Day 81: Hat Creek Magic

Date: June 29, 2017 
Miles: 1374.9 – 1391 

This was yet another day in which we had high hopes for how many miles we were going to go, and another day in which we were derailed by creature comforts. We climbed on to the 40 mile long Hat Creek Rim, which is infamous for being one of the hottest and driest stretches of trail. And it was indeed hot. And dry. 

We had our first glimpse of Mt. Shasta along the way, which I realized later I would be seeing for about 100 miles. The not-so-stealthy stalker of the PCT. That also means that you may be seeing an obnoxious number of pictures of it in the next few blog posts. 

We stopped for lunch around noon and I had just made myself comfortable, inspecting my super dirty feet, when Roi asked at what mile we happened to be. When I told him, he got excited and said that a Facebook post announced trail magic a half mile up the trail.  I’ll tell you now that it never takes so long to put on sweaty toe socks as it does when one wants to get to food really fast. What we found when we got there was an awesome spread of salads, fruit, cold beverages and strawberry shortcake made by some ladies from Burney. One of them, Jeanine, has a son who is hiking the PCT this year and she wanted to get involved in the trail in her own way as well.  And wow were we grateful for that! 

We spent a few more hours on the rim than we intended because of the refreshing food and fine company, so we only made it a few more miles after that and camped by a 300 gallon water cache and lots of cow poop. From my bed I could see hang gliders and parasailers float by silently on the wind above the rim, and I envied them their quiet vantage point. Maybe I’ll try that in my next adventure.