The Hunger Begins - PCT Section N (Old Station to Burney Falls State Park)

About to start!

Pacific Crest Trail Section N - May 16th - 18th. 2015

Old Station to Burney Falls St. Park.
Distance: (One Way)  43 mi.
Total Elevation Gain: 2170.5 ft.
Total Elevation Loss: 3573 ft
Highest Elevation: 5,100 ft.
Dogs: Allowed, but logistically difficult because of water
Difficulty: Easy

It is a strange thing to look back on my notes for this trip. Those 80 days of walking seem to be in some sort of temporal flux in my mind. There were hours (minutes even) that seemed like whole days and days and weeks that seemed to fly by. There's this odd sense of wonder looking back that we did what we did.

The days leading up to our departure were hectic to say the least. We got engaged on my birthday, which was a week before we left, had a birthday party, I was co-leading a group for domestic violence victims, was taking one of the hardest classes I have ever taken, had finals and was required to grade about 80 very long essay exams from the class I was TAing.... in two days. I had basically given up with the majority of the preparation and had left it to Chris' capable (but increasingly stressed out) hands. By some miracle we managed to get everything done though and we left for my Mom's house in California minutes after I submitted final grades.

Mt. Lassen

I'd like to say we had some rest between leaving Reno and starting on the trail, but that would not be accurate. Instead we ran a ton of errands around Santa Rosa. I needed a second sports bra, we needed cash for the resupply boxes, how had we forgotten camp-towels?! We got pedicures, which might be theoretically relaxing but to me is about the most uncomfortable, anxiety producing type of relaxation ever. Finally we threw a going away pot luck party and invited a bunch of family and family friends. The next morning we left for Redding where we were going to spend the night before leaving the following morning, we stopped off to get milkshakes at Fenton's and then arrived at what was possible the worst Motel 6 ever. It was right near the freeway, no surprises there, but the beds were so uncomfortable and there was so much light and noise I don't think any of us slept well. 

We woke up the next morning at 5:30, got all our stuff together and jumped in the car. It was so quiet. Chris and I were both too nervous to talk (probably Mom too). The only noise was me fidgeting in my seat and occasionally some weird choked noise that would sneak out of my mouth.

Me and Mommy

We passed through the town of Old Station and got to approximately where the trail ought to have been.  We ended up using the Half Mile App (which I'll write a review of later) just to find the trail since where it crosses Hwy 44 is not well marked. We had to stand around for a while because I wanted to use the Spot to check in and have the GPS coordinates for our starting location. This was actually pretty torturous. We were both so nervous and so excited to get on the trail that standing around for 20 minutes was pretty much the worst. Finally we shouldered our packs and walked with Mom to the trail access point, we took some photos and then Mom started to cry.

"It's just like kindergarten all over again!!!" she wailed.

Poor mom. The drive back must have been miserable. We hugged her goodbye and took off down the trail yelling over our shoulder that she shouldn't worry, we'd be fine and other, true, but generally useless words of comfort.

We kissed and said "We're really doing it!"

We didn't speak again for over an hour. Not because we had nothing to say, just because everything was sinking in. It was finally starting to be real (I think it didn't become totally real till we were in Oregon where nobody could easily come get us).

We had started at the Hat Creek Rim, which is beautiful, but the next 32 miles are completely dry so we were carrying about 7L of water each (that's about 15.4 lbs if you don't know the conversion). So it was not the easiest starting point, but it made the most sense for our timeline. The day was lovely, warm with a nice breeze and enough cloud cover so that we mostly didn't feel like we were baking. There were beautiful views of Lassen and what we called The Great Valley (there were many tree stars here). 

It was so early in the season that there was just nobody around. We didn't see a single person until we got to Burney Falls three days later. The only sign of people was a lone trail of bootprints that we followed for several days. I affectionately named him "Boots" and was convinced that he was a man of immense wisdom. The trail was so unused that the animals were still using it as a game trail. While we stopped for a short break a bobcat came waltzing down the trail. His eyes nearly popped out of his head when he finally noticed us and dashed off into the brush.

The miles were just falling away under our feet. After about 11 miles we stopped for a longer lunch break. We ate and then just lay on the grass watching the clouds for about 45 minutes. 

The afternoon sun started to get pretty hot around 3. The first day was one of two times that we got sunburned (thanks to everybody who gave us sunscreen!). I started to get tired around mile 16, there had been a campsite in a meadow near this huge antenna, but we (read: Chris) had decided we should press on. The terrain was very, very rocky for the next two miles, and I became convinced that Chris had planned on using this trip to kill me. Finally, we found a flat area with a minimum of rock. We set up camp and made some dinner.

I should say here that for the next couple of weeks the volume of dinner and breakfast was so immense that we could barely finish it.

