Holy Mole! What to say. It's been a long and lonesome stretch. After the halfway I kept truckin solo. Coming out of Chester I hit the Drakesbad resort in Lassen National Park - such generous people! They set me up with a shower, a hot spring fed pool, a cooler of the good stuff and a humongous meal at half price. I got seated with a pair of identical twins that had grown up coming to the spot with their family and a man from the bay area who was running a star watching program that night. Good company. And when I asked the owner if they might have any leftovers of an awesome prime rib family style diner he came out with a plate bigger than the first one I got. Hell ya!
From Drakesbad I did a day's walk to Old Station - a sleepy town with an RV resort and a general store. After a soda and some ice-cream I decided, "what the heck. I'll hike the next stretch of hot waterless miles tonight and get into town a day earlier than I expected." So I hit the Hat Creek Rim around 7 or 8 and hiked 'til about one in the morning, my biggest day yet - 43 miles! It seemed well worth it too after reading the registers about all the heat and blisters etc. I dropped in Burney, CA the next day, got my food, had a pizza to fill me up and was right back on the trail. I kept up the 30 mile average coming into the Dunsmuir/Mount Shasta area. Finally I ran into more hikers! The weeks of hiking solo were finally over as I came across Hans Solo, Pfiesty, and Wandering Dot. Also ran into Samurai and Frito-Ray, some section hikers working their way to Ashland. When they get there, Samurai will be done with her PCT hike! I can only imagine what that will feel like for her... and what that'll feel like for me when it's my time. Spent a bunch of time in Dunsmuir at the cool not-for-profit laundermat and then some more time at the Dunsmuir Brewery Works. Good home-made brew and awesome house-smoked ribs. Life was good. Ran back into the hikers there and wound up sticking around a little longer for some more food and beer. Samurai and Frito-Ray were super generous and picked up the tab on my second meal. Thanks again guys! Got a great ride back to the trail that night and was making miles again in the morning. Another few days of 30s and I hit more of the crowd - running into Flash, Rattler, Rocky, Anthony, Crasher, Speedbump, Holden, Quake, Unload, Cherry Picker... Lots of people! I'm definitely back in it. We all dropped into Etna, CA around the same time and after getting chores done spent a good amount of time at the Etna Brewery... great suds and good company. From here I'm looking at a hard hitch back to the trail and then just a few days to get out of this humongous state. We're Oregon bound!
From the registers I figure that Boots and Bubbles are about 3 days ahead. Bubs says she's going to be spending some time visiting friends in Oregon and I'm going take on the 2 week Oregon challenge (getting through all of OR in 14 days) so it's a recipe for running into one another. For now I'm going to enjoy the company I'm in and the miles ahead. Can't wait to hit that border and feel the first big accomplishment of the hike. We worked for it that's for sure. I'll catch you all on the other side!
suweeeeet
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