Mile 1415, Burney CA and it is HOT!

Soooo...we're halfway there!...Actually, more than halfway!  We hit the halfway point at mile 1331.5-ish, or somewhere around there, a few days ago & spent a day and a half in Chester, CA celebrating with K-Pax, MeHap & NoDay, Wysi & Lodgepole & Simon.  Had no internet access so I wasn't able to update the blog there, so this one'll be a longer one.

As we were approaching/crossing the halfway point, I put a lot of thought into what the heck we're doing & why we're doing it & thought of some things that I have forgotten to share with you folks through the blog. First off, I want to say thank you to those of you who have taken the time to send love our way, via mail, email, phone calls, whatever.  Every ounce of love & support truly means the world to us.  We've realized we're kind of lonely out here, we miss our family & friends & each time we hear from one of you, it makes us SO happy!  Here's a few random bits of info I had previously forgotten to share:

1.)  We had left S. Lake Tahoe the afternoon of July 4th, to avoid all the craziness that was about to happen in that town...we had heard rumor that it gets super busy for the holiday.  So we got dropped off at the spot where we'd been picked up & hiked 16 or so miles up the trail to a place called Echo Lake & climbed up to the top of a rocky ridge, found a spot big enough for our tent & watched the fireworks over Lake Tahoe from afar.  We had packed out Tofurky bratwursts & double stuff Oreos & although some locals also knew about this spot, we had a lovely celebration of our own, away from all the chaos, which was nice.

2.)  We have walked through many wildfire spots & apparently even since we've gone through, there have been at least 2 more wildfires on the PCT!  As we were walking near the north end of Lake Tahoe, we could see a the smoke from a wildfire that had started on the Nevada side, in Carson City.  Luckily, we have avoided any that have affected the PCT this year, so far.  But we have walked through so much burnt landscape & although it is beautiful in it's own way, it makes for very hot, exposed hiking.

3.)  Hummingbirds - we have seen so many out here & even back in the desert, which is something we did not expect.  We have been woken up on at least 2 occasions from a hummingbird hovering just outside our tent, checking us out & I must say, it's one of the most lovely ways to be woken up.  They are so beautiful. neither of us has ever seen so many out in the wild.

4.)  I had brought a wooden walking stick from Michigan & it is still surviving, although it's slowly shrinking...I had found another so I had two for a while but after it started cutting up my hand, I said goodbye by burning it in a campfire.  Unicroc found his walking sticks on the trail & has kept one since about 20 miles in & that's the only one he currently is using.  He's tallying every 100 miles on it, like he did on the PCT, so he now has 14 tally marks on it!  He might run out of room by the time we hit 26...

5.)  MOSQUITOES...I don't know how I'd forgotten to mention mosquitoes!  There was a stretch of trail just after Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite where the mosquitoes were SO bad...it's really impossible to explain without you seeing it firsthand.  For about a week, we didn't take barely any breaks while hiking because it was safer to just keep walking, although when you walk, they still somehow find any available skin (even through clothing) & pounce right on it, so our shoulders were so full of bites.  They follow you, if they can keep up while you're walking!  I literally tried to outrun them at times, but they're too bloodthirsty & they caught right back up!  It's not easy running with a giant backpack on either!  They were so thick that as soon as we'd open the tent to jump in as quickly as possible, 100's had followed us in!  I have to admit, it didn't take me long to become a murderer of mosquitoes!  For one, our tent was our only "safe" place from them & after 100's had followed us in, we had to have our nightly killing spree...When there are that many of them, they literally start to drive you crazy!  No Deet for us, though, no matter how bad they got...just can't justify putting chemicals on our body, no matter the reason...the natural stuff works great as long as you re-apply it often.  We bought head nets in S. Lake Tahoe, but I haven't had to use it since because the mosquitoes have tamed down quite a bit.

6.)  Fording streams/creeks/rivers made for some adventures.  We haven't had to cross any large ones lately, but there was a stretch where daily we'd be making crossings numerous times.  You either have to find rocks or a sturdy log or take off your shoes & carry them.  It always seemed as though the mosquitoes were sitting there waiting for you as you were about to cross so that they could hover over you & drive you crazy as you cross, just to add a little more adventure to the mix.

I'll probably think of more as we're hiking, I always do...there's so much time to think out here.  And to think clearly.

We just crossed through Lassen Volcanic National Park, which was really cool.  Mt. Lassen blew up in the early 1900's & there's so much beautiful volcanic rock & caves all around.  While hiking the Hat Creek Rim yesterday, we had a view of a snow-covered Mt. Lassen to the southwest of us & we saw a snow-covered Mt. Shasta for the first time off to the northwest, which is the next big volcanic mountain we will pass nearby.  There's all this smaller volcanic stuff in between; it's absolutely breathtaking.  In the National Park, the trail took us near the Terminal Gueyser, which is not technically a gueyser, but instead a "steam vent" but it was AMAZING!  To see the Earth in action like that, spewing out steam & literally making the nearby water boil was breathtaking.  We really hope to come back & do some more exploring around this area.

We had our three-month anniversary on the trail a few days ago & spent it with a few other hikers who had started on the Mexican border the same day as us, back on April 22nd.  The night before, Fuller shared a clip from NPR's "This American Life" with us, Frosty & Goldilocks (all 5 of us had started the trail together).  We sat there together, under an almost full-moon & listened to a 20 minute story of a young man who decided to hike across the U.S. from PA to CA.  I highly recommend listening to it, if you can find it.  It was beautiful; it helped remind me of why I'm out here, living this life.

Mt. Shasta will be our next stop, a town in about 90 miles & we are greatly looking forward to it!   I don't have the address on me for our next maildrop spot, I know it's our box #4, in Crater Lake, around mile 1,800 & we will post the address again when we're in the next town.  Otherwise, you can scroll back through my older posts on the blog & I had posted it when I put up the whole list of all our box drops.

Miss y'all, as usual!