Week 11: Haikus

This week, I decided to write a (or a couple) haiku(s) every day, track my daily stats, and keep track of some of the questions I had while on trail.

Quite frankly, keeping up with this blog can be a bit of a chore, so being able to just copy and paste the poems and questions is a nice reprieve from the way I usually go about organizing my notes into a blog post.

Plus, haikus are fun for me to come up with, and hopefully fun for you to read!

Day 1

Mileage: 14.5

Ascent: 2,300

Descent: 2,500

The sound of chainsaws

Nose shaped fungi, no nostrils

Finds me in burn scars

Within this burn scar

Noisy footsteps interrupt

The sound of silence.

The Lassen Volcano still had some snow on it. All this moisture will probably help some of these new plants in the burn scars.

Q: When did Lassen most recently erupt?

(A quick visit to the internet now that I have service says 1914-17)

Day 2

Mileage: 18.3

Ascent: 1,850

Descent: (whoops I guess I forgot to write it down)

Working with chainsaws

I didn’t think I missed it

A strange nostalgia

Q: Why do the burnt saplings bend like that?

A ton of the burned saplings bent in a very noticable way.

Q: Is there a second fire scar here that is older?

Day 3

Mileage: 16.1 (plus side trail in/out of old station and to and thru the lava caves)

Ascent:1,138

Descent: 1,440

Walked through lava caves

Decision anxiety

I think I must split

An awesome photo taken by Dino of me in the Subway Tube lava caves.

Q: What does the miseltoe parasite look like at different stages of its life? Are the yellow growths I’ve seen part of that?

Day 4

Mileage: 22.2

Ascent: 1,047

Descent: 2,838

The rainbow of blooms

The trail unfolds before me

Bees and butterflies

I saw lots of these little butterflies hard at work pollinating the meadows.

Q: I wonder if Arrowleaf basalm root is related to mules ear.

Day 5

Mileage: 17.9 (plus side quests to the fish hatchery and Burney Falls)

Ascent: 1,483

Descent: 1,483

Burney Falls was pretty cool!

Ah shit I forgot

With side quests and resupply

To write a haiku

Q: Will switching into new shoes resolve my foot pain from today? Or will it just ease up on its own with stretching and such?

Day 6

Mileage: 23

Ascent: 4,741

Descent: 2,375

Morning Haiku:

The noisy forest

With familiar faces

In the foliage

It’s lovely to be in a forest with plants I am familiar with! This is a flowering dogwood tree above a vine maple.

Afternoon Haiku:

Thor is very mad

What did I do to offend?

The storm continues

Q: When will we transition from mixed oak and conifer to maple and conifer?

A: a few miles after I wondered this.

Day 7

Mileage: 19.4

Ascent: 2,657

Descent: 4,783

How’s the trail, you ask.

Snowy, stormy, forested.

Beautiful, brutal.

The three miles of snow cover between Burney Falls and Castella weren’t a fair bit more challenging than I anticipated. Mostly because I thought it would be a cakewalk, and it wasn’t quite.

Q: Was the helicopter we all heard/saw coming for someone in the snow section I just finished?