Bouquet Canyon Road to Upper Shake Campground – 6-2

The trail today took is up and down, through desert chaparral.

Our destination for lunch was the Anderson’s house, a couple of trail angels. They were known mainly for their parties each night, but we weren’t going to stay, we just wanted to eat lunch and ask around about the next fire closure, the Powerhouse Fire Closure.

Unfortunately most people there seemed to be planning on hitching around it (and quite a ways past it, to the next trail angel house, called Hiker Town). We weren’t able to find recent information about the alternate.

After lunch and a delicious orange soda, we hiked back to the trailhead.

The alternate was an easy road walk down a hill, then through a small town, past a dried-up lake called Lake Elizabeth. It must not always be dry, since we saw signs prohibiting the use of boats with more than 10HP motors, in front of what was now a dust field.

In town, we had a nice dinner at a roadside restaurant called The Rock, which was made out of stone, because the previous building had burned down. I discovered that orange juice could be even better than orange soda. (And, they served Black Butte Porter, which was nice too).

Back on the road, we passed by several of the town’s attractions.

This section of the road had many bugs. We swatted them every few seconds, and quite often hit them. Sometimes 2 or 3 bugs in one swat.

We turned off the road, and started to head uphill, back towards the PCT. At the next water source (a spring coming out of a hillside), we met a very young thru-hiker, a teenager, who was hiking this section with his younger brother. They had grown up nearby. We noticed they never bothered to swat at the flies.

Unfortunately, by the spring, the bugs changed to mosquitoes, so see hurried on as quickly as possible.

Up the hill a bit farther was Upper Shake Campground, our destination for the night. It seemed to have no guests other than PCT hikers, perhaps because of the bugs. We did see a local walking his dog, wearing a head net to block the mosquitoes.

It was really hot in my tent that night, but I managed to sleep.