

Dave suggested something to me that may answer a question I've had.  All of the physical problems I've had on the trail have been fairly straightforward - they've either been something with an obvious cause, like a visible tick bite, or something that happens to everyone, like blisters and sore knees, except for one problem.  I mentioned it in one of my previous posts, but the entire time I was in the High Sierras, I had this intense feeling of pressure in my thumbs.  I had it a little bit in my other fingers but it was only intense in my thumbs, and they were also so sensitive to cold that submersing my hand in a creek to fill up a water bottle would bring me to the verge of tears.  When I got off the trail to meet my family they stopped hurting, and since I got back on the trail the pain hasn't come back.  However, since I got back on the trail, my thumbnails have both started to detach.  Roughly the upper third of each is still attached to the thumb so they aren't ready to come off yet, but everyone who I've showed them to has said that they definitely will come off.  Unlike my other problems it's not something that happens to everyone (or to anyone else, as far as I can tell), or something with an obvious cause.  Dave had the idea that my pack might be cutting off circulation in some place that affects my thumbs directly.  I'd thought it had something to do with having been on the doxycycline and it still might be, but one piece of support for Dave's idea is the fact that going into the High Sierras I was suddenly carrying more weight than I had before - I started carrying a week's worth of food at a time on the leg before that starting in Tehachapi and continued until Sonora Pass, and I also added the Bear Canister at Kennedy Meadows, which weighs I think close to three pounds.  Since I got back on the trail I've been hiking without a bear canister and haven't carried more than four days' worth of food, but that might not matter since my thumbnails are already two-thirds of the way detached. 

Looking down at Donner Lake

I would really love to take a geology class now that I've hiked a bit - I think it would increase my ability to understand my surroundings more than anything else. 

Crossing under Interstate 80

I hiked out of town, wondering how someone could be small and mean enough to do what they had done to me, & how I would finish the trail with no money.  I reached the Peter Grubb hut, which is owned by the Sierra Club and intended mainly as a refuge for cross country skiers in emergencies.  It's officially closed for repairs and numerous signs warn against entry, but it's not locked, presumably in case someone actually has an emergency.  

The Peter Grubb Hut

One room inside the Peter Grubb hut

I read a little bit about Peter Grubb in a piece written by his sister and published by the Sierra Club.  He was from San Francisco and was an avid outdoors-man in addition to being an all-around overachiever, but he died at eighteen while on a bicycle trip in Europe.  His family never learned exactly what he died of (it was 1937), only that he got sick, and they decided to commemorate him by building this hut.

More recently, I assume, this building below was built - I have never seen a two-story outhouse before, and hadn't imagined that such a thing existed.  My only thought is that it might be for when the snow level is high enough that the bottom half is inaccessible - if it isn't for that reason, then I can't imagine for what. 

The two-story outhouse at the Peter Grubb hut

I was tempted to camp there but pushed on, and immediately met a friendly hiker from Truckee out for a few days' fishing and camping trip.  Zach and his dog Asia and I hiked into the night, and cowboy camped about six miles past the Peter Grubb hut.  

My first glimpse of the Sierra Buttes in the distance

This was the first leg of the trail where more of the miles were through woods than were open.

The Sierra Buttes looming ahead

The next day I pushed hard to get into Sierra City.  In the afternoon I was walking through the trees when I heard a crashing sound up ahead.  Assuming it was other hikers messing around I continued on, but when I got closer I saw a bear through the trees.  I slowly moved closer, trying to get a picture of it, until I realized how stupid I was being.  I had learned enough doing stream surveys with the Alaska Salmon Program to know that bears will run away from you if you give them advance warning that you're coming, but may attack you if you surprise them at a close enough distance that they think that "fight" might be a better option than "flight."  I noticed that the wind was blowing on my from the direction of the bear, and that it had no idea yet that I was nearby.  The trail would take me closer to it, almost right to it, and I needed to go that way, so I needed to do something.

I thought back to the Alaska Salmon Program, and what they had told us.  We would have gun safety training every spring before the field season, and afterwards one of the professors or more experienced grad students would say something like this (I'm paraphrasing):

"Do you really think that you're going to swing the shotgun up into your hands, flip off the safety, pump it up, and put a slug in the heart of a charging bear before it gets to you?  Do you know how fast a bear moves?  We carry the shotguns for the insurance, but we don't use them.  What we use, is bear avoidance."

They would make us bang sticks together and yell something, like "hey bear," as we walked up the streams counting the spawning salmon, and it worked, because we would frequently round corners to find a fish flopping on the bank, spurting blood, and no bear in sight.  So, I pretended I was on a stream walk with the Alaska Salmon Program.  I started banging my trekking poles together and shouting "hey bear," and just started walking in his direction.  The bear immediately took off crashing away from me, but I was a little too nervous to stop making the noise for about a half a mile. 

