Day 83: 1200 Miles!

Date: Mon 7/9

PCT Start Mile: 1184.7

PCT End Mile: 1207.3

PCT Mileage for Day: 22.6

Total PCT Mileage: 1207.3

The Highlights: Sierra City, an awesome care package from VB friends, and the 1200 mile mark!

Late last night – or maybe early this morning – I heard a large animal crunching through the downed tree branches along the hillside next to our tent site. In my mind, it was a huge bear – or maybe a maintain lion.

I made a half-ass attempt to wake Shawn. He slumbered. In reality, it was probably Bambi, maybe Thumper. Maybe even just a squirrel. Sounded like an awfully big squirrel though…

This morning we were off at 6am as usual, with that extra spring in our step that is reserved for town days, since we’d be making a stop through Sierra City today.

After several climbs yesterday, today’s 10.7 miles into Sierra City was mostly downhill – but the kind of net downhill that has a sneaky amount of uphill… hmmmm.

Anyway, aside from a few rockier sections, the trail was mostly nice – easy to burn through quick miles – and we’d hiked 9.3 miles in the first three hours. Some of this time was passed chatting with Pilgrim and Bang, who we hiked with for awhile through the morning.

Arriving at the road by 9:30am, we were super lucky with a hitch and the first vehicle to pass by pulled over to pick us up, a few guys in a pick-up heading to do some downhill mountain biking for the day.

They were happy to give a couple stinky hikers a 1.5 mile hitch down the road, and dropped us at the Country Store.

Arriving at the shop, we quickly received the bad news that they weren’t open yet.

While the listed hours were 9-5, apparently they kind of open and closed as they wanted. Yesterday they had closed at 4pm and today they weren’t going to open until 11:30am. Ugh.

More and more hikers gathered as they came in off the trail, everyone waiting for the shop to open so we could pick up packages sent there. Sierra City has little in the way of resupply, other than the small selection at this store, so nearly everyone sends a package here. It ranks somewhere in the top 10 locations you need to send a package along the trail.

So, here we all were – waiting for the store to open. Some people sent their packages to the post office, right next door – which also kept abysmal hours – 10am to 2pm. The rest of the town – about two blocks long – was apparently closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.

So… we waited. The owner did show up a little earlier than 11, and when he opened the doors, all the hikers streamed in like it was a Black Friday sale. Soon enough, we’d located our package and were tearing into it on the porch.

A HUGE shout out and THANK YOU to our friends Brenna and Mike from Virginia Beach for the amazingly awesome care package they sent us – with so much food, we actually sent the extra forward to another town up the trail. Thanks again for all the goodies, Brenna and Mike!!!

The other draw to the Country Store was they served food – and, as one of the only places open on Mondays, soon scores of hikers were placing their orders.

Food selection is typically limited at these small general store cafes, so we got… burgers (shocking, I know). I feel like I’m on a hiking burger tour sometimes.

Shawn went all out and got the one pound “Gut Buster” burger, putting it away like it was just any ‘ole standard fast food cheeseburger. We rounded off our meals with milkshakes, because we can.

Having eaten, sorted our food supply for the next section, and mailed the extras forward, we took care of one more order of town business: showers.

The nearby public restrooms had one public shower. One absolutely freezing cold public shower, but we were willing to bear it. Plus, Brenna had sent shampoo and wash rags 🙂

So, we took ice cold showers, only to put our dirty clothes back on – no laundry facilities in this town. Oh well, we’d be dirty 15 minutes out anyway and would be able to do laundry in the next town.

A little before 2pm, we packed up, filled our water bottles and started back to the road for a hitch.

Squishy hadn’t been feeling great this morning so decided to wait until later in the day before hiking out since it was still blazing hot. Many hikers were taking their time before returning to the trail. If we don’t meet up with her later today or tomorrow, we’ll see her in the next town stop on Friday at latest.

We had equally good luck hitching out of Sierra City, the very first car pulling over and delivering us to the trail. “You know,” the guy said, “I was always taught not to pick up hitch hikers, but it feels a lot better to help people out.” He cleared out his back seat and soon we were thanking him and waving goodbye from the trailside up the road.

Most of the reason many hikers were waiting out the heat was because the return to the trail started with an 8.3 mile climb of 3200 feet. Not super steep, but long.

The heat of the day didn’t turn out to be a problem as the first several miles climbed upward through shaded forest and, when we finally bust out of the trees and climbed along a rocky exposed ledge along the mountainside, there were nice cool breezes.

A little over halfway up the climb, we hit 1200 miles!! While there was no mile marker in rocks or pine cones as usual (unless we missed it) there was eventually a post with “1200” written on it in Sharpie. Good enough for us.

From the top of the climb, we had about a four mile descent to the area we planned to camp.

The descent was mostly really nice – through forest and around a couple lakes – and we eventually stopped for the day at an actual campground called Pack Saddle Campground.

We are suckers for picnic tables. Pit toilets are an added bonus; it’s nice to not have to look for a place to dig a hole.

It’s a calm night and, despite the fact that the campground is accessible by car and there are several car campers here, it’s relatively quiet. Both of us exhausted, with sore feet, we hope it stays that way.

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