7/11 – 7/26
-> Lake Tahoe -> Chester ->
After a second day in Lake Tahoe, I left the hostel and made my way back to trail. One of my roommates at the hostel was an Uber driver who spends weekends in Tahoe during the summer to make some extra cash. He gave me a free ride over to the coffee shop where it would be easier to hitchhike to the trailhead!
I then hitchhiked back to trail with a guy named Sam who lived in the area and worked as a stone worker.
In the morning, I ran into Momentum and Stitches at Echo Lake and spent some time with them for breakfast. Momentum had just finished her section and would be returning home.
Aloha Lake comes only 6 miles after Echo Lake and was gorgeous! It was so close to Tahoe but felt similar to the lakes in the high Sierras. I took a swim in the clear water, patched a hole in my sleeping pad, and then made my way through Desolation Wilderness.
A storm rolled in on me in the late afternoon and I was grateful to have my rain layers. I hadn’t used them in probably 700 miles. The rain blew over quickly and the weather was perfect afterwards. I’ve learned that you can’t trust summer forecasts in the mountains because I kept checking the weather on my Garmin and there wasn’t any mention of rain.
The unpredictable forecast continued so I had my worst night of sleep yet. I was too hot in my sleeping bag but would get bitten by mosquitos when I poked my legs out. It rained (not forecasted!) irregularly enough to keep me from setting up my tent but frequently enough to wake me up. The wind was also sporadic and strong. I wondered if the tree next to me was going to blow on top of me.
I took it for what it was and resolved to begin using my tent after that night. I had enjoyed 450 miles of cowboy camping, but it was time for my open air nights to come to an end.
It took less than 24 hours to walk through Desolation Wilderness and it was a gorgeous stretch of trail where I passed tons of small lakes and my first on-trail bear! It was so beautiful.
I had a feeling the rain would return the following day so I set up camp early. I needed to kill some time to make it to Truckee when the post office would be open, so it worked out well to cut the day short.
I used the downtime to stitch up my sun hoodie and try to reinforce my backpack straps which were starting to give out.
I ended up sleeping for 12 hours that night with the sound of thunder and rain pattering on the tent. It’s funny how cozy and secure I feel in my flimsy tent.
After the rainy days, the clouds hung around. I realized the forest looked so much more beautiful to me when the weather was cooler. I wasn’t fixated on moving from shade to shade, my water bottles weren’t warming in the sun, and I could meander on exposed ridges and take in the remaining views of Lake Tahoe.
I had the most gorgeous sunset from my campsite and it was evident the rain had all passed.
The next day, I went into Truckee but promised myself not to stay the night there. I had stayed two nights in Kennedy Meadows North, Yosemite, and Lake Tahoe. It was time to make my town visits brief and only take zeros when it felt necessary.
Before getting there, I met Reno Dave! He was hiking with a bear can of ice, sodas, and beer to hand out to hikers. I took a coke and he gave me some restaurant recommendations and let me know that we were reentering rattlesnake territory – a warning that excited me.
I made a stop at Donner Ski Ranch before hitching down into town and happened to see Pete there. Pete was part of my first trail family that I hiked with from Idyllwild to Wrightwood and I hadn’t seen him since April 12th. He has multiple more off-trail trips to make in the future so I don’t expect we’ll cross paths for a while.
I had my free beer and a big burrito and sat outside with Allen, Forest Gump, Berlin Falling, and Hazy with his three siblings.
I hitched into Truckee with two women and a muddy golden retriever named Starla.
It was time to knock out my town chores and avoid getting vortexed. I sent my bear can home and the postal worker told me about their free transit system in Truckee, which was just like the one in Tahoe. I used it to hop between a coffee shop, Grocery Outlet, and the edge of Donner Lake where I could hitchhike back to trail.
Success: I survived going into town and NOT staying a night.
I started to get into a groove after Truckee and I think it was because the trail became simpler. There were no big mountains, no snowy passes that required an ice ax, and no river crossings threatening to sweep me away. As much as I loved those parts, it was freeing to see a horizon of softer hills and mountains.
Each day was becoming comfortably similar to the last.
Aside from camping one night with ET and Shady, I spent most of the time alone.
