Day 46: Big Creek Road to Belden

As I refilled my water in the morning at a trickling spring two fellow thru-hikers, Sonic and Ronan (trail name: Skeleton Child), passed by and mentioned they were hurrying down the trail to Belden to attend a funk music festival taking place there. I didn’t know much about funk but I did know that I would love to eat some hot food at the festival food trucks, so I hurried along after them into Bucks Lake Wilderness.

The trail offered nice views of the lakes to the east, and while I walked I encountered a group of mule deer foraging on the shrubs along the path. The descent into Belden itself was a long, relentless slog through overgrown thickets of manzanita bushes followed by an unending series of steep switchbacks leading 4,000 feet down the mountainside to the river valley below.

I crossed some railroad tracks and immediately felt like I was in the twilight zone. Hundreds of tie-dye clad festival-goers strolled this way and that between groups of colorful tents, many dancing and singing their way along the road. It was the most people I had seen in quite awhile, and I dazedly walked into the main part of the resort where even more people filtered in and out of the music venues. A man came running up to me and asked if I was a PCT hiker, and when I said yes he took me straight to the bar and bought me a beer. His name was Josh and he comes to the festival every year, often taking passing hikers “under his wing”. I can only assume that meant getting them drunk, as his girlfriend soon joined us and offered us “slap shots”. I wasn’t sure what that meant but went along for the ride, and quickly had a shot of whiskey in front of me. With a band belting out funky tunes on the stage next to the bar, we took the shots and Josh’s girlfriend immediately proceeded to slap both of us in the face. Some of Josh’s friends then showed up and invited me to continue the party at their camp. Getting very hungry I thanked them and moved on, somewhat bewildered at the past hour’s events.

Slightly buzzed from the drinks, I wandered over to the food trucks where I found Sonic and Ronan eating with a few other hikers. I devoured an entire pepperoni pizza and giant burrito followed up with ice cream, then went to the resort store to pick up some high-priced trail food. Sonic and Ronan invited me to camp with them and enjoy the festival, but knowing that I wouldn’t get any sleep and feeling very out of place I decided to hike out and camp a little ways up the trail at a quiet, peaceful spot above a creek.

Day 45: Bald Mountain Junction to Big Creek Road

My tick paranoia continued into the next day, and when I came across a couple of hikers in the morning I asked them to check my back for any sign of the pests. Luckily they found nothing and I made my way down a steep valley to the Feather River, where some boaters had beached their rafts for a lunch break. The river was flowing strong and I stopped for a minute on the large iron bridge to watch the water spill over the rocks below, its low roar rumbling in my ears.

On the other side of the river I made the long, gradual climb up to a rocky point overlooking the pine-studded hills to the east. I took out a Snickers bar and sat down to enjoy the expansive view but was soon accosted by a swarm of yellow jackets attracted to the sweat soaking my clothes and backpack straps. Waving them away I walked on, briefly pausing to browse through a plastic container of books someone had left out for thru-hikers. On my way to camp I passed through a beautiful meadow of white and yellow flowers, the bright afternoon light shifting into the gold of evening.

Day 44: Deer Lake to Bald Mountain Junction

Stuffed into a side pouch in my backpack was a small set of wireless earbuds. I hadn’t felt the need to use them much for most of my PCT journey thus far, as I either had been hiking with a friend or was surrounded by the awe-inspiring mountain peaks and alpine scenery of the High Sierra. In Northern California, however, my surroundings sometimes became monotonous with the trail leading through unending pine and fir forests interspersed here and there by a small meadow or open ridge. I started spending an hour or two each day listening to audiobooks, starting with the short book “Why Buddhism is True” by Robert Wright. The title is somewhat misleading, as the author mainly focuses on looking at the practice of mindfulness meditation through the lens of evolutionary psychology.

At camp, I put some of what I learned about the evolution of human emotion into practice as I discovered what appeared to be a tick (but was in reality probably some species of small beetle) crawling up the sleeve of my shirt. I have long had an irrational fear of ticks, at one point even indulging in self-medication to ward off any chance of an imagined case of lyme disease. Naturally I freaked out and brushed the bug off as fast as I could, then frantically searched the rest of my clothes before running into my tent to hide in case there were more of the tiny creatures.

Knowing I wouldn’t be able to get to sleep while in this state of panic, I took some deep breaths and tried to take a step back to examine my fear from a place of calm. Eventually I decided there was nothing I could do after searching my clothes and body for ticks, and resolved to not worry about it until the following day. It worked well enough that I was able to lay my exhausted body down and drift off, images of the eight-legged monsters flashing only occasionally through my dreams.

