Our southbound friends were gone this morning when Tabasco and I got up. We headed over to the park store where I did some journaling and made a phone call. We decided to wait for the store to open at 8am and bought some Gatorade and a snack. We left at 8:20 to resume hiking. On the side trail across the river, just upstream from the falls, we met our gang coming toward us. Turns out they hitched to Burney last night for a dinner at McDonalds, then hitched back and night hiked to a camp a mile short of us. They planned to get their resupply boxes at the store and maybe take a shower. Whoop commented that we should stop at 20 miles today and they would catch us.
So Tabasco and I set off northbound and began a cool morning climb. At the bridge over Rock Creek we stopped, 5.2 miles from the park, to load up on water. While there, Swagman (AT2001) appeared coming southbound. I hadn’t seen Swag since Antlers campsite in the 100 mile wilderness on the AT in September 2001. He dropped his pack and we spent the next hour catching up. I told him that the gang was expecting to see him last night or today and should be only an hour or two behind us. We all waited until almost 2pm at the bridge, taking cover in the shade underneath when the sun started cooking us in the heat of midday.
When Bad Moon, Happy, Phantom and Whoop Ass still hadn’t shown up, we all decided we had to resume hiking, so we got a couple photos of Swag and one together, then Tabasco and I resumed our northward journey. We climbed the balance of the day. At first we were in hot, exposed sunshine, then entered forest and remained in forest most of the rest of the day. We met 4 more SOBO’s, including God Man, Love Barge, and two guys whose names escape me. All reported that section O, which takes us to Dunsmuir, has been miles of brush, overgrown trail, poison oak at lower elevations and few views except logging operations. Many of our fellow hikers actually skipped this section intentionally.
Tabasco and I “skipped” the section, too, though only for a few steps and we got a good laugh out of it. We hiked until a little after 7:30pm when we reached a dirt road crossing and there was a note left in the middle, which said a good spring was a few yards down the road. I was completely out of water and we had done enough miles, not to be set back, even though we lost several today waiting, so we filled up, set up, ate and Tabasco went to his tarp to read and I crawled in the tarptent to journal. Soon my eyes were too tired to continue and at 8:45pm I turned off the headlamp to sleep. None of our group showed during the evening, so we speculated they may not have received their resupply boxes at Burney Falls that they mailed from Chester. Or, they waited for Swagman at the store, then partied with him. Or, they may be just a mile or two behind us. We’re left to guess and wonder.
Today’s weather; partly cloudy; low 49, high 87. Today’s mileage: 20.5. Cumulative mileage: 1,031.0.
