Pacific Crest Trail

Bedazzled, Duces, Pascal, and myself set up our sleeping bags on the ground floor of the shelter the previous night and left the sleeping loft to the southbounders who were already setup when we arrived.

A slight mist hung over Summit Lake as I peaked over my sleeping bag. I laid back and breathed in the damp air. It smelled of moss and dirt. True smells. Natural smells.

We woke up in our forested camp with tall moss covered trees standing high overhead. Little pockets of gray sky peaked through the branches and pine needles. Not a great spot to view the eclipse.

We were woken up by some inexperienced day campers returning to their tent site. I couldn’t make out everything that was going on, but I did here one guy ask, “didn’t you cover the food?”

Bedazzled, Tramper, and I woke up at 5:30 in our improvised camp. We had only gotten 4.4 miles into the detour before we gave up on road walking. This morning, we got back on that road. Excited? We were not.

I awoke on the edge of a misty meadow amidst a forest as old as our country, perhaps even older. The trees stood by silently and the sun still hid below the horizon.

The days are starting to get noticeably shorter, and it is now dark at our usual wake up time of 5:30.
As my alarm went off, I struggled to find my watch.

Bedazzled’s and my stay in Ashland, Oregon turned out to be one of our best town stops yet. Besides being a funky college town that is known for its months long Shakespeare Festival, it was home to some of the friendliest and most helpful people we have met on trail.

As we gazed at the night sky, just .2 miles over the border into Oregon, we saw two shooting stars. The Perseid Meteor Shower was going on, and we were lucky enough to be in an area with dark skies.

From searing sun and dry creek beds to ranging rivers and snow covered mountains, California presented it’s fair share of challenges.

As I lay in my tent with the rain pitter pattering outside and occasional thunder rolling off in the distance, I couldn’t help but recall the podcast I listened to earlier in the day.

We left our ridge top camp in the moon’s glow and started walking down the rocky trail. Somehow we walked by the 1,600 mile marker in the darkness or perhaps there was never one to see in the first place.

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...

I woke up not to the sound of my alarm, but to the sound of silence. I looked at my watch 6:00. We overslept. We started to pack up and went to get out our breakfast. Then we remembered. It was day one of the resupply roulette.

A few days back when Bedazzled and I were bored while walking through yet another forested slope in Northern California, I brought up the idea of buying each other’s resupply in Shasta. It would be a sort of game.

We left our campsite near Burney Falls a little later than usual and started out on the trail after the sun had already risen. It quickly became apparent that we weren’t the only ones on the trail. There were fresh bear tracks.

There are certain things that stand out on the trail as milestones. Mt. San Jacinto, Mt. Whitney and Forester Pass are just some of the points that you set as goals to keep you moving forward each day. When you reach one, excitement wells up in your chest and you feel a sense of accomplishment. For me, Burney Falls was one of those destinations.

We woke up at our campsite just over the border from Lassen Volcanic National Park. With smoke still hanging in the air from the nearby wildfire, I expected a spectacular sunrise. We got one, but it was unfortunately blocked by trees.

We camped .3 miles from the border of Lassen Volcanic National Park. New regulations require all campers to store their food in either bear boxes or bear canisters. We sent our bear canisters home after the Sierra, and we weren’t about to start carrying them again. This left us with only one option, walk the 19.5 miles of the PCT through the park in one day and camp on the otherside of the northern border.

A rustle, a snapping branch, and hot breath. I quickly slid my hand over to my headlamp, aimed it, and turned it on. A comically startled deer with a face frozen in surprise as it nearly fell over itself trying to bound away. 10 minutes later, another startled deer and an increasing annoyed Harley.

Like an ice cube floating in a punch bowl, we floated among the stars. Our campsite on the pinnacle of Lookout Rock gave us a 360 view of our galaxy. Shooting stars, satellites, and the Milky Way twinkled as we struggled to take it all in and gapped in awe.

We woke up at 5:00, and I could see Bedazzled looking at me to see if I was moving. “How about we sleep a little more,” I said, and we both rolled over and closed our eyes.

Rustling, a bound, a crash, and a snort followed by more snorts that sounded strong enough to rip out a lung. Stamping and then a leap into the bushes. The night time intruder was gone and the silence of the forest descended upon our campsite. We listened and waited for the creature to return, but it was gone for good and soon wariness tugged on our eyelids and sleep enveloped us.

Our camp was perched precariously on the side of a forested mountain. Just off the zigzagging switchbacks on a ledge just wide enough for a sleeping pad. As I tossed and turned through a night of fitful sleep, I stared up at the trees towering overhead and the slivers of night sky.