Day 95: Follow the Buck

Date: Sat 7/21

PCT Start Mile: 1463.9

PCT End Mile: 1496.4

PCT Mileage for Day: 32.5

Total PCT Mileage: 1496.4

The Highlights: trail running buck, bark beetles, swimming holes, and big miles

Well, thankfully the pesky deer didn’t return, and no one snored, so we had a good night’s sleep. We usually love seeing deer on the trail, but prefer to wake up to gear that hasn’t been chewed up and slobbered on.

Later in the morning, we had an encounter with another deer, this time a buck.

Rounding a bend in the trail, a buck ran out from the forest. I don’t see a lot of bucks, so don’t have much to compare to, but I’d say this one had a pretty big rack as far as antlers go.

Spotting us, he ran down the trail a bit and then stopped and looked back at us again. He cocked his head slightly to the side, like your dog might in confusion when you are talking to him, like “I don’t understand you, human.”

The buck cocked his head to the side as if to say, “Coming?”, and ran down the trail again a bit further, then stopping again to see if we would continue to follow him. We did.

This went on several times, the buck letting us get a bit closer each time until he finally bounded back into the woods, tired of his game. Goodbye buck.

We talked to a hiker later in the evening that had played this game, likely with the same buck, but it ended with the buck following him, and it was eventually the hiker that ran to get further away.

Both the morning and the afternoon included 4-5 mile climbs, the one in the morning fairly mellow.

We stopped for lunch at a shaded tent site not far from a small river. This is where I learned what the static popping noise in the air that we’d hear sometimes was.

Hiking through northern California has been hot Hot HOT and we often hear the cicadas buzzing in the trees. But there had also been a static popping noise that we hear once in awhile, but I could never quite tell what was causing it. At first, I thought it might have been the sound of the grasshoppers as they jumped around the trail. But, after chatting with another hiker from California over our lunch stop, he said the noise was from the bark beetles, which are killing California’s trees. Very interesting.

As if the trees don’t have enough threats out here with the wildfires, carbon dioxide, erosion, blow downs, and everything else we’ve learned as we walked through burn and other dead tree areas.

*Great swimming spot – Squaw Valley Creek*

About an hour after our lunch break, we came upon an awesome little swimming hole along the Squaw Valley Creek. Several other hikers were lounging along the rock shelves along the creek side, drying off after their swims. We had to stop to collect water anyway, so might as well take a dip!

After a quick swim and filling our water bottles it was time to head on. It was around this point that mission creep began to take hold. Well actually, it started at lunch.

We had originally been planning on doing about 25 miles for the day, which would leave just under 12 miles for us to get to the road to hitch hike into the town of Mount Shasta tomorrow. However, we’d hiked nearly 18 miles by 12:30pm… it seemed silly to only hike another 7 miles. It would still be so early in the day. We may as well go a little further.

So now, at Squaw Valley River, it seemed logical to hike to at least the next water source, that way we wouldn’t have to carry as much water up the 5 mile climb we were about to start. That seemed logical.

And, of course, if we were going to hike to the next water, we’d then have to find somewhere else to camp. There was nothing right around the water, so we’d have to hike at least another 1.5 miles after that. So… before we knew it, our 25 mile day turned into 32.5 miles.

Those 32.5 miles started with a 5 mile climb up from the river, steeper at the beginning and eventually mellowing out.

My shoes on their last legs, my feet were getting very sore by the time we got to the dirt road where we planned to camp. And who was there? Rainman! And a couple others – a father-daughter pair from Canada who he’s been hiking with – Pitch and Mustang, as well as several other hikers.

We chatted with them while we ate our dinners, awesome views of Mt Shasta in the distance. Annoying insect award continues to go to bees, which seem to love to buzz all around your face when you’re trying to eat.

Tonight we are literally camped along a dirt road. But… so are several others. We’re pretty sure it’s an old logging road that doesn’t get used anymore. Just below our tent, a log has been set up across the road, so if any cars were to drive up, they’d hit the log before hitting tentfuls of hikers. Comforting.

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