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| Mt. Shasta from near Pilot knob. |
July 3, Day 40. I made 46.5 miles
today, ending at 1766.25 miles, at more or less a forested slope,
stuck out in the middle of the trees, approximately 4 miles or so
away from the Brown Mountain shelter where I stayed in 2009. The
point I stopped at is 0558968 E 4679963 N. So, yesterday was a
mentally tough day for me. Ya know, I did the miles, I actually had
gotten to 45 miles or so and had to start looking for a campsite by
about 10:30, but it took me until 11pm to finally settle down in a
spot. Basically in the morning, Mouse and I got up and hiked down to
I-5, where he took the Callahan's cutoff down to the restaurant/store
to hitch into Ashland. We arrived there at about 8am. After having
someone to talk to for above a day and a half, it was one of those
things where I could use him as a sounding board to figure things out
for myself...such as, I've found that my motivation for what I'm
doing right now, for hiking fast is gone. Once I crossed into Oregon,
that goal of completing California has vanished. Yeah, OK, so I could
choose another goal, say Oregon, but that isn't as big of a goal, or
as strong of a goal as California, just because California is such a
big state, and for Oregon, you're like "well 8-9 days and I'll
be across it". I don't know. At this point, I feel like I've
accomplished the goal that I set out to do, which was to see if
I...the challenge to see what I am capable of and if I can beat the
record, which I set the new California record and basically sure, I
haven't finished the whole trail, but I am ahead by like 4 days, and
that too me is like, 'you've done it, that's proof enough for me, yes
you can do it'. 20 more days worth isn't going to tell me much more
than what I've already done. So it's been hard. I've been questions myself
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| Pilot Knob, after the I-5 corssing. |
'why am I doing this?' Putting myself though the paces of at
least 45 miles every single day...is tiring, to say the least...and
just mentally fatiguing and... of course I know all of the
facts...it's just one of those things that I'm not that happy. This
isn't fun...go figure right? If it was fun, more people would be
doing it. The other thing was that I-5 was right there, so it's like
I'm in Oregon, my companion is leaving and you know I have an easy
out. I think that's the worst thing about all of this, is that I know
I can leave trail pretty much at anytime. And knowing that in itself
is a hard thing, because you can feel like "ohh well I don't
feel like doing this anymore...bye". It's not like you're stuck
and can't escape. You can escape pretty much everywhere. So that
temptation is always very close. I don't know...it was just one of
those days that I remember it being in 2009 the first day that I
really stated feeling sick with giardia, but at the time not knowing
that I did have giardia. It was one of those days where I was hiking
along and then all of a sudden, I was like ' I have to stop, I have
no energy, I'm tired, what's wrong?' So, a culmination of things. I
talked to my parents and my roommate, and they are doing the normal
supportive things - 'do what you want, but you'll probably kick
yourself later if you don't do it', which I know, but it's just,
being have people to back me up and being able to talk this out is a
good thing. So, annnnyyywwayyyys. That persisted throughout the whole
day, and kind of tainted it. Even though it was easy miles for the
most part, I was going to try for 50 miles to get to the shelter
because it's just a shelters and I don't have to worry about anything
else, it's there and there's water, just perfect stuff. After I left
I-5, I did the climb up towards Pilots Knob. It was nice and warm. I
met a couple of section hikers and chatted with them for a quick
second. I passed this youth group of about 15-20 kids doing trail
maintenance. It looks like they had been doing it for a good little
while. About 7 or 10 miles of trail had been cleaned up pretty well.
So, I went through them and chatted with them a little
bit, because
they were all teenagers it looked like. I thanked them and told them
what a good job they were doing and kept moving on. I just proceeded
on that ridge, headed over towards Hyatt Lake. I found out that they
had moved the trail in 2011 and they added pretty much another mile
to the fucking trail...so, I had that fun surprise, because halfmile
maps aren't updated for that yet. There's a note, but the map isn't
updated. That lead to a slow down and a mental....it was something I
wasn't expecting, so it made me angry, plus the trail tread SUCKED.
They had moved the trail, but it looks like they haven't done any
work to make the trail into a proper PCT trail. It was whatever
little trail that was there before. And then some moronic horseman,
rode their horse through the whole area of new trail while it was
like supper muddy, so that these huge {deep} horse footprints were
covering the trail. So you have this nice flat trail normally but
these big huge holes and divots in it, so of course you have to walk
across them. It just wasn't good. At least my feet felt good
yesterday. The big toe is still infected. The heels...the left heel
started hurting again, so I probably need to re-pop a blister in
there...it's probably reforming. The right heel seems good, so at
least that little escapade is seemingly healing itself. Otherwise,
they {the feet} aren't doing too shabby. The cracks in my feet hurt
occasionally, depending on the day, but all the rest of them are
good. I passed Hyatt Lake, it's fairly flat in there. They had just
actually added a...there was some water off trail in a campground by
about 1/10th of a mile, and I get to the turnoff for it and they've actually just this year dug a trench, put a pipe down and put
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| A few miles before Hyatt Lake. |
a
spigot and a drinking fountain in, about 20 feet off the trail. So
that was a good surprise. I got my water there and kept on trucking.
It was pretty flat through the evening. Even the "uphill"
towards the later evening to get up on top of this little mountain
wasn't really and up. I mean it was an uphill for sure, but it wasn't
steep. Which was nice. When looking at the topo lines, it looks like
it is going to be steep, but not at all. Which, it's Oregon...I
forgot! *Laughs* it's nice and easy. I kept hiking through the night
and finally get really tired before - about a half hour before I
stopped. So right around 9:30-10pm I started hearing all of these big
Booms...boom, boooom boom booms in different cadences and tones off
to the northeast. The only thing I could figure it to be was a
fireworks display going off a day early, because it didn't last for a
whole long time, maybe 20 minutes, and then was over. Today being the
4th, it makes sense that someone might be having a fireworks display.
I didn't cook my dinner. I just ate my top ramen spaghetti dry, then
just decided to go to sleep. I forgot to dry out my bag yesterday, so
it was a little bit damp. I actually slept into about 7:40am today,
just because yesterday I felt tired and I knew that It was
contributing to my crankiness and unwillingness to go on. This
morning I feel great, so hopefully it will be a good day. I think
today is the part on trail where there is a bunch of cinder trail
through all of the lava fields, so that will be interesting and
pretty and nice. I think by the end of the day I'll start hitting
snow. I'm hoping to make up some time, make 45 still, even though I
got a late start at about 8:05am. And, you know, make a 20 tomorrow
into Crater Lake and get my next resupply and maybe hit the buffet!
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| Day 37 Panorama. Just hours before the rain started, 10 miles passed the Etna road. |
