North Cal has been a little uninspiring after the Sierra section but I still have managed to find a few jewels.

Feeling the burn

Stayed at the Antler Inn in Chester. I’ve been pretty fortunate to mostly stay in hostels or share ABNB’s which has been pretty inexpensive. My luck ran out though and I was forced to stay in a single bed hotel that cost a bunch. For the cost of that one night in Chester I could have stayed in a hostel for about four nights. Got up the next day and had a fine breakfast in a cafe by the hotel. Supposedly the town bus would take you to the trail and was supposed to be at the bus stop at 9:24. Of course it never showed. Luckily I saw some hikers across the street and asked them how they were getting out to the trail. They had a trail angel giving them a ride and said they had room for one more person. Even though I was frustrated by the bus not showing, things always seems to work out.

We made it to the trail outside Chester. The people I rode out with were younger but closer to my age so we started talking and I hiked with them for the day. The one couple was Slow (husband) and Steady (wife). And then the other two were Strider and his 9 year old daughter Mountain Lion. I was very impressed with Mountain Lion. At the ripe old age of 9 she has completed the AT with her dad and is half way through the PCT. Very impressive!

The hike for the day was through a burn section. I thought I was skipping these sections but guess I didn’t go far enough. The day sucked. The hike was through burned out trees and thorn bush over growth that cut our legs, I had to zipper on my pant legs to keep from trashing my legs. Worst section I’ve hiked on trail. The day ended well when we made it to a nice little back woods campground. The campground gave the PCT hikers access to one lot so there were about 20 tents crammed onto it. It was kind of crazy but pretty fun. I met a lot of new people and even ran into one guy that I hadn’t seen since day one on the PCT. He remembered me and ran me down. The campground had a restaurant for the regular campers but didn’t serve the PCT hikers. They would however sell us soft drinks. I was so thirsty and dehydrated from the hike that I ordered two cokes and a glass of ice. I downed both of them on the spot. As I was walking back to camp I had to burp. When I burped coke foam was coming up, not just air. I guess I’ve never downed 2 cokes like that before. I just kept foaming at the mouth. It was really odd but that’s the only way I could get the gas to come out. lol. When I got back to camp I remembered I had a couple Artemis NASA pins and some NASA stickers so I awarded little Mountain Lion the “Sgt Pepper Hiking Excellence Award” and bestowed on her one of my coveted pins and sticker. She seemed very happy to get them.

Walking the Volcano Ridge

I actually had a pretty good night’s sleep at the campground. The next day’s hike was more of a burn out section. It wasn’t great but at least the over growth of thorn bushes wasn’t as bad as the previous day. Also got my first glimpse of the Lassen Volcano which was pretty cool. The trail goes through the Lassen national park so that was something new. The trail goes up on a ridge rim trail so I got pretty good views of the Lassen volcano, Burney mountain and the valley below. It was also pretty levels made for some pretty fast hiking. This section does have a lot of lava rock sticking up which is hard to walk on, kinda reminds me of Pennsylvania rock on the AT. The trail is also extremely dirty. When you walk a fine dust stirs up and just makes you filthy, I’m sure it’s probably not good to breath either. Found a nice campsite on the ridge and had the place to myself.

Next day had a short walk close to the town of Old Station. Didn’t go into town but there was a restaurant close to the trail so was able to score a breakfast. After breakfast I followed a short blue blaze trail to some lava tube caverns which was really cool. The subway cave is about 1000 feet long and was formed during the lava flows. One other cool feature of the day was we got our first glimpse of the Mount Shasta volcano. The rest of the day was spent hiking along the ridge and through lava rock fields. This is a really long, exposed, hot dry stretch with long water carries. Fortunately we met a trail angel doing water caches which is really critical for hikers in these sections. God bless them, they do such a valuable service. He even took our packs so we could slack pack 4 miles to his next cache.

I had planned on being on trail 4.5 days before getting to my destination for next resupply which was the Burney Mountain Guest Ranch. Because I have been doing 20 plus days since the last resupply I got there on the 4th day so I’m taking a zero to get all my chores done and do resupply. This place is awesome. Fantastic all you can eat dinner last night with salad and dessert. Then all you can eat breakfast buffet this morning. It’s a hikers dream. It’s very quiet and relaxing, they even have a pool I’m going to check out!

Pondering my next move

After much studying of my remaining hike, I’ve determined that I’m probably about a week or so behind. I’ve decided to skip ahead another section at the end of next week’s section. I really hate to do it but if I get done early I’ll come back down and do the area I skipped. My concern is I don’t want to have to skip any of Washington. North Cal is probably the least desirable section of the trail so if I have to miss some I would rather it be here.

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