Legs and Borders

"In their different ways art and philosophy help us turn pain into knowledge." Shopenhauer "People like the idea of thru hiking but not necessarily the process itself." Fomo Today consisted mostly of going downhill to Seiad Valley, I arrived there in the afternoon with a couple of interesting events along the way, heatwave was in full blast and it sucked the will of life from everyone. First of all, I've seen two more bears which doubled my bear count to date. First one was walking on top of the trail and didn't notice me at first, he sat next to a tree looking like Baloo from Jungle Book for a moment, then our eyesight met so he slowly stood up, went behind a tree and started to run away looking like a regular scared black bear again. The second one saw me from far away, he was on the other side of the river and despite the large distance between us, he also run away as fast as he could. Bears make so much noise once they start running it's hard not to ...

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...

"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 ...