Northern California - Part One

Hi Everyone!! 

It's been awhile since my last update! As you all know, I'm done the trail and home again. I've been doing a lot of resting and relaxing, and thus, procrastinating on the blog. I've finally taken some time to go through my photos and notes for the 600 miles of the Northern California Section, so some posts are finally ready! Feel free to read the whole post or just peruse the pictures. :)

My last update from the trail was written on the 4th of July in South Lake Tahoe, California. That was just shy of 100 miles past the 1000 mile marker. At the time, I was starting to get anxious. I was halfway through the 6-month window I had given myself to hike the trail, but still over 200 miles away from the halfway point of the trail. I knew that it was time for me to pick up the pace and I wasn't sure if I would be able to do it!

When I hiked out of South Lake Tahoe on July 5th, I was still with my hiking partner Mibs. Literally two minutes onto the trail after a wonderful Trail Angel dropped us off, we had a loud surprise encounter with a small bear who darted across the trail and crashed into the underbrush, running away from us in fright. Welcome to Northern California!

View of Echo Lake, where the Northern California section of the trail officially starts.

Mibs and I agreed that we would start increasing our mileage to a minimum of 20 miles a day, and we would try to avoid staying in towns overnight, in order to keep our forward momentum. I was especially impressed with Mibs for agreeing to this, and keeping it up with me, because she had decided to head home earlier than planned since she was starting school in the fall, so she knew she would only be hiking for a few more weeks. If I knew I had only a few more weeks on trail, I would have decided to take it slooowww and easy for my remaining time, but she stuck by me until she got off trail and pushed through some really long, tough days with me! I was so grateful for her company. Mibs and I really got each other and found a unique way to encourage each other while also being able to openly share our struggles and challenges.

Knowing Mibs would be leaving soon, I started to feel increased confidence and excitement about hiking on my own. Even before she left, I started to experiment with giving myself a little more freedom on trail. I focused a lot more on slowing down and noticing the little (and sometimes larger) things that I loved about hiking. I tried to remember to take the time to soak those things up, without stressing about falling behind. I stopped to take in a spectacular view, close my eyes and feel the wind on my face, or smell and touch flowers or moss or colourful rocks, and that really made a significant impact on my experience. The hiking was HARD, and increasing my mileage was even harder – 
it was a whole new adjustment period for my feet, which had finally reached a lower (though still constant) level of pain. Regular 20+ mile days brought the severe pain back, and that pain pretty much continued straight until Canada. California, and the pain, started to drag on, and I'm not sure I would have made it through if I hadn't worked so hard to be grateful for the experience and to notice the little things that stood out within the miles of monotony of Nor Cal.

The Northern California stretch of the PCT is punctuated by a series of resupply stops in tiny “towns” at the bottom of valleys, meaning they almost always involved a long, steep descent in, and a looong, steep climb out. After leaving South Lake Tahoe, Mibs and I hiked through the beautiful, rocky Desolation Wilderness and then the Granite Chief Wilderness. The wildflowers continued to be brilliant and plentiful and the weather continued to be bright and blue, although getting hotter by the day!

Lake Aloha

My first night camping right beside a lake, complete with a beautiful sunset

Looking back at the Desolation Wilderness, which we had just hiked through.

One of many fields full of wildflowers

Mibs hiking ahead of me

The trail also started to have a huge amount of butterflies, which I reallllly enjoyed. I would walk by a bush and dozens of butterflies would explode out of it, I honestly felt like a Disney princess. It’s just impossible not to smile when you see a butterfly.

One of the most common butterflies I saw on trail

These bright blue butterflies looked so bright and magical flitting by in the sunlight

A whole bunch of butterflies on a pile of poop :)

Super cool camouflage

On our sixth morning out we arrived in the tiny town of Sierra City. We spent the day hanging around in town, doing our resupply at the general store, sitting in the shade, eating a burger & fries from the restaurant, and socializing with fellow hiker trash that always congregated at resupply stops. We originally planned to spend the night camped behind the local church, but I knew we had a 8.5 mile exposed climb out of town, so I suggested we get a head start on the climb that evening, camping a few miles up and continuing early in the morning before the heat kicked in. We hiked up a series of switchbacks to an absolutely stunning campsite with a perfect view of the sunset and the huge valley below, had some snacks for dinner and headed to bed.

