Up and out before 7. Got a nice sleep at that campsite. So nice to be on a level pad. Scrappy and Sing Song passed our site before I left. They were 2 miles back….early risers.

The bad news is that my toes are killing me. They are cramped up in my shoes. The same size 11.5 shoes I have been wearing comfortably for the last 600 miles. Apparently it is common for our feet to flatten out and get wider and/or longer during a through-hike. Well, it looks like I need to jump yet another half size. Now instead of 10.5/11 shoe size, I need a size 12. At the next stop I’m ordering some new ones.

Today’s hike was generally bland. Mostly mellow ups and downs through a few creeks and rivers.

Hit the HALF WAY MARKER today at 1320!!!! Well, I did skip 450 miles in the High Sierra, but I’ll take the Win.

I caught up with Scrappy around 11:30am, passed her but she kept up and seemed to want to talk. So, I started information mining her.

She is a graduate student in Neuroscience and is also a behavioral therapist. She is doing research in Salt Lake around a behavioral therapy to help people break their opioid addiction. (drericgarland.com). The program is called MORE and involves training/therapy in mindfulness, reappraisal, and savoring. It took about 4 miles of hiking to understand what all this stuff means. Anyway, the theory is that opioid addiction to some degree started with individual’s brains being out of balance in one or more of these areas. As they continued to use them, it reinforces pathways that feed this negative behavior. This therapy attempts to reverse it.

This is all mostly therapy yadda, yadda, which I mostly don’t get and could care less about. I equate it to the old advertising saying: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half”

The thing I found interesting is that she is going to attempt to measure changes in the brain using an FMRI. Now that is something I buy into. Physical evidence of the behavior therapy effectiveness would be a leap forward, imo. She also believes there may be other therapy which could reduce certain psychosomatic symptoms like swelling and arthritis, once again measured via FMRI. They have a $20m grant to do their opioid research, so I guess the NSF thinks it promising.

At this point in the hike, I have closed the loop on the opioid “epidemic”. First with some nurses I hiked with who bitched about the requirement to manage a patient’s pain. The infamous question we all get at the clinic/hospital to rate our pain from 1 to 10. Then I chatted with a gal in charge of surveying discharged patients which carries a 2% increase in reimbursement for reaching some threshold. One of their questions is “How was your pain managed?” Now I talk to a gal who is researching how to get folks off of pain meds after they have become hooked.

Full circle. I think the problem in all this is the patient. Give them an easier way out and they’ll generally take it. If I didn’t know all the hazards, I would. Basically everything below my waist is aching, sore, or swollen since I started this hike.   

Ok, now, back to the hike. It was mostly green tunnel stuff. Here are a couple good pics

Stopped at Soldier Creek (1325) for some lunch and lounging. Scrappy hung around with us for a couple hours waiting for Sing Song who eventually showed up. Somehow he got behind us and was hiking mega slow.

Bunch of south bounders showed up. They bounced to Ashland like so many others we have met on the trail.

Around 3 we packed up and headed to Stover Spring.

We setup in an RV camp with some other hikers. Sonny, a 6 foot 1 female Taiwanese basketball player who is hiking with a Malaysian gal who smokes a pack a day. The Malaysian seems to be jumping around on the trail and is complaining about health issues. I don’t think her 8 mile/day pace is going to cut it. Sonny seems ready to ditch her partner. That should be interesting.

Soho and I setup camp, ate dinner, and zipped up in our tent. We were chatting that a beer would be a nice nightcap. None of the RV campers were offering. Then at 8, a guy next us pulls up to his trailer. He is blaring country music…ugh. But, it turns out he has a cooler full of Coors and a mood for sharing 🙂 Unzip the tents and we head over. Soho keeps him busy talking about country music, the sawmill, and, of course, guns. Meanwhile I take down a 24 and Bacardi + coke. Had to deal with country music for an hour before that guy finally knocked out. Can’t always get what you want…..

19 mile day. Tomorrow we are getting some love at Drakesbad

 

Turned out the sleep wasn’t that bad actually. When I rolled around, there was lots of crunching sounds, but aside from that it was good. We turned out of camp at 7.

The climb continued to be miserable. Here is the sequence: Level/slight climb, then super steep climb up some dry/semi-dry creek bed, then over a swollen creek. Those were agility tests. Here is couple of pics.

 

Soho captured a video of my expert crossing technique.   I’ll add it when I get decent Internet. 

<Video of crossing>

Then, we hit this crossing.

Soho and I stood there looking at it for a while. The lower path looked straightforward, but with the guarantee of somewhat wet feet. The top crossing could be totally dry, if you can make the jump over this:

Soho went low. I, of course, decided to go for all the bananas. Didn’t go well. I jumped on the angled rock next to the little waterfall. First I noticed the algae on the rock, then I noticed that my foot was on it, then I slowly slide straight into the water up to my waist. Sucked. I dropped one of my poles downstream. Soho grabbed it before it floated over the lower falls.

After falling in the water all my future water crossings became easier. I just stomped through them.

The climb went on, and on, and on. Traverse, climb, stomp through water. Passed some trail maintenance folks during their thing. About 12 of them, breaking rocks, laying cable, etc.

Soho took off ahead of me, he does better on these climbs.

Made it up to the first peak, which had a pleasant meadow. It also had an unpleasant dog leg in the trail.

