June 23, 2012.
Day: 30 Daily Miles: 45.25 Total Miles: 1301 Hours Hiking: 15.5 6:20am-11:40pm
Listen to the audio journal above or Download June 23rd Audio File Here
June 23, Day 30. I did 45.25 miles
ending at the 1301 mile mark. I started about 4-5 miles up from the
Middle Fork of the Feather River and ended about 2 miles from the top
of the Belden climb- the climb out of Belden, in the grassy little
meadow area after all of the gnarly, stupid, terrible, horrible,
awful, steep, rocky climb. *laughs*n Yeah, pretty much. Lets see,
that point was 0637230 E 4432947 N. So yeah, the day well began wet
and pretty much...it was cold and still wet for most of the rest of
the day. Well, for at least half of the day. But um, it rained for
half of the night. At about 4am, the big shower happened. I don't
know hot big, but I was covered in my tarp instead of setting it up,
because up until I went to bed, it hadn't precipitated, sprinkled or
whatever in like 6-8 hours, so I figured I'd be good, you know? The
clouds were broken up and it was partly cloudy, but no, it sprinkled
as I put my head down. So I pulled my tarp out and just laid it over
me..which I knew would cause problems with condensation in the inside
and get my bag wet, but no big deal. But, um yeah, at 4am the big one
hit. There were a couple puddles on my tarp when I woke up, but I
stayed really dry besides the condensation. So that good. I woke up
and was like 'crap its dripping, everything is wet', but there was
blue sky above, even though there was still a bunch of clouds, at
least some blue sky. I finally got going at I think 6:25, everything
was still wet...I shook it off the best I could and was just like
"I'll just dry it out later'. The climb up and out of the canyon
was easy. A bit chilly because everything was damp and you're in the
shade a lot. I got up to 'Lookout Rock' and called mom and dad just
because I hadn't talked to
Day 30
June 23, Day 30. I did 45.25 miles
ending at the 1301 mile mark. I started about 4-5 miles up from the
Middle Fork of the Feather River and ended about 2 miles from the top
of the Belden climb- the climb out of Belden, in the grassy little
meadow area after all of the gnarly, stupid, terrible, horrible,
awful, steep, rocky climb. *laughs*n Yeah, pretty much. Lets see,
that point was 0637230 E 4432947 N. So yeah, the day well began wet
and pretty much...it was cold and still wet for most of the rest of
the day. Well, for at least half of the day. But um, it rained for
half of the night. At about 4am, the big shower happened. I don't
know hot big, but I was covered in my tarp instead of setting it up,
because up until I went to bed, it hadn't precipitated, sprinkled or
whatever in like 6-8 hours, so I figured I'd be good, you know? The
clouds were broken up and it was partly cloudy, but no, it sprinkled
as I put my head down. So I pulled my tarp out and just laid it over
me..which I knew would cause problems with condensation in the inside
and get my bag wet, but no big deal. But, um yeah, at 4am the big one
hit. There were a couple puddles on my tarp when I woke up, but I
stayed really dry besides the condensation. So that good. I woke up
and was like 'crap its dripping, everything is wet', but there was
blue sky above, even though there was still a bunch of clouds, at
least some blue sky. I finally got going at I think 6:25, everything
was still wet...I shook it off the best I could and was just like
"I'll just dry it out later'. The climb up and out of the canyon
was easy. A bit chilly because everything was damp and you're in the
shade a lot. I got up to 'Lookout Rock' and called mom and dad just
because I hadn't talked to
them for a little while and I knew Greg's
wedding (my cousin) was happening. Lets see then. I just kept
plodding along. A little further on from Lookout Rock, the trail had
puddles still. All of the bushes were still covered in water, so my
feet were soaking wet. I'd take steps and see water squish out of my
shoe - that's how wet it was. But, I just kept going. It was a 33
mile or so day to get into Belden for my resupply and I wanted to do
it early enough so I could stop by the little Belden tavern/resort
store and also make it out of there {Belden} in the same day, which I
managed to do. I just kept trucking along, it was like 50 F and
breezy all day, so I was cold. It was one of those times where I
wasn't sure if I wanted to put on my jacket and be a little warm or
just wear my sleeves down and keep hiking fast. So, I just kept
hiking fast. The sun felt really good, but when you were in the
shade, the wind just chilled you. I got to...Lets see...what else is
there from yesterday...umm.. I remembered quite a bit of it {the
trail from 2009} yesterday, I don't know why. It seems to be that
town days from 2009 I remember {the trail} better. Probably because I
was looking forward to them more than other days. I mean I was happy
yesterday for sure, until the evening *laughs*, then I was angry,
because that climb was awful {especially in the dark}. I got a couple
good views once i got up to the top of the ridge. I saw Mt. Lassen
for the first time. I met two women - a mother and daughter hikers -
they seemed a little clueless about what they were doing. But I
hopefully straightened them out on a few things and gave them some
good advice and kind of nudged them in the direction of certain items
they should exchange. But they were really nice and headed to Belden
as well. I didn't get to see them again, because they were probably
going a little slower than my rapid turn around. I also met...once I
got out to the ridge that overlooks the North Fork of the Feather
River canyon where Belden is at, the wind was pretty strong, but at
least it was completely sunny and I could see all the way down into
the central valley - Chico-Oroville are which was pretty cool. Then I
just bombed it down into the canyon. I met another guy called
Hawkeye I believe, on the way down - a thru-hiker. And then bashed my
way through bushes, dodged poison and then I was basically there. I
went into the Belden resort area thing, got the Belden Burger, which
was double patty with bacon and a bunch of cheese. They were out of
fries, and I was like " Ohh my god, that's all I could ever want
right now..and you're out of fries and onion rings..!!" So, I
got a salad, which doesn't quite do it, but you know, greens are
better than nothing. I did manage to eat all of the ranch dressing
though. *laughs* That took a little while, even though I got it to
go, so I perused the store and bought a thing of cookies and
another
smaller can of frosting and a Drumstick ice cream, just to kind of
keep those extra calories in my pack, so I can keep on eating them.