I was shocked to see Pete at the Donner Ski Resort, but even more shocked to see Ivy on trail. She was in the same trail family with Pete but I had no idea where she was on trail until I saw her hiking southbound towards me.
She was making her way to Truckee to travel up to Crater Lake for a family vacation. We talked for a couple of hours to catch up on everything and everybody in the three months since we had hiked last.
I had a mileage goal for the day, but then I saw a beautiful lake. I walked down to Jackson Meadows Resevoir Campground to have a beach day. My goals are easily undercut by a good swimming spot, and I’m not mad about it.
At this point, the trail started to go much lower in elevation than I was used to. I was back in the oak trees instead of only conifers, and I did indeed see a rattlesnake. With low elevation also came more heat.
I tried to hitchhike into Sierra City but was unsuccessful so I walked. I actually enjoyed the road walk because I saw pretty mountain homes and scenery on the way down to town. I was listening to the audiobook for Where The Crawdads Sing and felt like some of the older houses fit perfectly in the story.
Town stops are all about food so I had breakfast and lunch before leaving. The ascent out of Sierra City and up towards Sierra Buttes was exposed and everybody recommended waiting to hike it after 5 pm.
I’ve seen my fair share of expensive little country stores by now. They often have a scraggly dog walking around, poor air conditioning, and outdated everything. This one had its own unique touch – no prices on any products!
I snagged a free t shirt out of the hiker box just for kicks and made it out of the valley long before sunset.
The warm sunset fades quickly. I hiked after dark because I was trying to catch up to a college friend who was at a nearby campground with her family.
I made it to the campground but they had left already. No worries. I enjoy having a reason to hike further even if it doesn’t pan out, and I’m starting to love hiking at night. The sap and mushrooms glowed bright in the dark, and I love seeing bats flying recklessly with their reflective purple eyes.
After this point, the views started to shift into more of what I was expecting for northern California. The forests have little to no undergrowth and I was beginning to enter something new – burn zones.
Hikers sometimes negatively called norcal the “second desert” because it gets warm and exposed again.
One cool part about summer is that there has been farrr more trail magic than I encountered in the first two months on the PCT.
The trail angels cater to “the bubble” which is the dense group of hikers who started in mid April. Now that I took a total of a month off for both weddings, I’m closer to the bubble and get the perks!
This was the best trail magic setup by far. They set up easy ups and chairs for us and so much food. Fresh burgers, hot dogs, veggie burgers, fruit, eggs and potatoes, salad, chils, cookies, soft drinks, beer, etc…
They had a charging station for our electronics, a handwashing station, boxes of packaged food, medicine, toiletries, and gear for the taking, and one woman offering rides to and from her house for showers. It was insane!
On top of it all, they served us all with gloves to help prevent us from getting sick. There was another bout of norovirus looming ahead that we were trying to avoid. I was so impressed and grateful for the little oasis they created, and I met lots of new hikers.
From there, I went into my first big burn area. I leapfrogged with Jamie and Mel who I had met in Sierra City, and we pushed through some reroutes and scrambles to get around unmaintained sections of trail.
I left Jamie and Mel behind because I was low on water and needed to get to the river. I rerouted between an overgrown road and an overgrown trail, banging my legs on all the fallen trees.
In this terrain, I got immediately grimy with ash, dirt, and sweat cementing to my legs. I looked worse in 6 hours here than I did after a week in the high Sierra.
The middle fork of the Feather River was a welcome reprieve from all of the scorched trail. I pinned my clothes down with rocks and let them wash under the current while I sat in the river. The hot days were not my favorite, but it was worth being able to swim at night without getting too cold.
I continued through many miles of burnt woods and snapped my trekking pole again. Now, I would need to find a stick to pitch my tent.
A couple days later, there was already another “town” to go through called Belden. Belden has a lodge and restaurant on a river at 2200 elevation. This is really far down compared to the rest of trail and the temperature was a brutal high of 96 in Belden.
During the descent, I was very happy to be out of the forest for a short time. There was no shade, mangled manzanita shrubs, and a hot dry breeze had replaced the humid forest air. The trail was sandy instead of dusty, and the basking lizards were back.
Belden looked like a ghost town but I was relieved to see other packs on the porch. The restaurant was hot inside, but at least it was shaded. I ate some bland fish and chips and regretted getting piping hot food on a hot day.
