by the grace of those cloud emoji maybe more vape companies will follow me on instagram i guess. also all emoji in the body will be fires unless noted
I didn’t make it out of Shasta that night. I lingered in town putting new guitar strings on the Doctor and eating Taco Bell with Cashew before finally doing my resupply and trying to hitch. I spent a good 1.5 hours standing by the road being ignored and sometimes receiving shouts or gestures none of which did i understand. Around then it started raining and thundering pretty badly and i hid on the porch of a nearby abandoned building. The rain only held on for 20 minutes before it cleared up and i was back trying to hitch. Unsurprisingly, nobody wanted to pick up a sad wet boy from the side of the road. Half an hour later the rain opened up again after sunset and i knew i had no chance left and headed to the gear store that offered free camping.
There were a few small overhangs on buildings in the back that the remaining hikers that didn’t want to sleep yet were hanging out under. We talked about Tool’s new album, using tarps as shelters, and how the sky was perfectly clear not even a mile south of where we were.
The clouds broke, the nearly full moon shone bright, and i cowboy camped unafraid of more rain. The next morning i discovered a catastrophe. Sometime in the pouring rain, the Doctor suffered an injury. The new strings work tho, arguably a more important part of a guitar than the man face adorned to the back.
I got a nice hitch after another 45 minutes of trying the next morning, and also after eating 15 french toast sticks from Burger King. Three cars stopped for me before one was going the right direction. Big surprise that the people who were most open to picking up a hippie were going the other direction towards Weed.
We had a meaty climb by Castle Crags up to a ridgeline that day. Word spread around trail that there was a prime camp spot up on that ridge that really showed off Mount Shasta. I made it there and it didn’t disappoint, but different reasons.
The 🔥 has closed in. I had been hearing about 🔥s for a while, one down at Mammoth Lakes, one up by the CA/OR border. I’ve heard so many more in the past few days. A town not too far west is burning down, Idyllwild had an arsonist threatening it, and there are multiple 🔥s about in Oregon but none too pct adjacent yet. Most importantly though is the 🔥 in the town not too far west that isn’t Castella i don’t think but i forget the name. The smoke clouds have been ominous as hell and the more terrestrial smoke has descended about the trail.
Mount Shasta, despite not being very far away, was behind a thick veil at that rad camp spot. It was still a cool place with the full moon smiling down all night. The sunrise through the smoke was real neat.
The grade for the next 30 miles was so generous, our biggest climb was only a few hundred feet. I wouldn’t let that keep me from having an average day, and spent about 4 hours at a lake to round out a mediocre 21 miles. The pleasant terrain continued the next day as did my average mileage down to a campground with an allegedly beautiful pit toilet. The best pit toilet is in Pack Saddle Campground just outside of Sierra City, this one was fine.
I actually got to camp around other hikers and spend some time with them before it got dark, both of which are kind of rare occurrences for me. Talk was pretty 🔥 heavy though, one of the guys had parents in a town that is under attack and he was getting ready to hitch to a cell signal and check up on them. The next morning we had breakfast with some Brits and talked about cults and 🔥s. They pumped me full of coffee and i shot up the climb to the Trinity Alps. The smoke still lingered and messed up some good Shasta views. Sometimes a good whiff would come in a small breeze which was weird.
This morning the spook got layed on thicc. The smoke hung out all day, obscuring anything past a mile or two and putting a haze on anything past a couple handfuls of yards. A couple times i rounded a corner only to be greeted by an endless fog.
I did see a nice old guy today, Woodchuck. We took a couple breaks and he often lost control of his train of thought. He’s really taking his time out here, right now he’s probably eight miles back at some lake swimming and napping.
I scored some trail magic at the road crossing to Etna, and an easy hitch with a man who drove very fast and loose on that mountain road. He took me to an ice cream stand/diner and had a massive soft serve cone before he set off again.
it’s very hot in this town, my phone and charger are uncomfortable. i guess you can stay in the park in town for 5 bucks which i’ll probably have to do since it’s 6 and i still haven’t done my homework
i believe i was chatting with 15 Foot in the rain that night in shasta. named such because of the 15 foot hose he carried with him. ‘why are you carrying that hose, 15 foot?’ ‘i just gotta get it to canada.’ fire emoji
the Redding Fire. that’s the big one, the great smoke plume that robbed views, attacked lungs, worried humans.
Woodchuck. that fella, that grand sitting man, that champion. i wasn’t fully aware of the gravity of the seeds he planted in my mind the few times we crossed paths. sitting, being, existing, out in the wonders, free of the gottadomiles. he had seen the light. i was still blind, but i was on the way. tremendous shoutouts to him
man i dunno 