Day 98: Mile 1146.6 - 1164.4
Today was a hike into "town". Where by "town" I mean Donner Ski Ranch, which is less than a half mile off trail, and where we stopped to eat a warm, cooked lunch, then headed right back on trail. (Or headed back on trail after loitering a bit to catch up with some other hikers, but you get the idea!)
Double Snacks and I headed out from the campsite a bit later (by her estimate), around 7:45am. Which wasn't necessarily bad: she declared it one of her favorite campsites on the trail, just for the sunset last night alone. Which was quite spectacular: the campsite was up on a ridge, but the ridge on the far side, across the valley, was lit up with reds and oranges and pinks, all against the blues and grays of the mountains themselves. Quite a sight!
I'm sure the morning sunrise was pretty spectacular too, but I missed it so I can't tell for certain.
The hike into Donner Ski Ranch was pretty chill: a ridge-walk with a couple of climbs, but treated with some nice high views looking out over forested valleys and rolling hills. The only tricky part was the final descent into Donner Ski Ranch, where the trail went into uneven-rock-step mode: made for some technical descent. But quickly enough we found ourselves on the porch of Donner Ski Ranch, about 5 minutes before 11am when they opened.
And when they did open, we ate. I ended up getting a bacon cheeseburger, a large side of fries, a large slice of strawberry rhubarb pie with ice cream a la mode, and two ice cream sandwiches. And I could have still eaten after all that--probably another burger, certainly more ice cream--but we needed to get going. While we were there, a lot of other hikers came in, including first DB and Sunspot, then Lux and Kahleesi, AC/DC and Outlast, and Dylan. The Group--AC/DC and Outlast, Lux and Kahleesi, and Dylan--would be heading out from Donner Ski Ranch: AC/DC has family in Reno, who would be picking them up from the Ski Ranch and taking them over. So I bid them farewell as they were eating their lunch, and Double Snacks and me headed out to continue on to Sierra City, further up north.
The trail north of Donner Ski Ranch is mostly woods, with hills interspersed throughout so you're always either going up or down. Double Snacks loved the woods: this is what I think of when I think of northern California, she said, the trees and woods. And the woods are very nice: big trees with strong trunks. At one point, I invoked Robert Frost (I think) and said, the woods are dark and deep, and that's how they feel. The only thing is that, to my now mileage-focused brain, they all tend to blend together and just go by. I remember looking up and thinking, hey, if I had the time, I'd go wander into the woods, over that hill to the right. And I'd probably just see more of the same woods and wander right back, but I would do it, and go off onto that hill to the left, or into that meadow over there. But on my current trip, there isn't time for that: we've got to go! And I'm not sure if it's as a defence mechanism to keep me focused, or just oversaturation, but I find myself becoming more inured to the views out here. It's a tendency I don't like, really. I can try to counteract it with photography, but there's only so much time for that even: as Big Brother said, the camera is but the second priority, hiking is the first. And I'm continuously invoking Leslie's Law--doing the practices that I used to like patting trees, running my hands through flowers, stretching my arms out in the breeze--always hoping for the heart to kick in. I did feel it a little more today, a tingle when looking up into the branches of the big trees, seeing the canopy spread out so high above me; a spark when noticing the bright almost-neon lime-green of the lichen hugging the tall trunks. So there's hope for me yet!
But the big news of the day had nothing to do with the trail we're on, but rather with the trail ahead, in particular, the Dixie Fire. In the afternoon, coming over some of the hills, we would get glimpses of it: huge mushroom clouds towering over the edge of the horizon, a haze of smoke beneath them. It's burning and, by the looks of things, finding new territory and growing. At Donner Ski Ranch, when I had signal, I looked up the interactive fire map and the fire was absolutely huge. Originally, the PCTA recommended getting off trail at Bucks Lake (Mile 1263) and getting back on at Chester (Mile 1331). That's a big skip: 68 miles. The latest news, though, is that now Chester is under evacuation warning--and Double Snacks has a friend there who said it was really smoky and advised getting back on further north--and Bucks Lake is now in the fire zone too. So the closure has expanded in both directions:
-- To the south, there are now a bunch of smaller exit points, in order from north-to-south (so more PCT-miles-to-walk to less PCT-miles-to-walk): Quincy-LaPorte Road (but the rumor is that drivers can't actually get to this road right now), A-Tree Spring (but that road is remote to begin with), and Jamison Creek Trail which goes by Wades Lake where there are overnighters. Of those, Jamison Creek Trail/Wades Lake seems the most viable, but that's just 22 miles out of Sierra City, and that's to an unpopulated place where you're hoping you can get a hitch. So most people are now considering just hitching out from Sierra City.
