PCT-9

Wednesday July 25 - PCT mile 1207

We left the comfort of Sierra City yesterday. The PCT had a long climb from Sierra City going North: 4000 ft in 7 miles. And it was a very very hot day, in the 90iesF. Half of the climb had no shade. Our backpacks were resupplied with 8 days of food to cover 135 miles, the maximum we've ever undertaken in a straight shot.  It was heavy, it was hot, it was grueling!

Water becomes a precious commodity again on this stretch of trail.

Many lakes in this area

Maybe because of the heat, Muriel got intestinal problems during the night.

Lucky us we are at a National Forest campground, with water, table, seats and pit toilets! Luxury! 😂 Pack Saddle campground, just 12 miles from Sierra City.

So she is resting this morning and Joao has plenty of time to write. He is taking advantage of this short hiking break to write a few things he's been wanting to share.

American hospitality.

I (Joao) just finished to read the book about the Gulag prisoners that managed to escape and survive their journey from Siberia to India (The Long Walk). The hospitality they receive in Tibet is amazing. At each encounter a sheep was killed and offered to them.

Well, no sheep was killed for us so far on the trail, but we have experienced some great hospitality too. Here's the last one:

A family reunion was happening at the cabins where we were staying in Sierra City and we were sitting on the deck overlooking a gorgeous canyon to eat our meager dinner made of leftovers from lunch and hiker box crumbs since the grocery store had closed at 5pm! That's when Mike, the patriarch of the family, started talking with us.

We told our story about hiking the PCT, the closed store, then, next thing we knew we had a glass of wine and beer in our hands! And dinner… and breakfast next morning!! And a ride back to the PCT trailhead! We ended up talking to a few family members and one of them has been living in Ireland for 25 years. He told me how he wasn't used anymore to the American way of easily engaging a conversation, friendliness and hospitality. We agreed Europeans in general aren't nearly as engaging and friendly.

Friday, July 27 - PCT mile 1241

Muriel pulled herself out of the tent midmorning after her sick night and managed to hike 12 miles that day! Tough cookie! Then yesterday we hiked 22 miles! And today again 20 miles.

The past couple of days have been more monotonous though. We're mostly hiking through deep forests of pines and firs. That's why we don't mind hiking more miles.

Rattlesnakes are still around and Joao barely avoided stepping on one. The crawling beast was cocky, it took its time to move away!

We were told this stretch of land in northern California was flat and easy…absolutely not! We still have days of 5000 ft cumulative elevation changes 😬

The mountain slopes are covered with deep forests and plunging steep down into raging creeks.

We enjoyed a refreshing bath and cleanup in the West fork of Feather Creek.

California is suffering a heat wave; the days are very hot, in the 90iesF making it tough to hike. 😰

Meanwhile this is Jeremy’s first time hiking ahead with other hikers for an entire section between resupplies, and his turn to leave us little notes along the trail to let us know his progress. He is hiking a day ahead with Josh a.k.a Sherpa and Justine a.k.a Seven, the young couple on Honeymoon. They left Sierra City a day ahead of us and planned to make a resupply stop midway in Quincy while we elected to haul enough food to make the 8 days straight to Chester.

August 1st - Seattle (???!!!)

Long story short: on Saturday July 28 we woke up with an intensely smoky sky wondering what was going on. With no network coverage we had no info regarding the wildfire situation since Sierra City.

We hiked all the way to PCT mile 1268 where we found a message telling us that Jeremy and the hikers he was with (Sherpa and Seven, the Honeymooners) had to leave the trail and return to Quincy (12 miles hitchhike) because of all the smoke and ashes in the air making them sick.

So we also hitchhiked to Quincy (another Trail Angel encounter with a couple that went out of their way to help us) to get together. There, thanks to internet connection, we found out that there were actually many fires around and on our path northward (the Redding/Carr fire being the worst and closest) and very unhealthy smoke conditions all the way to Bend, Oregon!! Jeremy had suffered asthma. So we made the decision to get out of the PCT. It was such a sudden decision, but it made sense. Jeremy, Josh and Justine had ashes on their tent that morning and as we finalized our decision indoors at a cafe in Quincy we started to feel all the smoke we had already inhaled. We also looked at the smoke report and the area covered was indeed huge with no timing end in sight.to clear the fires. We were not going to hike in these conditions for several days of even weeks.

So the 5 of us decided to hitchhike to Chico, CA, a 1h30 ride and from there go north to restart the PCT where there was no smoke.

After a good night sleep in a Chico hotel (smoke filling the air there too though and burning hot weather in the 100F) we found out that the big fire nearby in Redding had made a lot of people evacuate and all the rental cars were gone! So we had to go all the way south to Sacramento with Uber to find a rental car to drive North! During 5 hours we drove in thick smoke, we knew we had made the right decision!

Sherpa and 7 (Josh and Justine) were only going to Salem, Oregon to stay with their aunt and re-strategize how to best resume  the PCT. We had decided to flip-flop and restart from the Canadian border Southbound. So we were going to proceed north to Seattle first.

On the way we also stayed for the night in Josh’s aunt beautiful Salem house. American hospitality again at its best!  She had cooked and stocked the house with food to feed an army of hikers! An adorable woman who spared no effort to spoil us.

Jeremy, Josh and Justine

An exceptional picture of us together with our teen in a very good mood 😋

Meanwhile we had contacted our friends April and Stephen in Bellevue, WA near Seattle and they were not only available to host us and help us get back to the trail but were also interested in hiking a section with us!

We took time off in Seattle with them to organize this significant flip-flop while having much fun together.