Day 43: Sierra City to Deer Lake

Having rolled off my sleeping pad into the dirt of the open lot where I had slept among a group of fellow thru-hikers, I woke up early and decided to get going before the heat of the August day set in. I took a very cold shower in the public bathroom and followed up with a hot breakfast at the Red Moose, a B&B in town. After grabbing a few food items at the small store (the shelves were mostly empty except for pop-tarts) I walked back up the road and began the hot, steep climb out of the valley. The mountainside was mostly exposed manzanita bushes with little tree cover, and I was glad when I came across a tiny trickle of water to refill my bottles.

My friend Jason had recommend taking the short detour to the fire lookout on top of Sierra Buttes, so I took his advice and headed up the wide fire road to the summit 5000 feet above Sierra City. It was a brutal climb, the late morning sun beating down as I slowly made my way up a road so steep I’m not sure how vehicles could drive it. Eventually I reached the peak, where a series of metal stairways (also steep) scaled the rock to the lookout itself. The panorama spilled over lakes and rolling mountains into the cloudy distance. The wind was strong and I ate lunch in the shelter of the rocks, chatting with some travelers who had made the ascent from a much saner starting point.

By the time I made my way down from the Buttes I was very much feeling the combined effects of the sun, the climb, and the previous night’s beer and taco party. Needing a pick-me-up, I detoured from the trail again to visit the Packer Lake Lodge, where a chicken pot pie and ice-cold Sprite helped rejuvenate my spirits. I camped on a bluff above Deer Lake, watching the red rays of the setting sun fade over the craggy Buttes.

Day 42: Mount Lacey to Sierra City

The path to Sierra City wound down along a tree-studded hillside to a large bridge over the North Yuba River. After enjoying the view of some small waterfalls, I climbed up to the highway where I discovered my first piece of trail magic: a small cooler filled with chips, beer, and Gatorade (trail magic is a term for the generous gifts, often food, drinks or a fortuitous ride into town, given to thru-hikers by people along the trail, themselves known as trail angels). As I quenched my thirst in the afternoon heat, pondering whether I had enough food left to skip Sierra City and continue on toward the next town, an older couple walked by on their way to see the falls. It happened to be a Tuesday, and they told me the local bar in town had a $2 taco special going.

My mind decided and my stomach rumbling, I quickly walked the 1 1/2 miles along the road into town. Sierra “City” consists of a few main buildings set along the highway, including a small store, post office, library, a couple of hotels, and of course my destination: the Buckhorn Bar and Mountain Creek Restaurant. I had just sat down in a wooden chair on the porch out front when Snooze appeared, and together we went inside to order food and drinks. We soon discovered the backyard patio where Ashes’ hiking group sat at a table listening to a local band belt out country ballads. Joining them, we took full advantage of the taco bar and beer selection, eventually closing the place down around 8pm. The town provided a large dirt area for hikers to camp, so I rolled out my sleeping pad and slept cowboy-style under the open sky.

Day 41: Donner Pass to Mount Lacey

I found the trail in the morning, walking past several groups of rock climbers scaling the granite slabs between Donner Pass Road and I-80. What looked like a giant storm drain led me under the freeway, and on the other side I stopped at a highway rest stop to refill my water and use the facilities. In the span of a few minutes several drivers approached me to ask excitedly if I was hiking the PCT and about my journey. Their infectious enthusiasm began to dispel some of my dark thoughts from the previous night.

Getting back on the trail I crossed paths with a hiker named Vick (trail name: Snooze), who would end up giving me my own trail name several days later. On the gentle ascent up to Castle Pass I began to notice a few tiny orange butterflies fluttering amidst the surrounding pine forest. The trickle of insects soon became a flood as thousands of the bright creatures continued to emerge out of the trees ahead. Walking through this spiraling orange cloud to the top of the pass I ran into a group of local hikers who told me the butterflies appear here every seven years as part of a migration cycle. Feeling lucky to witness this rare event and lost in its natural magic, I strolled slowly on as the little insects fluttered past me on their own journey to an unknown destination.

Day 40: 5 Lakes Junction to Donner Pass

Today my good friend Colin had arranged to join me for the leg up to Donner Pass. He and his friend Sidney met me in the morning at the junction and we quickly started the almost 20-mile trek to the highway crossing at Donner Pass. It felt good to be hiking with a buddy again, and no less one I had known going all the way back to Elementary School! We climbed through vast fields of mule’s ear plants to the rocky summit of the Squaw Valley Ski Resort, which had hosted the Winter Olympics back in 1960. Eating lunch beneath the large Granite Chief rock formation, Colin and Sidney shared some very welcome fresh carrots and fruit while we admired the view down into Olympic Valley.

In the afternoon we scaled the Tinker Knob, a rocky outcrop/pile of boulders a short distance from the trail with expansive views south to Lake Tahoe and as far north as Castle Peak. During the breathtaking descent from the Knob along an open ridge I awkwardly twisted my knee. At first it didn’t hurt much, but as we navigated across a tricky snowfield and began hiking down the granite steps to Donner Pass the pain became increasingly more excruciating. I found that if I kept my knee moving the pain would subside, but if I stopped to take a break for even a minute it would return in force the next time I took a step.