-- To the north, with Chester rapidly moving out of the picture, the next on-ramp to the PCT would be either Old Station (Mile 1373), if not all the way to Burney (Mile 1411).
Given those choices, a lot of folks are considering either going from Sierra City to Old Station (a skip of 178 miles), or Sierra City to Burney (a skip of 216 miles). In fact, some people are even considering exiting even earlier, at Truckee (Mile 1153), which would increase the skip by another 42 miles! (Big skip, but makes sense: it's likely much easier to get a ride out from Truckee than from Sierra City.) But either way you slice it, it's a massive fire and it'll lead to a massive skip. The bad news: things are on fire and people's livelihoods are on the line. The good news: it does effectively "shorten" the distance to Canada, so many of my previous concerns about not being able to make it in time start to be assuaged. (I still need to make big miles--20+ a day--but the math doesn't look as dire anymore.) Although make no mistake: I'd gladly trade the increased distance for better times for the folks in the path of the fire! The current plan is to head to Sierra City--both Double Snacks and me have packages there to pick up--then to hitch out of there to Burney (most likely) and from Burney either get back on the trail at Old Station (via a hitch) or just at Burney itself (via a hitch). Whether I can get those hitches is up in the air--Double Snacks has a friend who can give her a ride, it seems, but we'll see if they have extra room in the car--and we don't know which roads are opened/closed--but it's one of those things where I'll just have to see when I get there!
-- Campsite > Donner Ski Ranch > Interstate 80 > Peter Grubb Hut > North Creek
-- At Donner Ski Ranch this weekend is AxialFest, an RC car festival put on by Axial (who makes RC car parts, it seems). Today was the first day and it had officially started only a couple hours before we arrived, so the booths were there but the crowds were probably still sparse. Still, there seemed to be a lot of folks. And up on the slopes, it seems they had set up these courses--named "A" to "Z"--for festival-goers to race their cars on. Sounded pretty fun, and we could see one of the course from the Ski Ranch, watch people walking with controllers in their hands, stepping alongside their cars and negotiating them along curves and over little bridges and everything.
-- We actually got to talking to a festival-goer, Ishi, over lunch. He works in Silicon Valley as a sound guy for shows and whatnot. Didn't have much business in 2020 during COVID--no public events makes it hard to get paid rigging sound for public events!--so turned his attention to RC cars and hence was here. (But don't worry, he has some work lined up in August as things are reopening.) So Donner Ski Ranch has this policy that if you're a PCT hiker, you get a free beer, and Ishi, not knowing this policy, had gone into the bar section of the Ski Ranch. You want a free beer, the bartender had offered and Ishi, well, he took it! So he has enough of that wild-haired and don't-care-casual look about him that he can be mistaken for a PCT hiker! (But don't worry: he plans to go in and explain and pay for the beer later--and leave a good tip--as he'll be here all weekend and otherwise the bartender is going to get a bit suspicious!) He had a bunch of questions about the PCT which Double Snacks and I tried to answer to the best of our ability; for his outdoor stuff, he's mostly into biking, but maybe is considering some hiking too. His job would seem to be good for that sort of thing--being gig-by-gig, if he doesn't want to work, he doesn't have to: just don't accept any gigs. (There's the flip side to that about security--or the lack thereof--of course.) But Ishi was a cool guy, pretty fun to talk to. I do feel a little bad that we took up all the outlets to charge our stuff--he was looking for a place to plug in a soldering iron to fix some final things on his car before checking out those A to Z courses--but hopefully he'll be able to find some power somewhere!