I arrived at Highway 49 in the early evening.  It was only a mile and a half into Sierra City, but I'd walked 28 miles to get there and didn't have another mile and a half in me.  No cars stopped to pick me up, but I stubbornly sat down on my backpack and just didn't want to move any further.  After maybe a half an hour a man came out of the woods and headed for the lone car in the small parking lot there.

"You a thru-hiker?"

"Yeah, are you going to town?"  John nodded, and I ran for his car.  I didn't have very long in the car with him since it was only a mile and a half, but we managed to get into discussing how and why Sierra City was known to be only somewhat hiker friendly.  John explained that Sierra City had been a mining town and that the mining was shut down now, and that it was hard for people to see the thru-hikers come in with disposable income and seemingly no responsibilities.  He also hoped that the town would become more hiker friendly, but as a resident simply understood why it wasn't.  I understood too, as Sierra City seemed like it hadn't really made the transition to being a tourist town.  There were some places where I couldn't understand the negativity towards hikers - when I was getting ready to go to Bill's cabin the owner of the store in Echo Lake had come outside, yelled at Jeremiah, the one hiker sitting there, that there was no camping near the store, and thrown the hiker boxes (boxes where hikers leave spare food and goods for other hikers) in the garbage before stomping back inside.  Jeremiah and I had literally sorted through the trash can together because I knew there had been some conditioner in one of the hiker boxes, and I wanted to wash my hair at Bill's cabin.  The store at Echo Lake was there specifically to sell things to tourists and hikers spent money there, so it didn't make any sense to me for him to act that way.  I guess maybe he thought the hikers looked grubby enough that the would put the more high-end clients off, but that's the only thing I can think of.  Anyways, it was different in Sierra City, because it wasn't really a tourist town the way others in the region were.  

I arrived at the Red Moose shortly before dark, and Margaret marched me inside.  She gave me loaner clothes and sent me to the shower, and although it was past dinner time she made me a plate of pancakes to eat before bed.  I finished them and staggered to the backyard to camp, barely getting my sleeping pad inflated and bag rolled out before I passed out from exhaustion.   

The Red Moose Inn from behind - this is where hikers can camp.

I had liked the feeling of Sierra City coming into it the night before, and I found that I liked it even more after a night's rest.  The majestic views could be seen from the main street, and the undeveloped tourism sector gave the town a natural ambiance that others lacked.  

Sierra City seems more integrated with the natural beauty surrounding it than other towns are.

Sierra City

I really wanted to spend a zero day here, but I didn't for two reasons.  The first was obviously my new financial situation, but the second was that I felt behind after taking nine days off the trail and felt like I needed to make up as many miles as possible.  So, I spent the first half of the day doing laundry and buying groceries at the general store, and then waited out the heat of the day back at the Red Moose.  I learned from Bill that he and Margaret had a place in the Bay Area but she liked it in Sierra City and wanted to spend the winters there, and that the first winter she had decided this he had already trucked all of the winter's firewood down to the Bay Area and had to truck it all back.  I learned from Margaret that she was a diviner, although she used a word for it that I hadn't heard before, which was "dowsing."  She said that she could teach anyone to do and I wanted a lesson badly, but I needed to go so I settled my affairs and headed out of town.   

Margaret at the bar

Bill and Margaret in front of the sign they had made

A young hiker who went by Flower and I headed back to the trail together.  She was fast and took off as soon as we reached the trail, and I headed up alone towards the Sierra Buttes.  The first half of the climb was through the trees, and during that stretch a rattler darted out of the woods and slithered across the trail in front of me.  He then crawled along side it for awhile and I took pictures from a safe distance, wondering what it meant that I'd seen a bear on the way into town and a rattler on the way out - can anyone interpret that for me?   

The rattler on the way out of town

I passed the 1,200 mile mark, and remembered that I hadn't seen an 1,100 mile mark.  I don't know if I just missed it or if no one made one because 1,100 miles didn't seem that exciting after 1,000, but I think it's the only number that I didn't get a picture for. 

The second half of the climb was exposed, but by then it had cooled off.  

Looking down on Sierra City

At one point on the trail there was a long, metal pole with a note pinned to it under a rock.

When I read it I laughed out loud, and then sobered somewhat when I realized that there was someone who was enough of an adult to thru-hike the PCT that didn't know how to spell the word "carry."  

The next day looked back from a high point and saw the Sierra Buttes.  I thought about how fast I was traveling through the mountains, and how much ground I was covering.  Part of the difference was the landscape - I think in the desert there were fewer distinct features like these and in the Sierras there many but each pass obscured those on the other side of it.  However, I was also doing more miles, including some 30 mile days.  Man in Black had texted me that he'd done 30s every day while I was at my family's and I definitely wasn't doing that, but it was moving faster than I had before.  

Looking back on the Sierra Buttes

I passed out of Sierra County, and am now I think in Butte County.  I think it's funny that there's a Sierra County and a Butte County and that they're right next to each other.  

This makes me think of The Walking Dead, for some reason.

Again, a lot of the terrain in this section was like this.

