Legs and Borders

Today felt like hiking through a 'budget' version of Sierra Nevada. Sharp ascents, baren landscape with little vegetation, snow patches, plenty of little water streams dripping from the mountains. It felt almost nostalgic, on the other hand a lot of today's walk was through a burned area with a lot of fallen trees, many of which were directly on the trail so everyone were playing a game of 'how to manoeuvre around the tree efficiently'. In the afternoon I met Taffy, I already saw her in Lake Tahoe area, she decided like many others to skip hundred miles of Dixie fire area, even though it's not considered dangerous to hike through it anymore, it's still 'not advisable' so many people decides not to do it. Personally I think it was worth it to go through this area, first of all to see the damage fire causes but also how nature deals with it. I had some of the most interesting animal encounters in this area of the trail (tree full of bats, angry swoopin...

"They fixed the road for us last year and even painted this yellow line in the middle just for me! But I don't really care about it" Molly. Good day, I hiked into Etna, resupplied and decided that if I catch a hitchhike back on trail within 10 minutes I'll go back, Molly was there, saw my thumb sticking up and stopped.. fastest hitchhike in my life, this is the way. Camp Host managed to catch me up yesterday evening, he rolled in to the campsite I was just before sunset along with Can't Touch This who went the wrong way yesterday evening and ended up doing 38 miles to catch up. Trail leading to town was quite steep but at least there was a lot of streams available so we didn't have to worry about water carry. Everybody were rushing as people had hotel rooms booked, packages at the post office etc. I didn't have any reason to run except topping up my food so I was taking my time and enjoying the trail. At my final stop before town two bold chipmunks were ap...

"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 ...