Hobbling to the trailhead, we were all excited to walk the short distance down the road to the Donner Ski Ranch for a well-deserved meal. The restaurant offered a free 40 oz King Cobra to PCT hikers, which I gladly accepted along with a burger, salad and pie feast. By the time we finished it was well after dark, and while Colin and Sidney drove back to Reno I attempted to find the trailhead on the north side of the highway. Still buzzed from the drink and stumbling around with an injured knee in the black night, I gave up and climbed up some large boulders to a flat patch of dirt where I pitched my tent. It was not until after the tent was set up that I realized the dirt patch was covered in shards of broken glass. Too tired to find another site, I crawled in and lay in my bag hoping that the glass didn’t puncture my inflatable sleeping pad.

My thoughts soon turned dark as I pondered what came next. I had spent the past week enjoying the company of many friends and family, and now I was alone again for the foreseeable future. I had no hiking buddy, and the next person I knew along the trail was a friend all the way up in Portland, Oregon, almost a thousand miles to the north. How would I manage hiking alone that whole time? Was it really a good idea to keep going? What the hell was I even doing on the trail anyway? These questions plagued my mind as I drifted into a restless, uncomfortable sleep.

Day 39: Phipps Creek to 5 Lakes Junction

Today was a day for meeting friends, both old and new. I even almost met a bear when I woke up in the morning. A Tahoe Rim Trail hiker passed me as I was breaking down my tent (the TRT and PCT coincide for 50 miles or so) and pointed out that a black bear had been rummaging around the forest floor just around the bend. I never spotted it though, and continued my streak of not seeing any bears through the entire trail.

I later crossed paths with another group of hikers, including Ashes, the girl who had warned me that I was starting my ascent of Mt. Whitney a little late in the day. We had lunch at the Barker Pass picnic tables (I have never appreciated the simple comfort of a picnic table as much as I did on the PCT). Passing the spot where I had turned off from Jason and Carly’s thru-hike in 2016 due to severe knee pain, I followed the trail along a series of open ridges and above the Alpine Meadows Ski Resort. As I was setting up camp in a washed out basin next to a tiny waterfall, I ran into Pioneer, the hiker from South Africa, and her friend. Eating meals alone was for me the hardest part of doing a thru-hike solo, so I was very glad to cook up some veggie mac&cheese and join them and an older couple for dinner and chat well into the evening.

Day 38: Echo Lake to Phipps Creek

Refreshed and refueled, I got back on the trail at Echo Lake with a spring in my step and smile on my face. This was familiar ground: not only had I hiked this section of the PCT with my friends Jason and Carly during their own thru-hike in 2016, I had also done the day hike up to Lake Aloha many times over my years living in Tahoe. Blazing past several groups of weekend backpackers, I arrived at the lake in the late morning and found a good spot on the rocky shoreline for a break.

Normally Lake Aloha is dotted with hundreds of granite islands and blanched tree trunks jutting out of the water, but with so much snow this year many of the islands remained submerged even in the first days of August. Still, I couldn’t resist taking a dip in the frigid but crystal clear waters and freestyled my way out to the nearest rock island. Swimming in Aloha brought back memories of my first solo hike there on a late September day, the lake much shallower and warm as I spent a timeless afternoon hopping from island to island in a state of blissful wonder. Today, however, the icy temperatures soon brought me back to the shore and I lay on a rock in the sun to dry off, my mind slipping for a moment into the euphoria of yesteryear.

Days 35 – 37: Lake Tahoe

Over a month of hiking at least 10-15 miles per day over picturesque but challenging high mountain passes, through mosquito-infested swamps and gorgeous alpine meadows can really take a toll. So when I arrived back at my parents’ house in Tahoe, I was definitely ready for a break and ended up taking a “triple zero” to rest and resupply.

First on the agenda, however, was my friends Bryce and Jessica’s wedding. A full two-day extravaganza out in the woods near Kirkwood Ski Resort, I had a blast celebrating with family and friends: playing lawn games, drinking, dancing, and soaking in the hot tub set on the edge of a small lake (swimming encouraged). The ceremony itself was beautiful and even hosted by my brother, and of course the steak dinner and next-morning hot breakfast were highlights for my food-starved stomach.

Two days of revelry well done, it was time to prepare to get back on the trail. Seeing a bunch of old friends and hearing their excitement about my trek invigorated my desire to continue hiking, so I replaced my shoes, socks (for free! check out Darn Tough), and loaded up on food for the onward journey. Sleeping in a real bed for three nights helped ease my sore muscles, but by the last night I was itching to be lying back on the cool earth under the stars.