Alright, so I need to preface today’s hike.   The goal is to do 30 miles, which means that I’m basically on my feet from 7am to 8+pm.   So I can forget about chatting up folks on the trail, etc.   It is just plug in the ear buds and make miles.  There are going to be many more days like this coming up.

That said, I got up, loaded and took off.   Racked the poles and started walking at a 3 mile ish pace.    

Soho got out ahead of me this morning.    The views were pretty good.

 Pre-Lunch was on a big rock along the trail.   I packed in a big block of cheese for this hike.   I carved off a couple big chunks and ate it with my bagel.    Put  mouthful or two of bacon bits on top of the melting cheese.   Yumm…..   I figure I can get a 3 or 4 days from my cheese block 🙂

Around 12:30 I ran into these folks. 

They are spending a couple weeks on the trail sawing blow-downs off.   They did a little bit of trail clearing as well.   I suppose I can deal with the copious amounts of horse crap I have to step over.   The lady to the right had met Soho a few minutes earlier.   She thought his accent was sooooooo cute.  Aww.    I personally identify best with the mangy dog.  He is definitely at the bottom rung of this operation and seems to know it. 

The trail was fairly level and padded with sand and needles.    Not too many rocky bits.    

I ran into Soho resting his feet at a spring.   He’s taking a 30 minute break.   WIth my pace, I can’t.   I stopped for a bit then kept rocking.   

Around 6:30 or so, it started raining.   Was a few blobs of rain clouds going over which built up to a decent continuous downpour.  Cool thing was that it was very localized.   I put my pack cover on and just kept walking.   Sweat.  Rain.  What’s the difference.

  The Sun was still out to the West.   Which gave me this 

Got to Cooper’s Meadow trail junction (1549) at 8ish.   There were two south bounders setup here.   One guy was watching the lighting strikes from our spot…which was totally exposed.   Fortunately the storm was moving away from us so I setup.  Soho turned up a few minutes later and we cooked and crashed.    

Made my first 30 miler.  I think I sustain this pace every other day or so if need be.   Feeling pretty happy.   

This morning Soho arranged a ride from the motel to the trail at 6:15 AM.  As soon as we got dropped I felt nature calling.  Instead of answering the call in a nice porcelain paradise I spent some time squating in the woods.  I need to do a better job scheduling my bodily functions.

Here is the elevations profile of my misery for today.  

This climb started easy enough.   Some gradual ups and downs.   Lots of water.   Along the way I passed some gal sitting in her campsite.   She had a fire going and her dog was in her tent.   It was 10am.   So any practical hiker would have been on the trail by now.   I figure this is someone to avoid.   So I say hi and keep climbing. 

Found out later that Soho spent a little time talking to her.   She is from Minneapolis.  Came out yesterday to  start hiking North.  Drove out to Dunsmuir and had sold everything.  She has a canvas backpack with no frame and a $400 budget.  She has hiked 8 miles so far.   Glad I didn’t stop.

First bit was in the forest. 

Then it began to show some promise. 

Then I got some nice views. 

  It was a workout climbing up all this.   I was sweating my tail off.   The good news was that for each 1,000 feet, I was trading 3 or 4 degrees of temperature, so by the time I hit 6k, it was a reasonable 75 or so.   

There was a bunch of nasty switch backs going up.  Check this out….somebody came up here and stacked all these rocks to give us a trail.   

Hitting the top was some easy ups and downs.   

 Here is a view back on the Crags.   Zoom into the lower right.   That line of trail was the switch backs coming up.   About 3k of gain there. 

Ran into a few Southies on the way.    Didn’t talk to them  much, was panting through the 5k worth of climbing.   FInally found Soho at mile 1518 and setup camp.   It was a rough day.   Lot of exposed climbing.   Did almost 20 today.    Tomorrow is the big day, planning for (my) first 30 miler.

Eating, Resupply, more eating.   The mobile phone service here sucks.   Found a spot to make a couple of calls but that was it.   We will be leaving here at 6:15 tomorrow to get on the trail.  

