Today was another scenic day in the Trinity Alps. It got more and more like the Sierras the further we went, even right down to the trail construction techniques — there were stairs made of cobblestones, a very laborious construction technique. From the Russian Wilderness onward, we had huge granite bathiliths jutting out of the ground.
Etna is a small town, and the road we hitched from was not busy, so it took almost an hour for a car to stop.
By the time we got a hitch, there were 5 hikers waiting. But, our ride was Phoenix, a trail angel, who let us all ride in the back of her seatless van, so we were all able to pile in.
The ride was long, and this crowd of hikers had many stories. Tuxedo the Clown (who got his name because he is, in fact, a professional clown) told us about the time a hitch took him to a ranch and made him install a cupola. The ranch owner apparently also sang a few bars of a country opera he was working on, about a cowboy and Jesus. The refrain was “It’s easy to be a cowboy / You just have to dress there part.”
Once in Etna, we were dropped off at Dotty’s Cafe, to get a quick dinner before it closed. It had run out of ice cream before we got there, and ran out of beer while we were there.
After dinner, and a quick resupply at Dollar General, we started walking towards the hostel. It was a ways out, of town though. And it was still hot, and I had ice cream melting in my shopping bag. And we walled past the Motel Etna.
We checked the rates, and found that an air-conditioned room here was not much more than the hostel was charging to pitch a tent in their yard and share one shower among a dozen hikers.
So we got beds, showers, laundry, refrigerated ice cream — everything.