As I mentioned before, we survived. At lesst I did, because when I left Stardust wasn’t moving in her tent which is ok at 6h10 🙂

The trail was great and it went slightly downhill so I could keep a great pace during the first few hours.

 

But after 12 miles the trail showed his ugliest face and it was full of small lavarocks which hurt horribly trough my worn out shoes. I forgot to replace them on multiple occasions and so I’ll have to wear them for 3 more days before I can buy new ones in Mount Shasta.

The hurting feet and the sore places didn’t help me to stay motivated and only the music kept me going.

 

 

This is part of the trail too, when the landscape isn’t breathtaking for a moment, one has time to think about all the pain. And its not always enjoyable pain… here some impressions how my body reacts to the backpack after only 3 days.

I had done 18 miles before I had an early lunch. I bought halapenõ flavored ramen, which was not on purpose and made them almost uneatable…

 

 

The 11 mile stretch from lunch to Burney falls was the longest I walked without a single break. Motivation was so extremely low! Everything did hurt and the sore place between my legs was killing me again. I had to hold the shorts with one hand from touhing my skin to be able to walk…

 

Right before the short side trail to the falls I saw Fish&Chips whom I haven’t deen since mai and had a long talk with them who lasted to the falls and stopped when they had drank their beer and went to set up their tent.

 

Even though I could have fallen asleep right at the table we were sitting, I decided to hike out and do a few more miles before I set up my tent.

 

After a quick dinner which I ate lying down because I was so tired I fell asleep at 8pm. I think that’s a first 🙂

 

 

I have to regain control over my snooze-habits!

 

At 6h45 I left for a long 15 mile uphill stretch, luckily not steep, just long 🙂

 

The smoke seemed to be thicker than the days before, probably because the night hasn’t been windy and because I am getting closer to the fire. It was the first time I could really smell it.

 

I put on two types of underwaer to avoid more scarfings and it did help! I was able to walk -at least for that place- painfree 🙂

 

 

Most of the last days and this morning too have been mostly walking trough the forest and its getting boring. Not the kind of boring that I want something different but as if you’d had pizza for 4 days in a row. Pizza is still great and you’d still have to eat, but some variety would be nice 😉

Water is again a thing, the sources and creeks on trail are getting rare and so I have to plan if its better to carry more to skip one and avoid walking an extra mile or if I want to carry less water and walk more. A dilemma because I don’t like walking more than I have to and I don’t like carrying extra weight…

 

I had lunch on a dirtroad in a shady place as I realized that the solarcharger I use doesn’t work very well with all the smoke in the air… my powerbank is running very low and 10 hours of solarcharging isn’t even enough for a phonecharhe. Walking under trees doesn’t help this either… I have to stop texting so much when I have service because I NEED the phone for the maps. Maybe I have to stay longer in town to charge more of the powerbank??

Afternoon, forest again, with almost no view… I pass around 15 hikers daily because I start walking early, don’t take a lot of and only short brakes and I walk late in the evening too.

 

 

So today I passed Pickles and had a great chat with him. He’s the guy I did the 24/24/24 beer challenge!

 

My shoes are getting worse and worse, my feet are the only things that keep me from hiking fast all day. Around 15h I start to slow down because they hurt so much. I am so desperatly in need of new shoes 🙁

 

 

At 20h I reached my spot, even though it is 2.5 miles from what I planned, but my feet wont let me go any further…

 

At least I have this gorgeous view out of my tent or what the smoke leaves me from the view.

 

 

I sat down while eating, already an improvement compared to yesterday 🙂

 

But still fell asleep right after making the dishes…

 

 

 

Snooze….

No improvement has been made here. 6h40 as I started hiking, I blame the service this time because I texted a lot before getting up.

The same forest as the last days, so not a lot changed. There is still a lot of smoke and the sunrises are not as beautiful as the sunsets. But this morning it was all downhill 🙂

 

After 3 hours I reached Deer Creek and a deerfamily was running around at the place. Mom, dad and two kids who were not shy at all and came as close as 2m from me while having breakfast.

 

 

The only thing in the world I don’t eat is tuna, not the red steak but the mixed up with dolphins one. But because the caloric & protein value per gramm is amazing I bought some.

 

And yep, still don’t like it. Its the smell that makes me uncomfortable so I gave it away to another hiker after only one bite.

Only forest till lunch, but there was a pit-toilet which I was looking forward too so I hurried to get there as fast as possible before it would be too late.

 

 

There was not only the toilet, but a large river to wash myself a bit and a large place to cook an sit down (still on logs, no chairs).

 

After an hour I got ready again for a long uphill stretch which was as monotonous as the morning hike. I didn’t see a single hiker the whole afternoon. Apart from a few deerd I was all by myself. 4.5 hours later I reached another river which was a bit filthy but because I left my waterfilter at home I had no choice…

 

After 3 more miles of steep uphill I reached the campsite at 20h00 after 37 miles, my longest day so far!

 

I immediately got the message that an hour ago a bear visited this campsite. The other hiker was shocked about me taking my food with me in the tent, so I explained that I want to be able to fight for my food when the bear would attack and not just surrender and hang it somewhere outside.

I was super exhausted and so I slept right after dinner. I am considering going partly stoveless the next stretch of the trail because I could start sleeping half an hour earlier if the dinner wouldn’t take so long to prepare and to cool down…

 

 

I only snoozed the alarm once but because I had to catch a bus I was HIKING at 5h00!!

 

The first hour was in the dark and I had to use the rest of my batterie life of the headlamp to see enough to walk fast.

 

 

I indeed was so fast that I decided to take a breakfast break on trail instead of eating on the bus and I was still a whole hour early at the bus stop. 22km in 4.5 hours 🙂 can’t wait to see wat those feet will do with their new shoes!!

 

In town I got new shoes, a new bagpack because the old one was broken and Zpacks arw going to repair the broken parts or maybe replace it??

 

I had lunch at BurgerKing and after that I did a small resupply because I had still some food left from my bad calculations last time…

 

 

I spent almost an hour at the post office to write 2 letters to Luxemburg an pack the Backpack to send it back so that I only had an our left to charge my powerbank, the phone, get some additional treats and write the blog.

 

At 18h03 the bus came and took me back to the trailhead where I want to walk a few more miles before setting up my tent. But thats for the next time 🙂