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I did end up staying in the city park in Etna. I also spent way too much time watching an insane person’s series of videos making fun of the Kingdom Hearts series but hey what i do with my free time is my choice thank you very much. shoutout to Just a Pancake for being the number one source of new xehanort reveals. I also also got stuck in a long conversation with a local who was staying at the park about his passion for farm life and his eternal desire to live that life so that was fun.

what are you doin here deer this is a town deer live in the woods

The next morning i was up extra early and spent some time at the coffee shop getting my uppers. I managed to get a hitch up to the trail without even standing up or sticking out my thumb so that was fun. I did end up spending about an hour at the road crossing just procrastinating so it’s like i didn’t save any time.

The smoke was nicer that day and i could see some of the views as i took a nice 12 mile day to a cozy lake. I could’ve put in more miles but instead i found a nice spot and watched the sunset colors play off the smoke in the valley in front of me.

It was not to remain so as the loading fog closed in and my views grew short. The Marble Mountain Wilderness had a bunch of cool views i bet, and i’m sure Marble Mountain itself looked cool, but the trail didn’t go up it and the smoke didn’t let me see it well.

It’s all good because the next day as i climbed down into Seiad Valley the hefty roadwalk was lined with blackberries. Even with very generous terrain on level pavement i was still going about 2mph with all my fruit stops.

The trail town Seiad Valley has a wide spread on offer: a small store next to a diner that closes at 2. I rolled up at around 5 so my options were limited. The climb out of the valley was long and protracted so i did a few miles of it that night just to break it up.

Not enough though since the climb still drained me empty the next day. Morale ran high though as that was the last real climb in what used to be California but is now in Jefferson state. All the hikers were super jazzed to be crossing an invisible line that humans drew across the land on the side of a mountain.

Unsurprisingly, after crossing the old border into what used to be part of Oregon, nothing significant changed on trail. The smoke did pass enough for the sunset to put on a show, but it returned en force the next day.

So did trail magic, the long descent to Ashland was fueled by a few cans of sodie pop and a banana. Also i got my eighth gym badge from whatsername in Blackthorn even though she trainwrecked my team hell yes

I didn’t make it to Ashland as early as i wanted since i wanted to hit up Medford’s REI. The bus i took to that town was one of the last until Monday morning (it was Saturday night). On the plus side i’m optimistic about the backpack tech advancements Osprey made in the past 5 years but sadly i’ve had my hiking poles too long and couldn’t trade in my chewed up ones.

On my way to the hitching spot out of town the smoke parted and the sun shone brightly on the greatest gift the west coast can give: the only burger place to go in and also out.

That place was swarming with humans but i made it out with my treasures. I went right to hitching as the sun was getting sleepy on the horizon. Two hours later i gave up and paid 20 bucks for a lyft.

Pro Tip: if you see someone trying to hitch and you’re not stopping to pick them up, don’t try to communicate to them. Your honks only get them excited that maybe you’re stopping. Your waves and gestures are meaningless. Giving a thumbs up is just the worst, we both know that the thumb out hitching gesture is used in multiple scenarios, you’re not helping.

It was dark when i got dropped off in Ashland by a nice dude who was excited to start his new job at a pizza shop. I looked around for other hikers that i could hop in on lodging with to no avail and got ready to settle in the park on my first night being a proper city hobo when i heard an angel sing. I walked over to find two hikers getting ready to hobo too. I forget the one girl’s name who left to stay with a friend, but the other’s name is Boomerang.

She was mostly hiking the pct, partly going on adventures with her ukulele. She sang a song about fair weather friends and her voice got a little raspy on the low notes in that good good way. She had many passionate things to say about the college system in America. She spent a weekend at a yoga festival staying at a mafia man’s house. She’s currently on her way to the coast to write music with some music man she met at the festival in an effort to make it in the music world. You’re rad, Boomerang, i hope you make it and also i see you again.

shoutout to that one girl i met on the AT in a similar way. i wonder what she’s up to right now. also shoutout to the sprinklers in this park that turned on at 11:40pm to water a patch of dead leaves also the both of us. ps aww nuts i forgot to take a picture of her

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

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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

Not eager to dive deep into the boiling wastes, i spent most of the day in Burney at the church watching SGDQ videos from this year and reading my first book from the Redwall series, it was fun. Some angels came by and cooked up some burgers so i was hitting the trail pretty close to sunset.