I missed it, wondered around a bit, then found the trail again and kept hiking. It was going down hill. I was thinking how nice this is…then I notice stuff looked familiar…hmm.. Going the wrong way, again. Lost 40 minutes on that stupidly.

At least I get to see this twice.

Plan was to meet. Soho at Cold Springs (1304) for our afternoon break. I’m going to be late which means no lunch break for me. I switched to hiking 1 hr, stoping for some grazing on trail mix, then continuing.

At Cold Springs, I found Soho laying under a tree looking very comfortable. He had a nice 1 hr+ break talking to some hikers, Sing Song and Scrappy, who left earlier. I on the other hand would not be lounging. Just answered nature’s call, filled up with water, and got back on the trail. FML.

The folks in Butte seem to think this 8k peak is worth noting.

This is the county full of weird signs.

When we were on lookout rock before Belden we got our first view of mount Lassen. Some guy mentioned that it looked like Mount Doom looming over the horizon. We are getting closer, my Precious!

 

Camped near a spring at 1313. It was a haul to get water, but since Soho volunteered it was great for me :). 22 miles today….well 22 miles of progress, I clocked closer to 24.

I spent most of the day in Belden updating this blog.

Belden has 7 permanent residents. Life in this “town” is centered around the bar.  That’s where you order food, pay for stuff from the general store, get a room, catch up on gossip, etc.  Soho went down to the bar and asked about a late check out.  The gal at the bar says, “Oh, I didn’t even know the room was rented.”  So I guess that was a yes.  I stayed there until 4.

Meanwhile, down at the bar, Soho and I learned a little about the work life in Belden.  Folks wake around 7 and do some yard work. Another gal cleans the rooms, well, at least the ones that she knows about.  Then around 11 or 12 they begin to collected around the corner of the bar, ordering shots of tequila, whiskey, beers, and whatever.  All goes on the tab.  By 3 they are all trashed…..and the cycle repeats.

Soho and I left at 6.   We were heading toward a nasty climb.    5k over 15 miles.   Brutal.   

<Pic Elevation Profile>

After crossing the road and on the trail head, it was straight up. No relief, just climbing. Fortunately the hill blocked the sun most of the time, so we got a little lucky there.

There was a big fire through this canyon. But the trees are recovering well.  Much better than So Cal.  Guess the water helps.

 

Ran headlamps until 10. We figured that every foot we get tonight when its cool will be one less to deal with tomorrow morning. We stopped at Myrtle Flat where there is supposedly some camp sites (1291).  Stumbled around for 30 minutes looking and eventually settled on a couple semi-flat spots with a bunch of branches laying everywhere. It sucked, but oh well.

Did 6 miles today and collected a couple thousand feet.

Up and away.   Today is town Day. 

Went under this 

And a bunch more just like it, then it was a big descent down to 2200 feet.   

On the way down I ran into a group of southies that I knew well.   Unicorn, Tetris, Monarch, and Orion.   They were hiking with Seabiscuit and Sizzle (Zach).   Just heard that Zach went off the trail.   They said he hit a 1000 miles and said “Enough”.   Haha, get it Zach.   Hopefully one day I find that guy again.   

Got down to Belden and setup in a room.   This is a cool resort.  On weekends it sometimes get swarmed by some oddball event.  Apparently they are still cleaning up from a pre-burning man party last week.   Dunno, all I see are giant garbage cans full of beer bottles.   Must have been good.   

Here is the view from our place. 

Burgers are good and the folks are friendly.   A trail angel brought over my resupply box which I had sent USPS (they don’t deliver here anymore).  

Spent the afternoon catching up with a wounded warrior who is hiking the trail.   His name is Jackalope.   He’s from Kansas and did 2 tours in Afganistan.   Man he has some stories to tell.   He seems like a really good kid.   Likes to hunt, respectful, good shape.   Probably dealt with some stuff over there that messed with his head.   Anyway, he seems like he’s getting what he wants out of the hike so good for him and the folks sponsoring the thing.  

Did only 9 today.   Soho and I are fattening up for the big climb tomorrow.   It is going to be a nasty one.   We are thinking about leaving around 5pm ish.  

 

Woke up to this

Packed and began the hike down.   It was mostly green tunnel stuff.   Here is a sample

It is actually good hiking, but doesn’t stand out in the pictures.    There was another small climb ahead then a stream called bucks creek.   Stopped there for the afternoon and relaxed until 2:00.   

Some day hikers came by as well as a few south bounders.   One of them I recognize from KM.   We caught up a bit.  He bounced to Ashland and is heading South.   Groups are split up all over the place. 

Another southbounder was this guy

 

Soho met him near Campo in April.   He has been bouncing around doing bits of the trail as they clear.   His wife follows him in a trailer to support.   He was whining about the blow downs and having to get down to scout them out and/or cut off branches.   He seems well fed, so I’m not sure I have much sympathy.    Anyway, we had a good chat and he took off.  

 

We hiked up to Clear Creek springs which is at a swampy spot at 6600 feet.   That was camp for the night.   I made us a little fire to keep the bugs away.   Pretty easy to light…just grab some pine needs and sticks, and add a lighter.    

Later that night after turning in, the Israeli kids turned up.   They had diverted to Quincy to get all you can eat pizza.    They had been talking about it for days, so they hitched in, ate a bunch, hitched out, now here they are.   The unspent energy of youth…..

Did 16 today.   We will need to pick up the pace soon.   And do it without the Pizza buffets