After eating, I spent a while at the river with some stoners who drove up from who knows where. The river was the perfect temperature and plenty deep.
The trail from Belden was about 15 miles up and the biggest uphill section we’d seen in a long time. Since the temperature was still in the 80’s when the sun set, I prepared for some night hiking. I couldn’t sleep comfortably at 80 degrees and would much rather get to a higher elevation before setting up camp. Even hiking in the night, sweat was dripping in my eyes.
I loved this part.
The trail was full of life at night. I’m not a huge fan of bugs but I am trying to like them more and there were plenty to go around.
The trail was a wolf spider highway and their tiny eyes reflected my headlamp. I could see them dotting the trail from over 20 feet away and counted 15 from one viewpoint.
I saw a long-legged spider dragging a moth, fuzzy black caterpillars, and grasshoppers and moths hanging on blades over the trail that I knocked out of the way with my trekking poles.
They helped me to keep moving as I stepped around and over them constantly. Each time I stopped, moths would dive bomb towards my headlamp. If it became miserable, I could just set up my tent and go to bed.
I also came across a small owl and five deer. The deer were resting in the grass and staring me down as I filtered water and took a snack break. I had interrupted their rest.
As I took a break, the moon came over the horizon and was blood red through the dark woods. It was quiet and beautiful. Just a bat, family of deer, the red moon, and me.
I realized that I would have missed all of this if the weather were better. It was the miserable hot air that forced me into this cool nighttime experience. I later talked to some hikers who did this section during the day and said it was miserable.
The following morning, I left the Sierra Nevada mountain range and entered the Cascade Range which will carry me to the end of the trail!
I continued to enjoy the simplicity of northern California. There was cell service most days so I called my mom and we solved all the worlds problems. It was an easy, peaceful week.
I stumbled onto Howard giving food and drinks to hikers at a place on trail that intersected three different counties. More trail magic!
Howard knew that hikers were getting norovirus so he put chlorine in the cooler. Apparently, everybody was getting sick in Chester so they suspected there was a gate or trail register where hikers were touching and spreading the virus. Consequently, the hostel closed and I needed to find somewhere new to stay.
I posted on Facebook to find hikers to share a motel room with in Chester, but I got a much better offer from (at the time) a stranger named Michele.
I night hiked again the night before getting to Chester. It wasn’t hot, but I wanted to see what animals I would find. I was not disappointed. There were my first scorpions on trail, a rubber boa, and more alien deer eyes boring into me as I passed by.
Before Chester, I hit a very important landmark. Halfway to Canada! The 100 mile increments come quickly so I only look forward to bigger milestones like this one.
I used my trekking pole to open the infamous norovirus gate and hitchhiked into Chester. It felt like time for a zero after skipping some towns and spending shorter times in others. I got picked up by one of those Teslas where the doors open upwards. I felt bad sitting on his white leather seats until I found out he was on his way to pick up lumber and didn’t care about dirtying up his car.
We also picked up Necktie when we saw him walking down the highway.
I hit the jackpot getting to stay at Michelle and George’s house in Chester.
She bought me snacks from Trader Joe’s and made the most delicious meals.
When Michele found out my shoes were near the end of their lifespan, she and her daughter drove me to Reno to get new ones! It was a 2 hour drive each way and we also stopped at Whole Foods, Trader Joes, Starbucks, and a great brewery called Schussboom.
While I stayed at their house, the Park Fire started near Chico and grew to hundreds of thousands of acres. On our way back from Reno, we could see the smoke moving in quick. George and Michele had many friends in Chico and had already lost their home in Paradise to the Camp Fire in 2018. We get wildfires in southern California but it seems to be nothing like what they have up here.
I’m so grateful for my time at their home and for their over the top generosity!
I’m really liking NorCal so far, and it’s exceeded my expectations.
I see deer every single day now and they sometimes graze near me while I graze on my food.
There are big dragonflies that fly together 20 feet in the air, endless butterflies, and grasshoppers that make a crackling noise as they fly.
One morning could be spent on fern covered forest floor and the next in the ashy remnants of a fire. Both have aspects to appreciate and I still think beauty is found in the variety.
From this point on, there are a few hundred more miles until Oregon and it starts with a walk through Lassen National Park!