Legs and Borders

"We will cease to be so angry, once we cease to be so hopeful" Seneka. "What need is there to weep over parts of life. The whole of it calls for tears" Seneka. A long, tough day. Everyone was pushing miles to split the difference and get to town called Etna tomorrow, there's a few scaremongers in the comment section of the GPS app we using called Far Out saying that hitchhike to town might be difficult, so everyone wants to reach the road as early as possible. I'll have 23 miles to walk tomorrow, it means I can be there between 2 and 3 pm which should give me plenty of time to catch a ride. But I also have a backup plan, if I'll manage to meet other PCTer going to town beforehand, I'll ask him if he or she could sell me his remaining resupply (people always carry extra) which would allow me to skip Etna completely and carry on to Seiad Valley 55 miles further down the trail. The plan has some chances of succeeding, I have enough dinners and proteins ...

"We don't exist until there is someone who can see us existing. What we say has no meaning until someone can understand. To be surrounded by friends is to constantly have our identity confirmed, their knowledge and care for us have the power to pull us from our numbness" Alain de Botton. "Nothing satisfies a man who is not satisfied with a little" Epicurus. Good day of ye olde hiking. Miles has been done, trail was fairly easy and the weather warm. We climbed up to about 8000 feet again so despite the heatwave down below, it has been way cooler and the occasional breeze was a welcome addition. I walked alongside Fomo and Can't Touch This the whole day, we took a nice long break at the Porcupine Lake which even had its own little kayak! Everybody had a swim and a go at paddling around the lake. Lake area was quite popular with day hikers and fisherman so we been passing next to others frequently. One lady told us that she counted 31 PCT hikers yesterday and 1...

Quick resupply day and back on the trail, the heatwave is still in full blast but the trees are graciously lending us their shade along the way. I woke up and proceeded with everything as per usual - early. There was just over five miles to walk to Interstate 5, I arrived at the Soda Creek Road leading to the Interstate just before 8am. Here I met Ninja, a Japanese hiker also trying to get a hitchhike to one of two available towns - Dunsmuir which was closer but had no outfitters or budget friendly restaurants and Shasta, further away but was bigger. Just as I started to walk away towards the main road hoping that maybe someone will take me from there (it is illegal to pick up hitchhiker's from Interstate's in US), Ninja managed to stop a car and so I also got a ride to Shasta! We got picked up by Gary a lorry driver leaving nearby who was on his way to work. He dropped us out at Shasta's city centre, we could see a smoke coming out of the forest just above the road as we d...

"Follow an ancient Lemurian highway and save few miles of breathing in smoke. Under the diurnal psychoactive compound regimen detailed in Yogi's Guidebook, you may still see phantom teams of waggish bloompas pulling Lemurian caravans fraught with finely wrought instruments of subtle, mysterious design. On still nights Bababooian chants can be heard echoing from Telos, home of the Lemurians, beneath mount Shasta" Ribbitman. Today on one hand was very similar to yesterday on the other it felt so much better, perhaps because I didn't feel like I was pushing myself too hard and the trail was shaded and we'll graded throughout the day. Everyone shoot out early from the campsite and it worked out exactly the same as previous day's, I was ahead for the first ten miles only because I woke up and started walking half an hour early, but by 9am everyone has overtaken me and I was the last person in the group. We kept the good pace and by 2pm we stopped at the last water ...

"Sometimes the pictures can really explain what you seeing" Zohan. Another long, hot day with scarce water sources. The team fell apart a little bit but with potential to reunite tomorrow in town for a special occasion. It was a fairly uneventful day, we walked through the forests green corridor of with occasional opening or ridge showing the view of Mt Shasta. One of the girls in our group called Sugar Mitts did not feel well so she decided to walk back and catch a hitchhike back to town. I was walking quite slowly, especially in the afternoon during the biggest heat, I'm not used to thirty plus mile days I prefer a steady mile pushing, early starts and reasonably early finishes. Tomorrow might be another long day though, it turned out it's Tank Tops birthday and he wants to celebrate it in town, problem being it's around 35 miles away - so everyone agreed to try and get there for the evening, I'll do my best but if it's as hot as it was today I might hav...

"Do you guys think I need to sleep with my filter tonight? No? So what if I'm lonely" Fomo. [We had to sleep with water filters inside our sleeping bags during high Sierra Nevada section because if they got frozen inside overnight the filtration system would get damaged.] One thing's for sure, sleeping in a massive hall with a bunch of hikers, listening to their crunchy sleeping pads, their farts, coughs and sleep talking does not provide a good night's sleep, especially when the temperature is way above the norm. Everybody started to wake up and slowly move around the building around 6am, I grabbed my peach lassi and three bananas I got yesterday in Grocery Outlet and went down for the first breakfast. I had a coffee, few sweets provided by the church and went out looking for more food around 7am. I found a food truck selling breakfast burritos outside Safeway, so I got the chorizo one and went back to the hall. At this point people started slowly leaving  back t...

"I became vegan because I couldn't eat meat in front of my cat, I might go back to it when he dies" Fomo. It was a long day of walking in a 33°C heat and water once every 13 miles into a town called Burney but we made it in one piece! Pretty much all of us, ten people in total woke up at 5am and started to pack up after the night spent at Trail Angel Cafe, we had a big 31 mile day ahead of us. Squad was as follows: Zohan, Tank Top and Camp Post, Ass Ripper and Sugar Mitts, Alex and Ben, Fomo, Rip and myself. The hike itself wasn't too exciting, we walked all day along one long ridge overlooking a canyon with The Hat and Burney Mountain watching our steps along the way. Good thing was that we finally walked out of the remnants of Dixie fire, so the scenery was all green and fallen trees not as prevalent. Just after 5pm we managed to reach Highway 299 from which we fairly quickly got a hitchhike to town, tonight's destination was Word of Life Assembly of God church,...