The Trail Taketh and the Trail Giveth

To just begin writing is a big journey. I am months passed where I left off in my blog and must dive deep into my memory to recall the facts and feelings of hiking the last 100 or so miles of Northern California. The story I am about to write is one of the most magical and beautiful acts of humanity and serendipity I encountered on the trail. So much so, that it gave a new brightness and energy to my path and got me out of my Northern California blues I was experiencing.

To refresh, I had been hiking along in a somewhat blah section of trail when I found out that a good college friend passed away in an avalanche, my long-term relationship was on edge, and my home-away-from-home summer camp was dealing with a traumatic death incident in which many good friends where in recovery. I felt like I was not just carrying the weight of my normal backpack, but had pounds more of emotional baggage weighing my shoulders down. On the verge of wanting to quit and end all this crap, I some how got my legs to take me into the town of Shasta. I was in need of some serious rejuvenation.

The town of Shasta is right at the base of Mt. Shasta, a giant majestic peak standing all on its own and is ultimately the gateway to the Cascade Range. I had been to Shasta the year before to summit the peak and had been looking forward to this place for miles. Shasta has a reputation of magical spirits and powers that bring together an interesting mix of retired acid taking hippies from the 60’s, mountaineers looking to ice ax and crampon up to the summit, young hitch hikers with big beards and guitars going from place to place, and new age vegan gluten-free shaman-blessed spiritual activists searching for the meaning of life. Every other store is a crystal shop with information about the lumerian people that are said to live in the depths of the Shasta mountain. When I was there I gave my extra tortillas to a group of women who had just left the rainbow gathering festival. In exchange for my three wheat tortillas I was given the longest hug by a big bosomed women and told about how if I unwound my fifth chromosome I could active my fifth dimension.  Mmm? Although I do not believe I can activate my fifth chromosome, there was something powerful in the town of Shasta waiting for me.

Here I was in Shasta: a waterworks of tears, tired, hungry, wanting to quit and curl up in a ball to escape the world for a second. So, what else does a girl do, but order a carrot ginger juice and a fat breakfast burrito from the local health food store. I ordered my food and drink from a pretty looking girl behind the counter and inquired about places to crash for the night. Without finding out much information from her, I sat down with my food. An hour later this girl approaches me, introduces herself to me as Logan, and told me she felt a deeper inkling to ask if I wanted to stay with her and her family that night. YES! Trail Magic! That afternoon her mom, Heidi, drove me down their long dirt road to their property, where they have a beautiful off the grind cabin, a friendly dog, a river to explore, and good tea and quinoa and veggies to eat. Just what I needed.

That night, with the one bar of cell service I found, I had a very intense tear jerking conversation with Zach. I was on the phone in their dark living room crying when Logan walks on in. I must have looked like a complete weirdo hiker person crying in their home, but at that point I didn’t care. When I got off the phone with Zach, Logan leans over the railing and asks if I am having dude trouble. Turns out Logan just broke up with her boyfriend 30 minutes before and was also crying! We spent the remaining of the night going from lonely ground zero to giggling girls supporting each other in our issues. Despite the fact that Logan does not usually invite people into her bed on the first night of meeting, she let me sleep in her queen bed with her and cuddle her stuffed animal bear named Pinkie! Then, to add to the crazy magic of it all, I found out I know her sister, Ariana Morningstar, from UC Santa Cruz! Such a small world. Who knows if it coincidence or if it was the powers of the Shasta mountain bringing me and Logan together to support each other that night when we were both feeling so lonely. Whatever the forces behind it, I truly believe everything always just seems to work out on the trail. If you have the capability to see good and keep smiling when everything around seems bad, then good things will happen to you.

When the trail taketh, it eventually giveth back. 

And so the journey northward continued! Views were limited, and at times it was hard to breathe from all the smoke coming from three different fires in the area, I raged on.

I got back on trail and ended up running into two couples I really like (Frosty and Goldielox and then Shedder and Roo). I charged forward into the beautiful Marble Mountains with them, hiked my longest day of 33-mile day into Seid Valley, swam in some of the best river spots, and saw two bears in one day. Life was looking good as I hit the small town of Etna. In Etna all the hikers stay at this one bed and breakfast run by the sweetest couple ever. I slept out in their front lawn, watched the movie Hook (twice actually cause it is that good), made the most delicious nachos ever loaded with rotisserie chicken and refried beans, got treated to dinner by Goldielox’s parents, ate 6 home made cinnamon buns, went to an awesome brewery, mob around on loaner bicycles, and watched Simon (a British dude that smokes packs of cigarettes a day and is obsessed with Mountain Dew) eat a bowl of ice cream loaded with 5 giant scoops and 5 toppings from the classic ice cream fountain joint.

The last night in Etna was nothing less than epic. I was awaken in the middle of the night by all the hikers crazily packing up their stuff and screaming that there was a fire. I cracked my eyes open and sure enough, the house next door to us was burning down. There had been a forest fire in the area and my first thought was that the fire had reached us and I was going to have to jump into the little fish pond to escape the burns. I packed up my stuff in under 2 minutes (thank god I was a professional at this point at packing up my shit) and ended up following the mass of people to watch the fire take ahold of an old abandoned house. Flames were shooting up high into the air and I spent the remainder of the night watching a house burn to the ground. Apparently, it was an old house where squatters lived. Unfortunately, someone died that night I think going inside to save a cat or something. Hands down, craziest night on the PCT.

The last stop over in Northern California was Seid Valley, known for its pancake challenge and steep climb out. My crew got into Seid Valley super late, but trail magic hit and the owner of the general store saw us hiking in and drove down the road to open up the store for us. So nice. Hiking out of Seid Valley might have been the worst up hill climb I experienced on the PCT. It was a burn section, super steep, dusty, limited water, got my period that day (always seemed to come on the worst days), and was just blah.

With only a day or so till the Oregon border, Northern California decided to give us a little “f-you, take that” with a big ol’ lightning and thunderstorm.  Setting up my tent in an exposed plateau that night with lightning and hail all around us was probably the stupidest campsite I could have chosen, but was a good lesson for the rainier climate of the Pacific Northwest that was to come.

I think I must have walked that last mile of California in like ten minutes-just slow enough to not shake up my tall can of PBR beer for celebratory measures. Took a mental note of the happy California cows grazing in the distance and stepped into a new state! California is great, but wow is it long. The mental shift and energy boost getting into Oregon was huge. I had never doubted myself that I was not going to make it all the way to Canada, but in this moment I was actually really believing that maybe, just maybe, if I keep doing what I was doing to stay safe and healthy, I was going to make it all the way!  So, with hot desert days gone, lots of tears shed from both sadness and happiness, two tubes of vagisil for chafing used, 5 pairs of spandex destroyed, a ridiculous amount of cinnamon buns and hamburgers consumed, hundreds of liters of water squeezed through my filter, and most of the elevation change climbed, I said goodbye to my home state and walked on into new territory.