Mile 1524 to 1554.

A soft pitter-patter on my tent awoke me in the middle of the night. In the background, I could hear the snores of Big Daddy rumbling like some Industrial Revolution machinery. I put in my ear plugs and went back to sleep. When I awoke next, it was to my alarm.

This was only the second time I had put up my tent in Northern California. As I packed up, I hoped the weather we had yesterday was just an aberration, but the cloudy sky didn’t give me too much hope.

Bedazzled and I said goodbye to Jake and thanked him for all the beer and pizza he gave us last night. When I asked him if we owed him something for the pizza, he said, “fuck no, just finish the trail.” With people like him popping up when you need them the most, we just might.

The trail carved sensual lines along the slopes and ridges of the mountains this morning. It felt like we were the finger tracing the outlines of a lover as we passed through the landscape.

Mt. Shasta stood heavy on the horizon with clouds for a halo. As we put shoe to trail, we passed by Porcupine, Toad, and Deadfall Lakes.

The landscape is starting to change again. There were more rocky peaks and alpine meadows full of wildflowers and fluttering butterflies.

This stretch of trail from Shasta to Etna, is shaping up to be one of the best of Northern California. Walking no longer felt like a chore, and we were excited to see what was around the next bend of trail.

We stopped for lunch in a nice meadow. Today was day two of resupply roulette. We were…not excited, well for our own lunch at least. I traded my SPAM for Bedazzled’s Jalapeño SPAM and ate it with another can of Campbell’s Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup. I didn’t dilute it with water this time and ate it straight from the can. Still gross. Jalapeño SPAM is actually better than SPAM, but that is like saying drinking car oil is better than acid.

Bedazzled ate her first can of SPAM, and she didn’t throw up so that was good. She also ate some baby food and managed to get it all I’m her mouth and none on the floor or her face. Very adult like :-p

After an unsatisfying lunch, we continued on another 14 miles. It stayed cloudy all day and the temperature was mild making for great walking. We stopped around 6:40 and setup a stealth camp. It was nice to have some extra time tonight and not be rushed to setup and cook.

With a good day of hiking in the bag, we went to sleep satisfied.