Today was a long day. We ended up doing more than 30 miles.
There was a nice ridge walk in the middle, but I don’t remember exactly where. We saw another one of those large, gray, quiet, low-flying planes, but I didn’t get a picture. We saw several rabbits that loped away lazily. We saw a couple deer lying on the trail, that begrudgingly got up and walked away when we got near. All of these things happened, I just can’t remember where or in which order.
There was a long dry stretch, and it was a hot day. It felt a bit like the desert again, but with green plants and humidity this time.
Shasta kept peeking towards the trail, making sure it could keep an eye on us.
The target, and the thingthat drove me on, was Ash Camp Campground, which was drive-in and was developed enough to have an outhouse. This sounded like a place for trail magic –I’ve developed a sense for this kind of thing. If not, there would surely be families barbecuing down by the river on this hot summer night.
The descent to the campground was a bit rough –poison oak had made a return, and it was sometimes hard to wiggle past, especially at the end of a long day. When I finally neared the campground, I could smell the outhouse before I could see anything.
In the end, it turned out there were two trucks here, both for fishing. The locals probably keep away this time of year, probably because of the clouds of mosquitoes.
There were no trash cans, so litter was everywhere. I pitched my tent on some cigarette butts, reasoning that the filters probably give me extra padding. I ate a dinner of trail mix, and went to bed.
Sounds like a tough day. 🙁