Tag: thru-hiking

Day 49: Chester to Domingo Lake

I did laundry in the morning, sitting on a curb outside the town laundromat wearing only my rain pants and jacket as everything else was thrown into the machine. After a leisurely breakfast at the local cafe and supply run to Dollar General (which would become a mainstay resupply stop as I moved through Northern California) I walked to the edge of town and hitched a ride back to the trail. At the trailhead I found Ronan sitting at the base of a tree, eating a Subway sandwich and surrounded by a swarm of yellow jackets trying to get at his deli meat. We chatted for a bit and I moved on, walking toward the growing prominence of Lassen Peak in the distance.

I set up camp just south of the park on a rocky bluff overlooking Domingo Lake, with a view of the Terminal Geyser spewing steam amidst the trees ahead. Since the ground was far too hard to nail stakes in, I collected some large rocks to set at the corners of my tent. As I was cooking a dinner of instant ramen noodles Ronan appeared and joined me at camp. He was from just outside Belfast, and when I told him I had visited Northern Ireland a few years earlier he took out a ukulele he had been carrying along the trail and began to play. Soft notes rang out over the lake, and Ronan sang a rendition of “Wish I was Back Home in Derry” under the bright light of a full moon. The song and setting moved me, and I went to sleep feeling a small longing for my own home welling up in my chest.

Day 48: Little Cub Spring to Chester

While on the PCT I got into the routine of staying a night in a motel about once every 10 days, so after checking the map I called ahead and booked a room at the Antlers Motel in Chester, a small town just south of Lassen National Park. I met up with Compass in the morning and we hiked toward the highway, talking about his experiences working for the Bureau of Land Management near Walker Pass where I had started my hike. We soon came across the marker designating the midway point of the PCT, exactly halfway between Mexico and Canada. Since I hadn’t started at the border it wasn’t very meaningful to me, but for Compass it meant he would now have less trail ahead than he had already hiked. I imagine knowing that fact would help a lot in the mental endeavor to complete the trail.

Chester lay too far down the highway to walk, so Compass and I set our bags down and stuck our thumbs out to try to catch a ride. Thus far on my journey I had only had to hitchhike once and was lucky enough to find a ride without even trying, but this time was more frustrating. Trucks, semis, family minivans, and sedans all zoomed by without a second look at the dirty and scraggly-looking hikers on the side of the road. We attempted calling some trail angels who had stapled their number to a log at the trailhead but they were unavailable. Hot, sweaty, and increasingly demoralized, we took turns at the road until eventually a suburban pulled up on the opposite side to drop some hikers off at the north trailhead. We quickly waved them down and gratefully hopped in, the driver depositing us outside Chester’s grocery store. I got a massive deli sandwich and soda, gulping it down with gusto in the air-conditioned coolness of the little eating area. I had learned a valuable lesson about hitching this day: patience is key.

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.