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| Morning Mt. Lassen from the Hat Creek Rim. |
June 26, Day 33. I hiked 45 miles with
a resupply at Burney Falls State Park, ending at mile 1441.25. I
stopped probably about 11:40pm. Yeah, that point was up in Section
O's famed and horrible shrubbery mess, which you have to plow through
and you can't see. I was actually about a mile away from where I had
camped in 2009 with LINT, Avo, and Miss Info. That point was 0301682
E 4550457 N. Ohh, where to begin. We woke up a little late. I was
camping out with Chimichanga. It was the first time I had camped out
with anyone so far on this trek. We night hiked for a while in the
rain and finally found trees and camped out underneath them because
it was dried and offered protection from the wind. So we got up and
everything was wet and we weren't very keen on moving fast, so we
didn't get started until about 6:45am I believe. All the plants were
still wet, so our shoes were soaking withing a matter of
minutes...which sucks. Wet feet plus having done lots of walking
already... calluses and dead skin and stuff...basically all the dead
skin, calluses etc start to soften and want to fall off even faster,
which you don't want. You want that dead skin to stay on there as
long as possible, because it's just your line of defense. We finished
off the Hat Creek Rim and met a SOBO section hiker. We got down to
the lava flats and kept chugging along. It took forever, they never
seem to end. Eventually we made it to the fish hatchery, got a little
confused and lost. We caught up with two more thru-hikers just passed
the fish hatchery - Charley, who I guess met me in 2009 and oh I
forget, there's a German guy. We stopped at Highway 299, Chimichanga
and I. He had thought about going into Burney Falls {town} by
hitching, but my feet were wet and hurting a lot because of the shoes
were done. They had over 700 miles on them and they were wet, so
there was no cushion or anything left, especially after going over
the lava. So we stopped and we needed to dry out all of our stuff, so
we did. There was a sunny spot next to the road and we proceeded to
throw all of our tarps and ground cloths and sleeping bags out in the
sun. I ate, it was almost 20 miles, so it was kind of like a lunch
break. Then, I finally packed it up after about 40 minutes and
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| Almost to Burney Falls State Park. |
was
like, see ya I'm headed to the state park, I've got to make my
resupply. It was another 8 miles. I got there {Burney Falls State
Park}, the other two thru-hikers - Charley and the German guy - had
already passed us and they were hanging out and chowing down. So I
did the same. I got my box, got a pint of ice cream. I got a
microwave burrito, I got a hot pocket, and two more burritos for the
next days. I went outside, packed, got my new shoes on, which I was
sooo happy about. Chatted for a bit and filled up my water, charged
my phone...all the things you do in town. By the time I was almost
ready to go, Chimichanga showed up and he was like 'I didn't hitch',
but he did get lost too, which I knew Burney Falls is a really
confusing place to kind of come into. But regardless, I left at about
6pm, about a half hour later than I'd have liked to have. It's really
hard to resupply with other people because they want to chat and you
want to chat and it makes it just go much slower. But, I just kind of
plodded on. My dad had told Uncle Boggs to buy my a Red Bull, they
got me a 32oz Red Bull, which I had carried from the top of Hat Creek
Rim overlook, and I was like 'I am not carrying this. I have 5 days
worth of heavy food plus a bunch of extra food that I bought'. So it
was heavy and I was not going to carry liquid heavy. I chugged that
and made great time during the evening... obviously! Probably 11-11.5
miles in about 3 hours.....Ohh my god I'm in fucking manzanita,
jesus, owe. It's up to my chest. This is not a cool part of the
trail. I just saw Shasta for the first time actually right
now.....Anyway, last night I met two other thru-hikers, they were
finishing off their section hike, they were an older couple, probably
mid 50's. They were cool. I chatted with them for a little bit. Yeah,
it turned into dark, I kind of had an idea of where I wanted to be -
get up passed the long climb - the Peavine Creek, the power lines and
kind of finally get into section O's terrible overgrowth. Section O,
is 'O' for "Ohhh nooo!" or "Overgrown" or
"Ohhhhhhh.....". So, I knew there were plenty of roads to
camp on, so I just kept going and kept going and finally it just got
too late and I was like 'why am I still walking? It's 11:40, I need
to eat dinner still". So I finally got to an even mile mark. I
got above the climb at least, that was the best part, and stopped. I
had dinner and promptly brushed my teeth
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| The destruction after another 700 miles, new shoes today! |
and went to bed. But, the
morning actually was...I don't know...It was soo comfortable, I don't
know, I probably was extra tired, I bet it was partially the Red Bull
that kind of wrecked me, but I didn't get up until 8am. I tried. I
kept waking up and kept saying this is too comfortable and nice, so
I'm going back to sleep, screw it. So I didn't get started today
until about 8:50am. We'll see how the day goes, but yesterday was a
pretty good day. I need to get back onto a nice regular schedule of
waking up early and ending earlier, because it's better to hike in
the day time, just because you go faster. So if I started at
5-5:30am, and ended at like 10:30pm, it would be much better. That
would mean only about 1.5 hours of night hiking. So maybe today, I'll
have to call it a short day at 40 miles and be done, and then on from
there. It seems like still it's so far away though. It's one of those
5 day hauls and it's kind of flat but. Uggh, whatever I'll just do it
and get it done with. The hard part is that my food supply is based
on doing like 47's and shit because of just how the math worked out.
I'll figure it out, I have plenty of food. So everything is good, I
just have to find the energy today and bust it.
Supplement to June 26, Day 33. I forgot
to mention how nice it was to actually hike with somebody. Not just
only at night and spending the night...we hiked until about 1-2pm
together, or whenever we hit Highway 299 - Chimichanga and I. You
know, he's a law student, ya know he's probably 24 or 25. So yeah, we
get along great - have similar views, like most of the people, or
most of our peers along this trail or people you find have similar
views. It was nice just to have a conversation and not be stuck to
your own thoughts and only hear other peoples voices for the brief
times you meet them on trail or like audio books or podcasts, where
you're not actually having a conversation, you're just listening. So
it was quite nice and yeah, it made yesterday a lot better than most
days, even though I had to hike late and had a resupply, I managed it
all and had a good time.
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| Hat Creek Rim north end around 10am and NOT hot! |