-- As I headed out from Donner Ski Ranch, I said goodbye to Dylan and joked with him if he was going to give me The Speech. The Speech is a little talk that Dylan gives whenever he feels he may be seeing someone for the last time--it's an emotional thing that he has to gear up for. And he laughed and said that he realized when relating one of his stories to me a couple nights ago that, oh no, charlie's on to The Speech. But he tried to give it anyway. And I, being my insensitive self, kind of cut him off. I mean, I have the guy's number--I can just give him a call. And I'm sure we'll see each other on the trail in the future; especially with the fire closures and the different ways different groups are handling it, groups will end up criss-crossing again I'm sure. And so he and Uno will pass me, and then I will pass them, and the leapfrog game will continue, and likely we'll end up even hiking together as a group again. So I don't think The Speech was necessarily warranted. But it was honest, and heartfelt, and likely I shouldn't have played it off quite so readily. (And to be fair, I do know that I have a problem with believing in the future perhaps too much; makes it so I *always* think that there will be a chance to meet up with folks in tomorrow-land, perhaps to the detriment of appreciating today-land as much as I should.)
-- Today I bumped into Dennis again, just after Interstate 80. We would leapfrog with him throughout the day; he would end up camping in the same spot. But Dennis had an interesting bear story. He had been camping around Gilmore Lake--probably a night other than us--when, in the middle of the night, a bear had wandered into camp. And though people got up and made noise and tried to scare it away, it nonetheless made off with an Ursack. And that Ursack happened to be Dennis'. I mean, I don't know if the bear got *into* the Ursack, so maybe the Ursack was effective in that way, but the bear definitely made off *with* the Ursack, in that Dennis was now without food, without his stove (which he had put in the Ursack), without his med kit (which he had put in the Ursack). So he had to turn around and hike *back* to Echo Lake, about 12 miles, where his trail family had scrounged together some food and extra gear, and he had to hike *back* to Gilmore Lake, about 12 miles, for 12+12 = 24 empty miles on the trail!
-- Today I met Sheldon, who I'd never met before--strange that even now, so far in, I'm meeting new NOBO PCT hikers! Anyway, Sheldon has a pretty quick step--definitely faster than me--but was contemplating the fire situation. In particular, he was looking into a possible road walk around the closure. That's something I didn't even consider, but he had mapped out some possibilities. Problem was, there were some roads on the borders of the fire red-zone--the absolutely stay out zone (as opposed to the yellow zone). And I noted that the road walk probably wasn't a great idea: you don't want to be caught out there if the fire shifts and comes your way. I mean, you're only walking, after all, it's hard to outrun a fire! But in retrospect, there's more to it than that. There's the question of camping along the roads: will you be able to find spots (probably, actually: I've camped in some pretty nonideal spots). There's the question of water along the roads: will there be any? And there's the prospect of making life tougher for the firefighters: if they know a human life is at risk in a fire zone, I think they have to drop everything and try to save that life. Meaning they can't focus on the fire per se. And while I may say, no, leave me be, I'll assume my own risks, that's not how training works: they are trained to save lives, and they will. So that's no good. The idea of a "continuous footpath", and maybe since I no longer have one (having skipped the Bobcat Fire closure in ANF) I can't fully appreciate it, but still, given an active fire that's still burning, whose mushroom clouds we still see on the horizon, yeah, I'm going to find a hitch that's going to drive around that whole business.
-- My "8000-feet indicator" is still working, especially in the afternoon, espeically when climbing. I'll sense it when I notice that part of my right lung isn't fully inflating, and I'll have to breathe deeply to "push" it out. Noticed it today going up one of the hills, checked my watch and, lo and behold, had gone over 8000 feet. This actually makes me happy: it suggests that the elevation *is* having an impact on my hiking ability, so that when we eventually drop below, say, 5000 feet, then I should be able to go faster with the same effort. They say the hiking gets easier as we go through northern California and Oregon, and that's what I'm banking on to make it to Canada before the snows!
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