Today was a good day. I woke up early as usual and slipped out of the tent to let Sherpa sleep in while I grabbed some coffee and worked on the blog. Last night I woke up a few times for no particular reason and walked out and looked at the stars. I have become really good at picking out the big and little dippers and the little dipper has the north star. I have become enamored with the night sky and each day I am more instinctually more aware of nature’s compasses and time keepers. At night the outermost stars in the trough of the dipper form a hour hand with the north star at its axis, which is the outermost star of the little dipper. In the day in California, the sun always makes little compasses with every shadow. In the morning the shadows point west and in the evening they point east. My mind is constantly making maps as we walk oriented by these little indicators. Sometimes it can be annoying when we suddenly turn north when our ultimate direction is south. We will swing around a giant bowl only to end up a mile from where we started. Oh well, the trail knows best.
Anyway back to the coffee. I was at the diner for quite a while and Sherpa never joined me. I ended up eating two breakfasts I was there so long, first a hot bowl of cream of wheat smothered in brown sugar, butter, and cold cream. A few hours and 9 cups of coffee later I sat with Yote and 2.Toe and had eggs, sausage, and hash browns. They were also there catching up on their blog and chores and it was fun to sit with them. Poor Yote was dealing with some bureaucratic nonsense related to taxes. I do not envy him though I need to fix some health insurance info myself so that’s on my list.
After my blog posts, Sherpa asked me to bring her a chocolate milkshake, which has become the quest of this town visit. Fourth of July revelers has cleaned out the town of Etna. No milkshakes were to be found in any establishment within 100 miles. It was a desperate situation for dear Sherpa, who begins to wither after 12 hours if not supplied with chocolate ice cream in one of its many forms.
I collected one of the last shakes in town and then met her at the grocery store and it was nice to see her. We went to the post office to collect our aqua mira and then went back to the park to pack up.
At the park we took a last shower, topped off our cell phones, packed our bags and went back to Dotty’s to get one last meal before hitting the road. We were eating our burgers at Dotty’s and suddenly, out of no where, Stripe appeared, our friend from the Appalachian trail! We didn’t even know how to act it was so shocking to see someone from the trail out here, though it shouldn’t have been surprising. Him and his partner are hiking a section they missed when they hiked the trail last year. We were so surprised we kind of all just made small talk as if it were no big deal.
I texted Yote and 2.Toe to see how they were doing and they were eating at the diner next door and were finishing up. We said our goodbyes and then met up with our regular fools and we walked to main street to get a hitch to the trail.
We are always surprised how quickly we get a hitch. Within minutes we were riding in the back of a locals pickup. It was no small trip to the summit so we were really grateful and it was clear it wasn’t on his way. The ride was beautiful and the wind felt amazing. At the top he invited a bunch of hikers to jump in and he headed back down the mountain. People can be so generous.
We all set out together and it was already passed 5 p.m. so we didnt expect to get far and before too long we encountered our first obstacle. The trail had taken us over a ridge to the north face of the mountain and the entire ridge was covered in a steep snow bank.
We looked at our maps and decided to go around on the southern ridge. It was largely a boulder field leading up to a narrow pass. The massive boulders kept us moving at a snale’s pace but it kept us above the brush and it was covered in a dry, black, moss-like substance that was very grippy, and ultimately pretty enjoyable. Yote and 2.Toe took the lead and found a good path through the pass and back over to the north ridge to ride the top of the snow bank, which was nearly flat, and eventually dropped us down to the trial which was now exposed 400 yards below.
The rest of the evening was smooth sailing and we ended our day at a gorgeous lake. I had packed our some cheap brats so I was contemplating making a fire. While setting up the tent I noticed that Yote was collecting sticks, so I got really excited and started helping him.
He had just started piling kindling in the fire when Sherpa noticed that there was smoke already coming out of the fire pit. It was really scary to think that someone hadn’t fully extinguished the fire when they left after seeing so many devastated acres on our hike. It was convenient though in this instance and we all sat down around a pleasant fire and 2.Toe and Yote produced some wine which we passed around to wash down the brats. It was perfect.
Soon after we all went to our tents and slept like little hiker babies.