The next day we felt a little stiff, but were surprised at how good we felt after doing over 18 miles! A few blisters but nothing serious.There was similar terrain, except we started to drop down into a valley. We ran into a very nifty water cache called the Twigloo, there wasn't a bunch of water but it was a nice place to sit in the shade for a minute (day 2 was significantly hotter).

We descended further into the valley. I was just tramping along and then all of a sudden Chris told me to look up (he didn't sound worried so I wasn't alarmed).

Surprise! We're a big herd of cows! 

The cows were probably 20 feet from me, and I hadn't even noticed. Chris started to laugh at me. "You must be the only person who could get snuck up on by 40 cows! What are we going to do if there's a bear?! Maybe I ought to walk in front..."

The day continued. It was a very nice day. There was still no water but we were doing fine, so we weren't too worried about it. Then it happened. The first of many trail poops. 

I don't want to spend too much time talking about poop, though I'm sure I inevitably will since it made up about 10% of our conversation throughout the trip. Trail poop is like soft-serve chunky peanut butter and there is a ridiculous amount of it. It is fucking monstrous. There is no way that the volume of eaten food is represented. It's somehow like somebody snuck a whole other meal into your colon, that you were never responsible for. 

Later in the afternoon we started to get views of Baum Lake below us and started to head downhill toward it. As we got closer we kept hearing this funny "whoooosh-ratatatatat" noise. It turned out it was this broken pipe that was geysering up into the air. Shortly after we crossed Hat creek just above Baum Lake and got our first water. As we were pulling our water filter and reservoirs out it started to rain. There were also a TON of mosquitoes.

We passed the Crystal Lake Fish Hatchery and proceeded around Baum Lake. The rain got harder. We finally made camp and tried to stay as dry as possible while making dinner. The next morning was the same, we were a bit stiff but still really happy about how not sore our muscles were. All our gear was working well except our toes, toes are stupid. Stupid and covered in blisters (this didn't change for about two weeks, mostly due to the fact that our feet never got to dry until about 7-8 days later).

Chris at Wild Bird Cache

We had about 10-11 miles to go before Burney Falls, and about half way there we found the Wild Bird Cache. It was like paradise. There's was huge picnic table with sun-umbrellas, zero-g camp chairs, a cooler full of water, soda and candy, a HUGE cabinet of food (including nutter butter cookies YUUUUM) and a solar shower. We felt silly since it had only been two days, but we decided that extra variety in our food was a good thing, even if it was the beginning of the trip. Chef Boyardee is somehow amazing.

We joked that we could just live at Wild Bird Cache. We could just hand our GPS tracker on to some thru-hiker and ask them to check in every couple of days and just stay comfy and very well fed all summer long. Sure, we'd have to stage a few raccoon ransacks of the food supplies, but that was do-able. In the end though, we decided we weren't interested in eating canned food all summer, even if it did mean all the nutter butter cookies I could eat.

The next half of the trail was pretty similar, except for a part that got pretty funky because of hillbilly Jeep crop circles. All the criss-crossing tracks made finding the trail after being on a road a bit tricky, but after about 5 minutes of looking we found it. Just a few miles later and we were crossing the highway into McArthur Burney Falls State Park. We walked from the headwaters down to the Falls itself, which were gorgeous. Then we set about taking care of our re-supply chores (laundry, food and showers). 

There wasn't a washer and dryer available for use so we washed our clothes in a laundry tub. We took turns washing clothes and showering, since somebody had to stay with our packs and charging electronics, which were at a picnic shelter. After I got back and Chris left to take his turn I hung up my clothes on benches and parts of the picnic shelter. This older couple kept on giving me dirty looks but I didn't think much of it. Finally one of the park docents came outside and the older couple trotted over to her and loudly whispered to her that there were "homeless people doing their laundry in the park!"

Burney Falls

The docent was very nice and explained to them that we were through hikers and that the park is a way point. The couple then proceeded to ask her all sorts of questions about the trail, why anybody would do that, etc. all within 10 feet of me, but pretending like I was invisible.

Our clothes were taking a while to dry (it was a humid day and Chris and I hadn't really figured out the necessity of wringing things out a lot yet). A very nice park ranger asked us if we were okay and let us know what to do if we ended up needing to spend the night. 

By this time it was about 4pm, a strange man who had driven around the picnic shelter twice got out of his car, walked up to us and started asking us about what kinds of animals we'd seen. There was nothing he did that was inappropriate, but he skeeved both of us out, so we hurriedly grabbed our clothes and started back down the trail. 

All in all it was an excellent start to our trip. We'd covered 44 miles in a little more than 2 1/2 days, and there was plenty of day light left... or so it seemed.