The next day was Burney Falls, a location that twice over claimed to be a spiritual place but failed to describe to what end. It was nice for a while but i spent much more time at the Lake Britton Dam

It must have been about six hours later when i was finally walking away from there. Shoutout to the guy who saw me down there and brought me a cola and apple strudel.

This last section i got really good at doing some loose meditation and clearing my mind while i hike. Miles flowed as i pulled larger than average days and felt great at the ends of them. The trail got super empty around me though, i fear that i’m falling into bubble purgatory, doomed to be a lonely boy out in the wildnerness. That’s not bad but i do like seeing other humans at camp, it keeps me from personifying things too much and also talking to them too much.

Most of the time i didn’t use my hiking poles and it felt great. The professional hiker rises and falls o’er hill and mountain like a gentle wind.

Really though the highlight here is Mount Shasta vogueing like hell on the horizon

The breaks in the trees on the ridgewalks were rare enough to keep Shasta teasing us for most of the hike from Burney. I keep hearing about how Shasta is a spiritual place too but also never described farther than that. It’s neat seeing a 14er just out in the middle of nowhere i’ll give it that.

Fearless animals aplenty tho, many times i’ve followed some deer down trail. When i cause a ruckus they don’t react which is weird. Also shoutout to the bear that i walked mere yards away from that didn’t reveal himself until i was about to turn the next corner. That was spooky hearing a noise behind me and seeing a bear just hanging out next to the trail. Thanks for not taking my food, dude.

I keep hearing about fires raging, some south and more north of here. I know there’s a reroute near the Oregon border but i haven’t done any research more than that. What’s the deal with the west coast always trying to burn down

Picture heavy post i guess. Hopefully it’s cooler outside now, i was breaking a pretty intense sweat on the 4 block walk to this library

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-lonely boy out in the wilderness-

meat and potatoes for sure, hiking easy and clean here. not the day i spent at the dam tho, i sure was there for a while doing not much.

rumblings of fires? oh past gadget, brace yourself for the smoke to come.

I shipped out of Chester close to noon because of the World Cup finals and also because of a slow hitch. The guy who picked me up thru hiked in 2016 and he remembered how tricky that hitch was. At the trailhead he revealed that he brought out cookies and pop to give to hikers to celebrate the halfway mark.

In 15 miles i was going to hit the south border of Lassen Volcano Park, a place with feisty bears and a bear canister requirement. None of us thru hikers were still carrying our canisters so we had to do the full 19 miles of the park in one day.

Lassen had a couple small side trails to its volcanic and park delights. I hit up a geyser, a boiling lake, and a lodge for a couple sodie pops. All my excursions cost me time and i had to hike right up to sunset.

As i was setting up camp with Chess and Thumbelina we heard an ominous grunting noise around us. It gave us spooks of bears, but not enough spooks to not go to sleep. The next day Chess did some research and found that those noises were made by deer and not bears which holy cow deer grunts are pretty spoopy.

The trail soon skirted Old Town and i was drawn into a diner for a nice town meal and way too much dr. pepper. The gas station had knock off apple earbuds which despite their tinny sound are my new pair of headphones since both of them work. Both those places had signs warning hikers about an active mountain lion in the next stretch of trail.

Right next door was the subway tube, a chilly cave that also had the last water source before a dry stretch.

We climbed onto a ridgeline in the boiling sun. The crushing heat drove me to shady spots every handful of miles, one of them right outside of a smelly pit toilet. As the day dragged on my morale started to dwindle. The trail sensed this and provided.

My spirit rekindled by ice cold water and dr shasta and a clementine and a rice krispy treat i set off again. I ran across 3 rattlesnakes, one of them was a very small baby so that was fun. The sunset stopped me, because it was choice and also i didn’t want to get picked off by a mountain lion.

OH baby the next day was hot. A ~15 mile water carry in the crushing heat. I didn’t reapply sunscreen often enough and i’m now rocking a solid burn in the shape of my usa tank top.

