 |
| Approaching the descent to Castella and the I-5 crossing. |
June 27 {meant 28th}, Day 35. Ohh, I made 48 miles
yesterday, to mileage 1532.25. That put me above the Castle Crags
climb, across a few rocky ridge walks and kind of between the first
two roads you encounter. That point is 0540323 E 4563245 N. Ohh
yesterday... It was a pretty good day. Lets see here. I started up on
the jeep road in the trees. Proceeded to go down to Trough Creek
where it really got back into the dense poison oak again, so I had to
do the poison oak shuffle. From then, you kind of just bob along
until you go down slightly to the big Squaw Creek, which has a nice
bridge and is really pretty and scenic. Then you climb right after
that and keep climbing for a while. Not to bad of climbing. Good
switchbacks...switchbacked it up, kind of long straight stretches
along the...just below the lip of ridges to get you to the high point
or saddles etc. Finally, you make it to the top ridge line and you
have a nice view of Mt. Shasta, Black Butte, the valley in-between,
and then over to Castle Crags. You get this whole huge panorama of
kind of where you're going and what you've been seeing. However, it's
hard to take a picture of it because there's always trees somewhere
in the way. The downhill to the Sacramento river and Castella was
looong. It's just. There's one switchback that does this 1.5 mile
detour out and then come right back to the same ridge you were on to
before the switchback, so you could have just kept going down that
same ridge instead of going way out of the way. The only thing I can
think of as a reason for it, is because there are two little creeks
on it. I mean otherwise this thing is sooo pointless, like
 |
| The constant view down...walking legs! |
3 extra
miles of just barely going down switchback...it's retarded. I know in
2009 we took the shortcut down the little ridge trail/road, because
we were like that's reallly dumb. Just switchbacked down, down, down,
down, down, down, down.... I got to the Sacramento, crossed that guy
and then you start going up, up, up, up, up. For the first 5-6 miles,
probably a little more, when you enter the State Park area you do a
steep little up at first and then you just kind of shuffle up and
down, up and down a little bit along the side as you kind of come
around to the back side of the crags, which takes a while. There are
lots of pretty little streams coming off the crags. Then you finally
hit this long up. It's a little steeper than what is nice to climb,
and it's a little overgrown, so it's beating off bushes and going
steeply up rocky terrain. Not all that unpleasant, but could be
better. The clouds started coming in at about ohh, 5-6pm. I was
hoping to get an early start and basically get through that area
sooner than later, before it would get really really hot. Which I
actually entered the state park at around 2pm, like the worst time
ever, but thankfully it wasn't a very hot day and the clouds kind of
came in somewhere around 4pm and kept the sun off. It wasn't as bad
as I thought it could be. There was a breeze and the clouds. Up up
and away. I just kept chugging at it and I knew I needed to top out
at the corner peak, hopefully before dark, which I managed to do. I
got water at one of the springs along the 4 mile traverse from the
saddle behind the crags over to the point. Then
 |
| Climbing Castle Crags. |
it was dark and I
just kept pushing. The moon is about half full, a little over. The
worst part is that there are clouds so it wasn't as good as light as
it should have been. Nice ridge walks, but there are rocky as all
hell. Just little, I mean fist sized rocks that are all pointy that
are in a pile and they call that trail. It hurts your feet,
especially after a long day, especially if your feet are already
hurting. But, that was relatively short lived. There are really no
trees around there, so there's nothing to really make any dirt. I
just plodded along. I finally got to the first road at about 11:15pm
and kept going to the next road to make one more mile. I'm trying to
stop earlier so I can get more sleep. I'm definitely lacking in that
department, or at least my body is wanting more than the 5-6 hours
that I'm usually getting. For some reason or another, I just can't
seem to get a fucking 50. I think yesterday I left at like 5:45am or
something and went all the way to god damned 11:30pm and only a 48.
There was a climb in there, I'm just trying to figure out why I can't
do it and where the time is going, because it should be enough, if I
keep on it, for a 50. Overall, yesterday was pretty good. I got some
trail magic, some soda was wonderful....And yeah, nothing too
terribly remarkable besides I got that ugly ugly Castle Crags climb
out of the way. Now, if I just remember right, it's fairly easy going
up on top of the ridge. Yeah there are some bigger ups and downs, but
otherwise you stay on easier tail tread, of memory serves, which I
hope it does. We'll see where we go and see if we can get this big
hulk of Shasta out of my view today. It just looms over your shoulder
for these 200 miles. It feels like you never make any progress with
it always being there.
 |
| Evening panorama from behind (N-NW) of Castle Crags. |