Watching the sunset just after leaving Sierra City

That started a routine for the next few weeks of resupplies. The temperature throughout the rest of Nor Cal got suffocatingly hot and humid – everyday the temps hit between 30-40 degrees Celsius. We often camped 3-8 miles before town, got up early and descended into town in time for breakfast, and then would spend the day hanging around, eating food, resupplying, charging electronics, socializing, and relaxing, eventually hiking out 3-6 miles uphill and camping partway up the climb. 

One of my all-time favourite campsites with the best view 

View of the sunset from inside my tent

My favourite thing about the hiking in this area was how plentiful the lakes were. Throughout Nor Cal the trail was full of gorgeous lakes and now that we were lower in elevation and the temperature was so hot, I was able to actually go swimming in the lakes rather than just doing a polar bear dip like in the High Sierras. Pretty much anytime the trail went beside a lake, I would throw down my pack, take off my clothes, and jump in. The water was always clear, clean, and soooo perfectly refreshing. Also, I liked to think it was a good opportunity to clean myself between showers! Since I wasn’t spending many nights in towns anymore, I only had limited options to shower, so it was not unusual in Nor Cal for me to go up 14 days between showers. The swimming helped. :P 

Me taking a swim break on a sweltering hot day

A bunch of hikers taking a snack / swim break in Middle Fork Feather River. Amazing swimming and rock jumping!

After travelling another 4 days, Mibs and I camped at a site about 6 miles from our next “town”, Belden, CA. I had noticed a lot of thunderheads piling up throughout the day, and I was a little nervous about camping that night because there were some pretty ominous cumulous clouds around us and our site was extremely exposed and very high up... It did not feel like the kind of place I wanted to be in a thunderstorm. I mentioned my concern to Mibs and we decided we would stay there but we could always pack up and head down towards town if a storm started rolling in. Sure enough, at about 3am I woke up to rumble of thunder. I stuck my head out of my tent and watched lightning illuminate the sky behind us, just upwind of us. It was getting louder and closer and I was, quite frankly, terrified. I very rarely got scared during this entire hike, only a few little bear scares, and my regular discomfort about mountain lions, but lightning storms were something I was genuinely afraid of throughout the hike. (People get struck by lightning while hiking in the mountains all the time!!) I sat there for about 5 minutes and then piped up from my tent, “Mibs... I'm scared out of my mind right now...". Unsurprisingly, she was also awake. We deliberated for 10 minutes and then got up, packed up our stuff in record time, and started to head down the mountain. We hiked along an exposed ridge for quite some time, with the storm appearing to be directly in front of us. It seemed ridiculous to be hiking towards it, but I also knew that we would descend into the trees soon and that would be a way better place to be during the storm. Eventually we did make it into the trees, but in the end it wasn’t necessary. The storm blew in a different direction and all we had to deal with was an hour or so of downpour. It turned out we could have stayed at our campsite, but oh well, better to be safe than sorry!! 

View of the rolling hills from Lookout Point

A view from our exposed campsite. The only vegetation was a bunch of Manzanitas which don't offer much protection!

We arrived in Belden extremely early, everything was quiet and dead. I call Belden a “town” because all it consists of is Belden Town Resort, a very unusual, eclectic, retro-ish RV/lodge/resort thing where a lot of music festivals take place, and Caribou Crossroads, a small RV park. The trail goes right through the resort, which seemed weird and kind of creepy at 6am on a Sunday. We put on some music when we got to the road and did a hitchhiking dance party until we somehow, miraculously got a ride to Caribou Crossroads, where we spent the day. At Belden, Mibs decided that she was going to hitch ahead to the next stop and meet me there. She was unsure at the time whether she would decide to get back on trail, but in the end she hung around with the hiker trash in some towns for a little while and then headed home, so although I spent some time with her in the next few resupplies, this was officially the end of my hiking with Mibs. It was bittersweet - I felt sad to say goodbye, but I was ready to hike out on my own and see what would happen!!

A giant wooden postcard and a phone booth at Belden Town Resort

Mibsy's final few steps on trail

Hikers love milkshakes

I asked the waiter for some tomato on the side, jokingly saying he could just bring a whole one... and he did! (I ate the whole thing)

Hikers also get very excited about new shoes! I loved my Salomons, so I stuck to the same shoes for most of the trail.

I've decided to split Northern California into two posts because there are just too many stories and pictures to fit into one! This seems like an apt place to conclude Part One, because it was a significant shifting point in the hike. After this point, the people I was hiking around were often new faces, I formed a lot of new friendships and relationships, developed a new hiking partner, changed my hiking patterns, increased my mileage, and felt a lot more confidence in myself. Stay tuned for Part Two! 

Bye for now! :)