After a nice weekend it was time to start week 2 of 2016 on the PCT Trail.  Lenora dropped me off and I started to hike the first trail I saw at about 8:45 in the morning.  Now  the phrase “first trail I saw” might have you wondering.  I mean really how could there possibly be two trails at this point.  No way….. right???   Yes way.   The trail I took led straight up the mountain and after awhile I said “Don, this does not feel like the PCT trail.  Too steep.  Too narrow.  Poorly maintained”.  So I took out my phone and brought up my PCT application and sure enough it tells me I am NEAR the trail but not on it.  Perhaps the GPS is just off a bit, so I keep on going and give it a chance to catch up to my location.  Again it says I am NEAR the trail.  OK…. so I get out my binoculars and I look back down the mountain and sure enough I can see a trail back down where I started that goes west rather than up.   So I wind back down the mountain and sure enough on the other side of the mill where I started there is another trail.  By the way there are no signs on either trail that it is THE PCT trail but as I walk this trail my application does think I am on the PCT and advancing in a positive direction.   About an hour and a bit of energy has been wasted.  The nice thing about the correct trail is that it is basically level for about 4 miles before I enter the Lassen National Forest and start climbing.

Here are some pictures along the way.

So as I enter the Lassen National Forest I recall a conversation I had with a very young lady hiker last year at Tuolumne Meadows.  She had gotten to the High Sierra at the same time there were some freakish spring snow storms.  So her and others got on a bus and went up to Tahoe and hiked from Tahoe to Ashland Oregon and then bused back to Tahoe to hike south in the High Sierras in the better weather.  She indicated that Lassen National Forest was the hardest section thus far for her for two reasons.  First it was very rocky and second that trees were down every where and they had to keep figuring out how to get past the trees in the trail.  But she smiled and told me that since it was a National Forest she was sure it would be cleared by the time I got there in about 4 weeks.  I did mention she was young and probably thought the government worked fast to fix these things.  I suppose a year later they MAY have removed some of the biggest trees….. I suppose….. but the trail still has a lot of trees down across the path.  Most of them by now do have a path up or down the slope to go around them OR you can crawl over them.  At least I can crawl over them.   Not sure how someone with shorter legs gets along.  The trail is rocky in some sections but not near as rocky as the John Muir Trail which the young lady had not experienced yet.   I will say that this section through the Lassen National Forest is the most poorly maintained thus far.  The trail is at time overgrown with plants.  At one point I thought I needed a machete to try and cut through the bush which actually ripped things off the top of my pack.  I am NOT complaining.  This is why they call it a wilderness trail!!  Just making an observation.   It is still unbelievably beautiful and I am blessed to be able to walk along it.

Most of the day I had been concerned about Lenora.  After dropping me off she had a 3 hour drive to Castella where she was suppose to stay for about 30 days.  I had been promised a cabin would be ready for her but still the long drive and the fact that this was not a chain but a local business had me worried.   I asked her to text me when she was settled and that text never arrived.   By the time I stopped I was worried.  I can not do the story justice and I will let Lenora explain in her section but basically the cabin was NOT ready and would not be ready in the near future and so Lenora had to find a new place to stay.   The fragments of the story I am getting has me thinking that Lenora has no place to stay and has lost her wallet.  Half of that story was true.  The wallet was lost but she did have a place to stay.  A place that had no phone service and no internet service and therefore she could not reach me.  I was talking with my limited texting ability with the local owner and wanted to crawl through the InReach and beat him to death.   Finally Lenora was able to drive another 20 miles from where she was staying and get some service to let me know she was OK, but with a lost wallet.  The local owner claimed the wallet was not left with them but then at the end of the next day did find the wallet and Lenora went back to pick it up.

Phone says 31000 steps and 84 flights

 

Lenora’s Note:
7/11/16 PCT
Dropped Don back at Belden and started 3 hour drive to Castella/Dunsmuir.
Watching him walk away again, wish I’d realized he was not on the right trail :).
Stopped in Chico to buy beads and some watercolor pencils. Enjoying the break. Arrived at Castella around 1:30 (not 12) met Louie Dewey and learned the remodel is not done. Saw the place and it was scary, dirty, junky, yucky. Water heater had leaked flooding bedroom, two different leaks in bathroom, junk and dirty carpets (remember orange shag?) and dirty furniture everywhere and front door wouldn’t unlock and back door couldn’t be locked. Louie had arranged a hotel room for me for one night on the assumption that all the work would be completed by tomorrow. Boys and I went into the hotel room and I got on computer and phone. In about an hour I had found a room in Old Station at Hat Creek Resort from tonight till Monday morning. Loaded computers and cats back into car, turned in key and headed toward Old Station. It’s about 3 pm and a two hour drive with roadwork going on so I don’t tarry. The check in desk is in the camp store and I need to be there by 6 pm.

Arrive about 5:30 and reach into my pocket for my wallet. In pocket are four cards and no wallet. One is credit card so I check in and unload car to discover I have no internet and no phone service. I have sent messages to Don from the road but Inreach is acting up and his message when I get it makes it clear my messages have not reached him. In parking lot I try to use sat phone but we are in the land of tall trees, thick forest and the phone can’t hold a satellite signal so I can’t call. Send several 160 character messages on Delorme (Inreach ) with no idea if they are going through. Get in car and drive about 20 miles before I have two bars on phone and call Cave Springs where they promise to look and call me back. I can’t leave in case I lose my phone signal so I sit until about 8:30 then call again to be told no luck – no wallet found.
Now I try Michaels but have moved car and lost signal so I drive around till 9:15 or so trying to get through to someone, anyone really.
Then return to hotel thoroughly discouraged. Fall asleep with tv on.
By now I know the trick is to roll with the punches and I have come out of this pretty well, except for the lost wallet but rolling and telling others you are coping fine is not so easy when the other person is out of reach and doing his own version of panic. In spite of all I have landed in a beautiful place and can look forward to a good week.