Week 11: barbecue, Chester, ash, and smoke

Day 71 | 7/20/24 | 1231-1254.1

We had what must have been the craziest trail magic I experienced on trail! My group hiked the last few miles to the road crossing where there was rumors of a barbecue hosted by some amazing trail angels. We got to the designated area pretty early and soon enough the parking lot filled up with cars. We helped set up multiple grills, tons of chairs, and several enormous shade-providing tents, and wheeled out many coolers and bags full of food. I (and my group) were very impressed with and appreciative of the scale of the operation. There was everything a hiker could want: homemade cookies, so much fresh fruit and vegetables, cold drinks, hamburgers and hot dogs, fresh salads, candy, chips and more. My group (along with many other hikers that showed up throughout the day) ended up spending a large portion of the day at the barbecue and it was so nice chatting with the trail angels and hearing their stories about the trail and thru-hikers. Satiated, I eventually left in the afternoon and along with most other hikers through this section, hiked down to a dirt road instead of staying on trail, as there were several miles that were almost impassible with blowdowns and overgrown bushes. After getting back on trail, I decided to hike into the night and ended up setting up camp around 11pm.

Day 72 | 7/21/24 | 1254.1-1281.3

Today was a hard day. My shoes were still giving my feet lots of trouble, and though I didn’t have too many blisters, I had some sort of heat rash that caused my feet to turn lobster red and swell, making the already tight shoes even more constrictive (this is saying something, considering these shoes were Altras that I had sized up — the normally roomy toebox should’ve been more than enough). There was a long uphill in the morning, but I was able to walk into Bucks Lake for the afternoon and do a light resupply (and enjoy some cold Arizona). I didn’t run into anyone from my group, and I had expected to see them in town, but after getting back on trail I eventually caught up to them. We were camped on this cool ridge, and the sunset views as I was making dinner were incredible, though my feet were in a lot of pain.

Day 73 | 7/22/24 | 1281.1-1306.5

Today was another hard day; I hadn’t really looked ahead on FarOut, but the climb we were facing today was one of the longest on the whole PCT, and it was going to get incredibly hot. I woke up early and headed downhill into Belden. It was empty early in the morning and was kind of eerie to walk through with my group. After crossing a bridge we started up the climb out of Belden. This climb somehow felt worse than all the climbs in the heat waves of the desert; perhaps it was the humidity that the nearby river produced. To make things more difficult, almost the entire climb was in a burn zone, so the trail was ashy and there was absolutely no shade at all. Despite the struggle, it was rewarding to make progress up the climb, and I ended up taking a really nice long lunch break with Bad Apple. I soaked in some refreshingly frigid water and managed to get my body temperature down. After making it to the top of the climb (!!!) I hiked a few more miles with Bad Apple and Brand-Aid til we got to a camping spot that happened to have a beautifully frigid piped spring. Another win for today was that we had officially left the Sierra range and were into the Cascades!

Day 74 | 7/23/24 | 1306.5-1332.4

Brand-Aid, Bad Apple, and I had a slower morning and ran into some trail magic! After hanging out and chatting with the trail angels and some other hikers, we decided to send it into the next town: Chester. It would be doing 20 miles after 12:30pm, which was a little challenging but we got it done (despite my feet being in agony). We also crossed the halfway marker today, which was an incredible feeling! I couldn’t believe that I had walked halfway from Mexico to Canada on my feet. After making it to the road and getting a ride from some very sweet trail angels, we got some frozen food at the town’s grocery store and headed over to a gas station to buy some cold soda and heat the food in the microwave. At this point it was around 10pm in the small, quiet town of Chester (though it wasn’t going to be quiet for much longer…), and it felt surreal to be sitting outside the gas station in the dark, covered in soot from hiking in ash all day, eating re-heated mac n cheese and Hot Pockets. Eventually we packed up and headed over to a public space where it was known hikers could cowboy at if they set up unobtrusively and left early. We were unfortunately woken after an hour by sprinklers. We relocated to a pavilion area but were once again woken by a drunk man, who wandered around the area screaming, throwing things, and generally inciting fear. Needless to say, we didn’t sleep much the rest of the night, and I was very grateful to be with friends.

the gas station in Chester!

Day 75 | 7/24/24 | 1332.4-1346

The next morning, Brand-Aid, Bad Apple, and I were all exhausted after a sleepless night, and I was very disappointed to hear from Refill, Smoodie, and Rooster that the showers and laundry in town were not useable. After breakfast and resupply, we managed to get a ride back to trail and ended up doing a relatively short day as most of us were tired. 

Day 76 | 7/25/24 | 1346-1374.5

The terrain today was very chill and flat, which I appreciated as my feet were still hurting and I was feeling very fatigued. Not sleeping well the past few nights, the heat, and the fact that I hadn’t taken an actual zero in weeks were catching up to me. I didn’t see anyone really all day, except for Brand-Aid for a few minutes around lunchtime. I noticed around midday that the sky looked strange — the sun didn’t seem as bright as normal, and my shadow just didn’t look right. I shook it off, thinking that maybe it was hazy from humidity or an upcoming thunderstorm or maybe that I was just tired and not seeing things right. But within a few hours, it was absolutely clear that it was smoke, most likely from a wildfire, though I had no cell service to check whether this was the case. As I continued hiking, speeding up towards the next road crossing in the hopes of getting some cell service to figure out what was happening, I noticed a few flakes of ash drifting down from the sky. The sunlight became increasingly weak, the sun reduced to a glowing reddish orb overhead. My shadow completely disappeared. All of this was especially eerie as this part of trail was through Lassen National Park, and much of the area was a burn zone. It was incredibly apocalyptic: new ash accumulating on old ash, burned husks of trees looming through increasingly dense smoke, the reddish glow illuminating everything. Eventually I made it to the road, where I ran into Bad Apple and Smoodie. Unfortunately, Smoodie was feeling really sick and ended up staying near the road at a campground, but Bad Apple and I were able to get a hitch up to Burney where we got a hotel room to figure out our next moves. We were concerned about Brand-Aid, who should’ve gotten to the road just after I did, but we sent him texts and Garmin messages letting him know where we went and hoped that we would hear from him soon. We read about the fire, which turned out to be the Park Fire and was spreading dangerously quickly. Despite the terrible conditions, I was incredibly grateful for food from the grocery store, a shower, and a soft bed.

Day 77 | 7/26/24 | ZERO

Despite the stress from the Park Fire, my pure exhaustion won out and I slept in til 8am which was much needed. We decided to say another night in the hotel as we were realizing that the fire was really serious and we might have to skip further up trail to get away from it. Bad Apple and I were starting to get very stressed about Brand-Aid, who we definitely should have heard from by now. Smoodie, who was still at the road, hadn’t seen him either. Refill and Rooster made it to Burney from where they had stayed the night before (they had ended up hitching somewhere else) and we worked on a plan for getting around the fire. Smoodie also made it to town fortunately and was recuperating, but we still hadn’t heard from Brand-Aid, much to everyone’s concern…

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