Day 82, 33.5 miles

I woke up to the sound of distant thunder around 3:30am. I looked up at the sky through my tent body and could still see stars above, so I figured the storm was far away and not overhead. I went back to sleep. At about 4:55am I felt some raindrops hit my face and sleeping bag. I quickly jumped out of the tent, threw everything onto my bag, and ran for the cave which was less than 500 ft away. It actually worked out perfect since I was going to wake up at 5am anyway! I was able to put in my contacts, re-pack my bag for hiking, and eat my big cinnamon roll that I had bought yesterday from JJ’s cafe. Lucky has a tarp tent which has the rainfly built in, so he just slept in through all of this. 

Once the rain stopped, I emerged from the shelter of the cave and was hiking before 6am. The glow from the not-yet risen sun against the dark thunderstorm clouds was so beautiful!! 

It knew it was supposed to get HOTT with a double T today! On top of that, I was entering a back to back 16 mile waterless stretch and then a 13.5 directly afterwards. Because of this I was very glad that I got up nice and early and that the thunderstorms blocked out the rising sun for quite some time.

The trail gradually climbed up onto Hat Creek Rim, a notoriously hot and exposed section of the trail. The views were sure pretty from up there this morning.

Lassen Peak centered in the distance 

The trail was mainly flat again all day today, with some very gradual downs, and every once in a while some small ups. This was great! What was not great was the heat! Luckily, I avoided direct sunlight until around 9:00am, when the sun popped up above the storm clouds. I did my first 16 miles hurriedly, and arrived at the Cache 22 water cache at around 11:30am.

I stayed for almost an hour, which I think was a big mistake.. By the time I left, it was probably already in the high 80’s, but I knew I wanted to get some big miles in today, so on I went.

It got SOOOOO hot! This is definitely the hottest day I’ve had on trail so far! (Previous high was 91° after the Jacinto descent and under the freeway pass near Cabazon). It seems that it just got hotter and hotter the closer it got to 4pm, and the day definitely topped out over 95°... I drank my last sip of super hot water from my bottle about 1 mile from the next water source. You know when you boil some water and then let it cool for about 2 minutes? That’s how hot the water got in my bottles from the sun. Not very thirst quenching!!

I came across a small burn site which looks like it had recently been doused. There was still some

Smoldering at the base of a large burnt out tree. Nearby was a fire hose! I wondered how long it followed the PCT and the answer was about 3/4 of a mile! It ended on a dirt road where the end had been clamped shut. I’m sure they will come back later to double check the area. It was super strange to see! I think it’s really cool that the fire dept really does utilize and existing trails and roads to get to these remote brush fires. My guess is that this one started from lightning as it wasn’t near an existing camping site.

Little burn still smoldering

The hose knows!

Going and going!

Blegh it was so HOT!! I can’t emphasize enough! I finally got through the last bits of super exposed and open trail, and downed a whole liter of cold water at the creek/lake that I came across. 

The Serengeti...

Beautiful water!!

There was just 3 more miles until the spur road to the Burney Guest Ranch, and I decided to stop there for dinner instead of going all the way to the Highway to hitch into Burney. I rolled up just before 6pm. That’s over 32 miles by 6!! They had a great spaghetti dinner with biscuits and I got some free strawberry ice cream! There was a Great Pyranese there named Duke who loved all the attention from us hikers. I saw Magic and a few other hikers I knew.

Burney Guest Ranch! A site for sore eyes and feet!

Duke the Great Pyranese, the huge 6 month old protector of the grounds!

After hanging out for a couple hours in the A/C, I decided to keep going a bit instead of paying $25 to camp there. By this time it was nearly 9pm, and as I headed towards the highway it was getting really creepy in the trees. There had been lots of talk of current mountain lion sightings and stalkings. I was completely alone and trying to find a spot to setup in the dark. I had good LTE service and gave Claire a call to get my mind off of creepy mountain lion thoughts!

So pretty!!

Well, aside from the brutal heat today, the last few days have been pretty cool! Between Chester and Burney, I stopped every night for dinner! 20 miles to Drakesbad, 27 to Old Station, and today 32 to Burney Guest Ranch! The lack of food weight has been great! Tomorrow I hitch into Burney early, do all my chores and resupply, and head out for some more miles in the afternoon! 

Thanks for reading!