Morale got real low through this part. My feet were screaming and the water that i was carrying was real hot when i sipped my rations. Shady spots were still crazy hot, and the warm breeze did little to help.

I set up at the lake at the end of the water carry for a good hour and drank about 2 liters. I didn’t take any pictures of all the pretty swans that hung out next door though oops.

In Burney a church hosts hikers and offers free showers and i chose to go there instead of a welcoming guest ranch just outside of town. It was the right choice because i hit up the grocery store across the street and climbed a different mountain.

Sleep in the spacious church gymnasium eluded me, i got maybe a couple hours in between trying not to lay on a giant back zit and getting woken up by a rogue snore or the fan turning on. I’m okay with this because i’m going to nero out of town to help repair morale. Also the church coffee shop gives hikers a free drink and I like how it feels when caffeine wakes you up. Also also Cashew, Tinkles, Monster, and Cheez It are all about a day behind me i think and it would be cool to hang out with them for a bit.

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much to do in lassen, i have interest in returning and exploring. volcanoes are neat.

nature trails and placards around old town. the tunnels were rad. continue to eat shit, satan, that bit made me laugh out loud for real.

crushing heat is real, this the hottest crushingest section right here. someone passed by me and asked for water near the end of that 15 mile carry, but i only packed enough for me and couldn’t help.

burney church cozy nice. i finished a redwall book and sang with a girl there, when i wasn’t seeing just how gluttonous i could be.

man what’s even the point of writing anything that’s not about the place in the world that’s known as Butt Mountain

After England blew their chance at the World Cup i did my chores as fast as possible but then i ended up sitting in the library for a couple hours dodging the climb i had to do in the 90° heat also watching the new episodes of Steven Universe.

Norcal/Jefferson keeps being very nice country and good trail. I’ve seen many more deer in these parts than anywhere else on trail. These deer have the boldness of Shenandoah deer, i’ve gotten very close to some of them. Some comments on Guthooks tell of encounters with deer that try running away with food, hiking poles, and some backpacks. I believe it too, i’ve run at some deer, shouting and waving my poles and they just stand there unimpressed.

The trail came across another long climb down into a valley. Thankfully i didn’t do my research and i got a delightful surprise of the trail passing right by a diner/lodge in Belden.

It was a really cozy place, the owner ran a pawn shop for 30 in before getting this new place so it was packed full with cool arts covered in cobwebs. I wanted to find him and ask him questions about his life and some of the things, especially after i saw his Clampers admittance framed on the wall, but instead i just drank two pints and hit the trail.

Turns out drinking two pints and going to do a 10 mile 4500 foot climb in 90° heat is great for the spirit but not the body. I ended up hanging out at a spring in the shade for a half hour cooling off and burning away some more sunlight.

At a spring fed trough i had a nice conversation with an old guy who lived his whole life in these mountains that i was okay with cutting short because he was holding a giant knife the whole time. It was in its leather casing the whole time but like come on man you have so many pockets, you can put the knife in one of em and lose some aggression energy. Nice guy tho

The next morning i got about 5 minutes of big rain drops while an angry thunderstorm just over the next ridge loomed ominously. It wasn’t enough to dampen my spirits though, because the halfway marker was approaching that day. With reroutes and closures and how i’m not a purist the halfway post is more symbolic than literal, so in my heart the halfway point was actually Butt Mountain.

A few miles afterwards i showed up in Chester, another small town situated down a stretch of one road. Word traveled down the trail that a diner in town sold 32oz milkshakes and that was my first stop.

My body went on autopilot, i didn’t even notice myself eating it until it was already over. I sat outside and let the cold spot in my stomach warm up slowly. A group of people on vacation were struggling to finish their milkshakes so I stepped up to the plate and ended up consuming about 50oz of milkshake for dinner. Also a burger and some fries.

that night at the church that all the hikers camped at i saw a drunk englishman take off his pants and do pushups in an effort to stop a conversation about religion. someone poured gin and tonic on his exposed butt

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we was eatin good this summer, what with ye and with steven universe before they stopped taking their time with character growth and development.

you butt, past gadget, you shoulda tracked down that clamper.

lol butt mountain

that entire final paragraph with huge hiker trash energy.