Day 86: Into Caribou Crossroads
Date: Thu 7/12
PCT Start Mile: 1259.9
PCT End Mile: 1286.9
PCT Mileage for Day: 27
Total PCT Mileage: 1286.9
The Highlights: coffee sunrise, Buck’s Lake Wilderness, and into Caribou Crossroads
I actually did not sleep that well last night, but that allowed me to take advantage of our 5-billion star hotel room, the dark clear night sky perfect for viewing the stars and even the haze of the Milky Way. Such a great view.
While I didn’t sleep that great, I did wake up to this epic view:
And, Flow was nice enough to make everyone coffee for our sunrise viewing. We never have coffee on the trail, so this was definitely a treat. Instant NesCafe never tasted so good. I gave a little cheers to my brother on his birthday. He’d probably have preferred it be a Jager Bomb, but coffee would do.
Even with our slow sunrise wake up and coffee, we were still packed up and hiking out of camp by 6:15am.
The first part of our day was a mix of downhill and short uphill terrain and we hiked with Pink Panther for awhile, another hiking friend of Flow’s that we had met briefly last night when he stopped to chat.
When he stopped out on the ledge last night, he was just shy of putting in a 40 mile day – (wow) – and soon off to finish of the last mile of this feat. Today, he and several other hikers were going to hitch into Quincy to hit up an AYCE pizza buffet before resupplying and heading back to the trail. We planned to hike further, doing a long day to get into Belden/Caribou Crossing.
The longest climb of the day was about six miles, which we hit about mid-morning, already blazing in the sun, but thankfully a good portion was through the forest.
Topping out, we continued over undulating terrain for a few more miles before stopping for lunch, sixteen miles down for the day. Unfortunately, with very annoying flies abound, the lunch break was less relaxing than we would have liked and we were soon packed up and hiking again.
The remainder of the day was mostly a long descent into the town of Belden. The descent started off fairly gradual – and very overgrown – but was eventually a very long series of short steep switchbacks, which went on for miles, wrecking our legs. We ended up hiking with Conflicted for a good portion of the descent – having leapfrogged with him for days now.
At the bottom of the descent, we had a short road walk into the town of Belden, which – from what we could see – was only a couple blocks.
We continued through the town to the highway, where we began a two mile hitching attempt/walk to the Caribou Crossroads RV Park, touted as having friendly staff and all the services hikers needed – free camping, a cafe, small resupply shop, and a la carte pricing for showers and laundry.
Unfortunately, we were never able to get a hitch, adding two miles to our already 27-mile day. No extra credit for road walking, but sometimes you just have to get places.
Eventually, we gave up on sticking our thumb out, all of the vehicles flying by on the road. Shawn and Conflicted were well ahead of me as I dragged my tired ass up the road, the temps still at 95 degrees even as it neared 5:30pm.
With only a tenth of a mile to go, suddenly a gray pick up pulled over. A woman hopped out and said, “you want to beat those boys?” Heck yeah! I threw my pack in the back and we drove the laughably short remaining distance to the Caribou Crossroads RV Park.
Shawn had waited for me at the bridge right before the turn to the RV Park and we waved at him as we drove in. He looked very confused – like why would I get a hitch from when I was so close. I explained later that it was her idea. The “her” was Brenda Braaten, a well known trail angel in this area and, while she used to do more in the way of hosting small groups of hikers at her own place, now she seems to be helping more with rides to/from Caribou Crossing. She told us she’s be around all day tomorrow ferrying hikers back to the trail. At least we wouldn’t have to walk back.
After setting up our tent, we made our way into the small cafe to get one of the “PCT famous” milkshakes and some grub. This was followed by showers, laundry, and lots of relaxing.
While we’d taken freezing cold showers in Sierra City, these were our first proper hot showers (with both soap and shampoo) that we’d had since South Lake Tahoe – just over a week ago. That was also the last time we’d done laundry. Being clean is awesome – even if short-lived.
We spent the evening chatting with other hikers around an unlit fire pit. Rainman is here, he’s good people so it’s nice to hang out with him again , and we’re also camped next to Cashew, who we had met when we stayed with Paparazzi our first night in South Lake Tahoe. There are probably about seven of us hikers here tonight. A nice small crowd.
TBD on whether we get good sleep here though. We’ve already heard a few trains pass by on the nearby tracks, the highway seems to be trafficked by some very loud trucks, and there are a few obscenely bright lights shining into our tent. So… will report back in the morning. At any rate – we are fed, clean, and in freshly laundered clothes, so things are good.