The middle fork of the Feather River

The bridge over the middle fork of the Feather River

As I walked I thought about being turned into employment, & how I would come up with enough money to finish the trail, and I came up with these things:

1.  At least I'm not the person who turned me in - how lame would it be to be someone who would do that? How lucky am I that I'm me, hiking and seeing beautiful country and meeting great people almost every day?

2. Some people are petty and cruel ,but far more people are kind and generous.

3.  I don't have much money left, but I will hike to Canada if It means starving.

I finally figured out how to work the panoramic function on my iPhone's camera, and took one from Lookout Rock.  The view from Lookout Rock isn't the most amazing view I've seen on the trail, but now I know how to use it for future opportunities:

The normal shot

The panoramic shot

I would have sworn that this snake was plastic and left there as a joke if I hadn't prodded it and it hadn't moved.

The biggest spider I've seen on the trail

I see all of these great flowers, but they rarely turn out in photos.  This photo doesn't do the scene justice, but at least you can see a little color.

Another one of the few informational signs about the PCT I've seen on the PCT

The next day I got into Belden, or rather, a resort on the PCT, outside of Belden.  Other hikers that I'd made friends with previously were there, and we started ordering pitchers of beer.  I hadn't seen Smiles and Dr. Slosh for more than a month.  I'd run into Starfox and Chik Chak in the last week, but before that it had been a long time.  I realized that the timing of my family visit had been ideal - after the High Sierras people really need a rest and start taking more zero days in towns, and I'd gotten my rest by default by spending a week at my brother's house.  By the end of the evening the others had gone to the local trail angels' house to sleep and it was Smiles, Slosh, a hiker I hadn't met before named Fireball, and me.  Somehow in the drunkenness it became imperative to buy bottles of cheap champagne to drink at the halfway marker, which we'd reach the day after next.  I really could 't afford it and the weight was ridiculous, but in the morning I woke up with it and staggered up the day's 5,000 foot climb with it and a sizable hangover.   

The EBY Stamp Mill on the edge of Belden

Just to put things in perspective, 5,000 feet is more elevation gain than that from the Crabtree Meadows Ranger Station to the top of Mount Whitney, the highest peak in the 48 states, and we had somehow decided that it was necessary to carry bottles of champagne up it.   

This was another area where a lot had burned.

Several signs posted on the trail said that this section was maintained by the Sierra Buttes unit of the Backcountry Horsemen, and I remembered that they'd had a booth at the kickoff party and that I'd sat and chatted with their representatives for awhile. 

I somehow made it up that hill, and camped that night with a decently-sized group of hikers, including a girl who had learned Russian while serving in the Peace Corp in eastern Ukraine and spoke to me in Russian.  The next day I woke up early and charged off towards the halfway mark, leaving everyone just rousing from their sleeping bags. 

There was just a small post marking the spot, but it was enough. 

The side facing the trail

Looking from the south

Looking from the north

The register there began in 2011 and was completely full, so I squeezed my trail name, Busted, in on the back cover.  

I got out my bottle of champagne, and opened it.  It had been bounced around so much that as soon as I loosened the wire fitting over the cork it shot off, and although I went to look for it twice to avoid littering I didn't manage to find it. 

Fireball, who had also carried a bottle, showed up next and we took pictures of each other and shared my bottle between us.  

Fireball and our two champagne bottles

Fireball saved his bottle for more of the people we'd camped with the night before and lunched with that day to show up, and let everyone have a swig for the camera and then pass the bottle around until it was finished. 

Back row, left to right - Fireball, Exflagrance, and Manchurian.  Front row, left to right - me, Sunshine

We all stumbled another five miles or so and camped at a creek, and in the morning I booked the three and  a half miles out to Highway 36.  Coolers full of refreshments waited there, provided by different trail angels.  Piper's Mom maintained three of them with fruit and snacks and sodas, Pony's Dad maintained one with beer, and Sherpa and Solstice, two former thru-hikers, arrived with another cooler and some homemade cookies and fruit while we were there.  

The coolers at Highway 36

Piper's Mom came to restock her coolers for the day and drove Sunshine, Solstice, Exflagrance, and I into town.  We dropped the three of them off in town and I went with her to her home outside of Chester where she let me take a bath and do laundry and use the computer for hours, and even fed me leftover cannelloni.  You could tell she knew hikers because she didn't ask me how much I wanted.  She put everything that was left on a plate, and then set the dish it had been baked on next to the plate so that I could scrape out the remainders when I was done. 

Piper's Mom

Piper's Mom and her husband Lowell had done a lot of traveling in the U.S., and had done much of that in recent years in an R.V.  They'd spent time in the coast, had driven to Alaska and back, and both seemed to really be thrilled about the country.  One of the biggest themes of this trip for me has been realizing, after years of traveling and living abroad, that there is more to see and do in my own country than I ever imagined, and Piper's Mom seemed to celebrate this.  Again, with some people you get bad, but with so many more people you get good.