Just going for a walk

Today began the burn. Technically, the burn started yesterday, when I left the Overly Inquisitive Deer Camp and continued on for a mile. The trail had start to follow a firebreak, constructed to contain I’m guessing the Dixie Fire. Well, a fire of some variety, because on one side was live green woods, on the other, dead black trunks. (In fact, I vaguely recall that the PCT was used as the containment border of the Dixie Fire in places.) The trail contined following the firebreak this morning, walking roughly along the ridge, up and down the tops of hillocks, sometimes crossing over into dead trunks, sometimes crossing over into live woods, sometimes crossing over into live woods where the fire had jumped the break and burned anyway. One of these jumped woods had been a cathedral once, its towers still large and spaced wide, but now turned black and the trail so dry it puffed as fine dust with every step. It was sad, to be sure, but oddly still beautiful and majestic. The sunlight was

Today was more what I had expected, for I saw all of two people today, hikers going the other way, and I stood aside and they passed and they said thanks and that was all. Rather, before dinner, going to gather water, I saw a deer in the brush, and it wagged its tail at me, and when I came back to choose a campsite it watched, and when I ate dinner across the trail it stood in the new grass of firebreak and watched, until I decided to let it have its home, and I left to find another campsite further up the trail. And so I disported more with the deer than with the hikers. I woke from a night where the wind coursed loud and dramatic overhead, but only breezes met my tent below, and into the first morning where my hands were numb with cold. But it was short lived, for as soon as I started hiking and the trail left the woods, to climb a shelf trail along a slope exposed to the sun, I could feel the heat already coming on, and I went from hoping for warm to hoping for cold. And, it turns o

I took a pretty lazy morning, didn’t get on the trail until 9:30am. And hiked all of 20 minutes before I stopped to repack my bag. It seems with every new long trail, enough gear changes that a new packing system is in order. Which is actually important: once established, I will pack my backpack the exact same every day. This is how I don’t forget things: if I pack and something is out of place, then something is missing. Well, my new sleeping pad, and the combination of the nylofume pack liner in a ULA Circuit, means a new system is being developed. And I learned one thing about it this morning: the fuel canister inside the pack, and the water bottles outside the pack, need to be on different sides of the pack! Or else I’ll feel like I’m constantly leaning to the left! The goal for today was A-Tree Spring, about 12 miles away. Second day, and still following Gavin’s advice: keep the mileage low. The trail started out from Pack Saddle Campground, and started a gradual climb up into the

Heading into this trip, I had expected I would be pretty much by myself out here. It’s already late July and in a typical year, the PCT hikers would be knocking on Oregon’s door by now. (In fact, according to Tom, if you’re not through Truckee by July 15, then you need to stop zeroing and kick it into high gear!) But it seems the Sierra had different ideas this year! After a quick morning, Tom and I were on the road before 7, and at Sierra City before 8. We stopped at the General Store to get breakfast--massive breakfast sandwiches--and what do you know, there were hikers there! Tom picked one up--Han--just outside Sierra City, walking into town, and when we got to the store, there were two more--Squid and Ways--waiting for the store to open. Everybody got the breakfast sandwich, and while we ate, Olaf, another hiker joined in. Four PCT hikers! All of them had had a heck of time getting through the Sierra: so much snow! And such slow paces. Squid, for one, seemed a bit worried about he

It seems when I sleep in a king bed, I always start the night straight on one side, but end the night diagonal across the whole thing. I don’t know why. The morning was the usual in-town morning: wake up, wash up, pack up, then eat a salad (a chicken Caesar from the pizza place in the food court) and, in this case, walk out to the Reno bus terminal. Inside, the casino was loud and colorful and cool; outside, the streets were almost empty, quiet and sedate and warming quickly. I got to the bus terminal a minute before the Greyhound pulled up, QR-scanned my ticket, and boarded to Truckee. The driver was worried about traffic--that highway construction had taken him two hours yesterday--but today was smooth, and we got to Truckee on time. Once in Truckee, I tried to call a TART connect--Truckee’s free Uber-esque ride service--but the wait time was as long as walking, so I just pedestrianed over to the Safeway on the west side of town. Bought a meal for lunch, then walked over to the libra

Ah, the classic question: all that walking is fine and good, but how do you get *to* the trail in the first place? Every trip has its own complications for getting to the trail. For this trip, the main complication was, well, getting to Sierra City! Sierra City is small town--downtown is, what, five buildings at most?--and buried in the woods in the middle of nowhere. There’s no public transportation that heads out there, rideshares will likely reject the ride (an hour plus to drive to nowhere?--no thanks!), and taxis might go but will charge an arm and a leg to do it. In fact, it’s so hard to get to that my original solution was to not get there at all, but instead start at Donner Pass, about 50 PCT miles south of Sierra City. That’s 50 extra miles to hike, and over lingering snow fields to boot, but Donner Pass is home to a ski resort and along busy Highway 80, so at least I’d be able to *get* there. But then I remembered that Eugene, my friend who’s doing the JMT this summer, also w