Another hellish climb awaits us out of town.  4k ascent.   Weather in the area will be in the mid 90’s most of the week, so if we can get up to 6k before that hits, it should be ok.    Figure it will be high 70’s at that altitude.

Had Dinner with Old School last night.   He is an interesting character.   Last few years he has been driving an RV from Argentina up to the US.   Now he wants to sell it and get a sailboat.   He’s getting off the trail for a few days to see his Mom and was having a hard time spending the $100 on a hotel stay to wait for Amtrak tomorrow morning.   Soho is trying to figure out how he’ll afford a 60 foot sailboat if he can’t bring himself to drop Benjamin on a room.    Maybe he will put some floaties on his RV….

Next leg will end at the suckie location of Etna.    I heard the mobile service sucks even worse there.    Maybe we can find an overnighter at hotel on the interwebs.    Otherwise, it will be Seiad Valley.   I’ll update soon as I can.  

Big debate going on as to the mileage goals.   I figure we will try to take down a couple 25-30’s after we finish the climb tomorrow.   Should pop back out in a week or so.

Great sleep next to the river.  I popped up, packed and left around 6am.   There is a 3k climb and I wanted to get that over in the morning.   Soho passed me on the way up.   He loves those hills.  

There was not much to see.   Just trees, trees, and more trees.   Soho made the observation the other day that one side of these mountains is soft trail and the other side is rocky.   I’m starting to notice that.   I wander if that is because one side has been exposed longer, while the rocky side is granite that has been recently exposed by the plates pushing the mountain up.   Have to ask a geologist hiker next time I see one. 

I had the music turned up, but felt like I was dragging today.    Just didn’t have much energy for the long downhill after the climb.    Probably need a town day to recoup.   

Crossed the Sacramento River and walked up to the I-5 onramp. 

It was hot.   No super hot.   92 on my Thermometer.    Soho showed up shortly after I got there and we laid under the semi shade and tried to thumb a ride.    Took almost 30 minutes, but finally a pickup stopped by.   They had already got Old School and offered to get us into town as well, if we would hop in the bed and stay low so the cops wouldn’t see us.   

We made it to town and checked into the Dunsmuir Inn and Suites.   It is a decent place.   Showered all the Deet and sunscreen off me.   Feeling pretty good now.    Probably going to zero tomorrow.   We both need it I think.  

This morning I got up and that Doe is still roaming around the camp site.   Soho is all pissed off because another mouse chewed through his tent last night.   He chewed on his trail mix bag, took a couple shits in his tent, then left.   Disappointed, apparently.   

That makes the second mouse attack on Soho.   A few days ago he woke up with a mouse running around inside on his bug netting.   By the time he got his headlamp on the thing ran out the hole it made.   Soho borrowed some more magical unicorn duct tap to patch his tent up.   It is starting to look pretty ghetto. 

This doe is annoying me off, so I hit her with a rock.   She barely even moved.   Soho thinks we can hunt the deer around here with a baseball bat.   

There are not too many pictures for today.   It was a a nasty climb up to a tree enclosed peak.   At the top, instead of a beautiful vista, I treated to a hiker named Shaggy eating a granola bar.

At least there is water everywhere.   

Soho is dragging ass today.  His feet and ankles are hurting him.   I’m actually feeling pretty good.   Once again my feet have healed up overnight.   I am still amazed at how bad I feel before bed and how much better I feel by mid morning the next day.   The first 30 minutes every morning is a struggle to get all the bits working, but after the stretching a little walking I’m usually back to 100%.

Made it to Squaw Valley creek after a long decent.   It is flowing big.   No campsites here, so I had to head up to the trail head about .1 mile off trail.   Shaggy found a spot above the bridge on some rocks.   Just enough room for a sleeping pad.   Hope he doesn’t roll off in the night.

  Soho and I are cozy on this one.   Only spot we could find next to the river, which is roaring.   Gonna sleep good tonight 🙂

21 miles today.  I’ve been talking to some other hikers and they have found that they can do a couple big mile days then need a smaller day to recover.    Probably going to need to follow the philosophy.