The burger took forever, but I finally got it and by that time,
Hawkeye had arrived and I let him use my phone to call the Braatens
so he could get a ride there. Basically as soon as I got outside and
started walking down the street, the Braatens arrived to give him a
ride and she was trying to convince me to take a ride too. But, I was
like 'no, no, I have to walk {on account of the record}. It took
about 20 minutes to walk to her place...and the burger was really
good {ate is as I walked}. I finished it within the first 3 minutes
of walking. But yeah, not so many cars. I pulled my sleeping bag out
and draped it over my back because the sun was behind me and it was
super windy, so I could dry it out as I went. It must have looked
really ridiculous to passing cars because you couldn't really see me
besides my feet. I was just this big black lump walking. I go to the
Braatens, stripped open my package, laid out all of my wet stuff
outside was the first thing I did. I got everything packed into my
pack, charged my phone and then I managed to find some goodies to eat
in the kitchen, I signed the register and basically that was about
it. I got everything packed up again and adios. It took me about an
hour or so to resupply at the house itself. It never goes quite as
fast as you'd think because you're like 'ohh I can sit down and relax
a little bit'. Back on the road, then I got back onto trail around
7:15-20 pm. and from there, just proceeded to climb up the
valley....uggghhh, it was awful. The first part wasn't bad. You go up
steeply and you're probably 200ft above the road - you parallel the
road for a while. Then you turn into the canyon and parallel the
canyon at that height for a while
 |
| First view of Mt Lassen before the Belden descent. |
and then you hit switchbacks, which
there are a lot of them, they are a little steeper than normal, but
they aren't terrible - they are nice, they are flat, they're
switchbacks, they're good. Those go on for like 4 miles...
switchback, switchback, switchback, then you just keep gradually
climbing, climbing, climbing at an angle. Then you kind of drop down
a little bit and then it turns rocky, which would be OK if it was
like granite and solid rock, but it's not. It's like scree field
rocky. These scree field rocks are like the size of softballs and
baseballs. So, you start getting rocks that aren't fun to walk on and
are hard to walk across and then you enter the forest and it combines
the two. So you get kind of these pine needle covered trails, a
little bit of dirt, then rocky patches, and of course the trail
itself kind of goes flat along the dirt pine needle patches and then
screams steeply upwards up all of the rocky patches. So it's kind of
walking up a loose riverbed. And it just does this for 3-4 miles. The
trail is just not well made in this area. It doesn't keep a
continuous grade or anything, it just goes kind of up, then really
up, then kind of up, then really up and then winds around. Lots of
little creeks. Eventually I made it. I was super tired by the end. I
wanted to make it to 1300 miles and there was no place to camp there
so...there was a little spot on the map (halfmile maps} marked as a
campsite at 1301 and that's where I went. I was really happy to sit
down and made dinner and pass out, so that was yesterday. Today I'm
tired. Oh well.
In addition to June 23, Day 30 journal
entry, I think the climb through there was bad because it was at the
end of a 40+ mile day. I had resupplies and it was just steep and at
night. Also, I hit the midpoint tomorrow. It should be about ohh, 30
or so miles away, so I should hit it late afternoon. I'm hoping to
hit it before 6pm so when you do the math, it's less than 61 days to
complete the trail - 60 days and X amount of hours.
 |
| The descent down to North Fork of the Feather River and Belden..sooo far down, then right back up :/ |
