I woke up extra early this morning. My back was hurting. It seemed to hurt when I relaxed on my back — the moment I tensed up to move it would go away. Hopefully this doesn’t keep up — I liked being able to sleep!
The day began with the same flat, boring terrain that characterized Northern California so far. We saw conifers, we saw rocks, we saw flat trail, we hiked over it.
The highlight of the morning was seeing a rattlesnake. It rattled at us, and we walked by. Oddly enough, we’ve now seen more rattlesnakes in Northern California than we saw in the Southern California desert.
After a seemingly endless slog (actually about 14 miles), we got to a parking lot on Highway 3, and were welcomed by a couple of trail angels, John and Steady. Steady had done the PCT in 2003 – ancient history in PCT terms. There are probably 10 times as many people hiking this year than in 2003. They gave us soda, snacks, and candy, and we chatted about the PCT, past, present, and future. Hostess Sno Balls were apparently the snack of choice that year, and they handed then out. I didn’t get the appeal — it was like a tiny cupcake enshrouded in a thick layer of styrofoam — but perhaps food technology had advanced light years since then…
After lunch, we thanked them for their kindness, and headed up out of the parking lot, back into the Northern California doldrums.
Soon, however, we crossed a boundary line that was good news.
The Trinity Alps are known for being a beautiful, lesser-known part of the trail.
They started to pay off quite quickly.
