Day 90: Bear!

Date: Mon 7/16

PCT Start Mile: 1331.3

PCT End Mile: 1350.3

PCT Mileage for Day: 19

Total PCT Mileage: 1350.3

The Highlights: Lassen Volcanic National Park, a terminal geyser, our first bear sighting, and trail wine & beer

Today we slept in until a bit after 7am before tackling the hotel continental breakfast. After my first plate, I took a number and got in line for the waffle machine behind about 5 kids. Actually, one of them was a dad, who apparently represented three children, because that’s how many waffles he made.

While I waited for my coveted waffle, Shawn headed over to the post office to pick up the new shoes he’d ordered. This is how we work – he goes and gets stuff done while I stuff my face. #teamwork

It ended up that he was lucky he got the box at all, because for some reason the name line had been left off the mailing label by the company he ordered it from. Luckily the post office had still kept the box and was able to find it in the back using the tracking number.

Meanwhile, back at the hotel, I was checking into the tracking for my own new pair of shoes – which I’d ordered to Mt Shasta, where we’ll be in about a week. It turned out the box had been delivered to the post office and then returned to sender, and would be arriving back at the company (Running Warehouse – same as Shawn) today. Ugh.

So I called Running Warehouse – and then the post office in Mt Shasta – and then Running Warehouse again. The lady at the post office in Mt Shasta was super friendly and able to confirm that the package had been returned because there was no name on it – a huge problem when you are picking up General Delivery mail. Also a huge problem when the post office is dealing with hundreds of hiker packages.

his was the same problem Shawn had, though luckily they had kept his box at the Chester Post Office instead of returning it right away. Anyway, after making all of my phone calls, it sounds like a new pair of shoes will be on their way back to Mt Shasta today, my name included on the box this time. Bueno.

Anyway, after sorting all of this out, it was time to hit the trail and we were soon out front of the hotel with our thumbs up.

It didn’t take too long before we were offered a ride from a lady named Joanie, who was traveling with her two pugs – Chica Marie and another name I cannot remember. She traveled the route often and gave rides to hikers to/from the trail whenever she saw them along the road on her way through. She owned several dog supply shops throughout the region and had been around throughout the weekend as she worked on the sale of the one in Chester and another in a town down the road. She was slowly working her way toward retirement.

She asked what kind of wildlife we’d seen on the trail. Our list was not impressive – all the normal stuff – squirrels, marmots, deer… nothing big and impressive like a bear or mountain lion. She was sure we’d see a bear soon. Back at the trail, we thanked her for the ride and started hiking. It was just before 10am when we were finally heading down the trail.

The day of hiking was relatively easy, with a lot of flatish and gentle downhill grades during the first three hours. We strolled along at an easy 3 mph pace, which is not a sentence I would have used at the beginning of our hiking journey. The skies were bright blue with big puffy white clouds and there were clear views of Mt Lassen in the distance.

After the first few hours, we stopped for a lunch break along the North Fork of the Feather River, eating our cold soaked meals in the shade. We also filled up water here, our last planned stop for water until the end of the day. While there was another spring along the way, it was a bit off trail and we didn’t want to stop if we could avoid it.

The hours after lunch were HOT and, naturally, included some climbing. It seems like we often have hot uphills after lunch. The grade of these ascents wasn’t too bad, and they were relatively short, but it was really the heat that made them worse than they should have been.

Not too far after our lunch break, we entered Lassen Volcanic National Park. A couple of miles into the park, we dropped our packs and took a small side trail down to a terminal geyser. About .3 miles downhill from the PCT, the feature was a steam geyser, stinking up the area like rotten eggs. Just the kind of thing we go off trail to see.

While the geyser was cool, taking the side trail actually ended up having bonus material, as we saw our first bear on our way back up the trail!

Several people had seen bears along the trail by this point, and we were starting to get bummed that we hadn’t seen one yet. Then, on our way back up to the trail, Shawn heard a scratching sound off in the woods, which he thought was probably deer, but when he looked around he spotted a bear about 100 yards off the trail, pawing into a downed tree.

Woohoo! Our first bear! And he was a big guy. A bit too far away to get a great picture, but that’s probably a good thing. He didn’t seem to notice us at all and continued digging around at the tree.

Far away pic of bear – center of photo.

Back on the PCT, it was only around an hour’s hike to the Drakesbad Ranch, where we planned to make a stop. The hiking was easy, the day now far less hot, and we made quick time to the road toward the ranch, spotting some deer along the way. Pshhh… deer. We saw a frickin’ bear today. We don’t have time for deer. There were two fawns though, so … that was cute.

Anyway, once at the dirt road, we deviated from the trail, heading about a third of a mile down the road to the the Drakesbad Ranch.

The Ranch had hot springs and offered a great deal to hikers: use of hot springs, showers, and dinner for $18. We were very excited about this. Until we arrived.

Arriving at the office/restaurant area, we found a sign that said due to water shortages, they would not be offering use of the hot spring pool, showers, or laundry to hikers. Though we could still purchase dinner for $18.

This was not as sweet of a deal anymore. And, talking to the staff, they were kind of rude about it. Uninterested in this deal, we just bought a couple sodas and killed some time chatting with a few other hikers there that were waiting for the dinner, which was 7pm for hikers, after they had fed all of their other guests. We sat with Simba and Medusa from Georgia. We had seen their names in trail registers before, but this was the first time we’d met.

We also met Dirty Money, Sausage, and Renee, the last of which had yet to receive a trail name, at over halfway through the trail. All while chatting, we attempted to keep a very insistent squirrel from getting into our packs.

Finished with our sodas, we sauntered back down the road to the nearby campsite. At only 6:30pm, it was still relatively early, and if we weren’t hiking through Lassen, we would have kept hiking for awhile. However, outside of the Sierras, Lassen is the only place that requires bear canisters. The trail crosses through about 19 miles of the park and, since we no longer had bear canisters and were unable to get through the whole park before camping, we’d have to stop at the campground for the night, which had bear boxes.

And so, we found a tent site and started making our own dinners. We hadn’t been sitting for long when a car camping neighbor came over and asked if she could share anything with us, and soon we had a beer and a glass of wine in front of us!

This was better than dinner at that stupid ranch anyway. After eating, we talked with the neighbors for a bit – an older couple from southern Oregon, out camping for a few days with their son and his daughter, who were from the Bay Area.

They had never done a thru hike but had done several hikes along different areas of the PCT and had all kinds of questions for us. So nice, they gave us their phone number in case we need any rides once we get up to the Ashland area, not far from where they live.

Enjoying wine with my mac n’ cheese.

Eventually, we also acquired another PCT hiker at our campsite and we chatted with him quite a bit.

His trail name was Oxygen Debt. He is a theoretical physicist in his non-hiking life and had been living all over the world throughout the last many years of his life – traveling for grant money and contracts in New Zealand, Italy, Portugal, and – most recently – Germany.

He explained that there is not a lot of money in theoretical physics and finding work can be tough – more of both in experimental physics. Anyway, he was also very interesting to talk to.

Eventually, between chatting with all of our neighbors, I got my camp chores done – stowing my food stuffs away in the bear box, setting up my sleeping mattress and bag, and collecting water from the spicket where the water came out milky white and fizzy, the color and fizz both eventually fading. I filtered it just in case. Oxygen Debt told us that there are actually several natural soda springs in the area.

Eventually, we turned in. Lying in my sleeping bag, this was the time of the day that I wiggled my toes a lot to make sure they were all still there. One day, I should regain feeling in all of them. 😆