Day 67 to 72: Rivers, eagles and mosquitoes.

Day 67

‌10 June 2019

Mi 1501.2 - 1491.8

We got some supplies in Redding, mainly food and some gear like deet, a hat and a water filter for Cecile. It went smoothly except for that gear store who didn’t stock anything and when my card was refused told me it was normal « there is a lot of fraud in backpacking stores ». He then proceeded to offer me the deet for free like it was normal. The whole thing felt a little off, either his store was closing soon and he just didn’t care or some kind of money laundering was involved.

Anyways after getting on an Uber for an hour we got to the trailhead at 4pm and it was time to start hiking!

The campsite we chose was full so we had to hike a little more in the dark and settled on a really rough area to set up our tents in. It wasn’t ideal but it did the job.

Day 68

‌11 June 2019

Mi 1491.8 - 1477.4

After a rough night we got up and started hiking at around 8am. The highlight of today was a river we came across 7 miles in. I only soaked my feet but Cecile went for the full thing.

Our campsite for the night was alright but infested with mosquitoes. We had dinner in our tents as it was really bad. A deer kept us up at various times of the night too. I’m sure he meant no harm but they make a lot of noise!

Day 69

‌12 June 2019

Mi 1477.4 - 1460.5

We quickly left our campsite to escape mosquito hell and enjoyed walking under the shade provided by the forest. The temperatures are kinda insane, always above 30 degrees Celsius and sometimes reaching 35.

We had lunch at a nice river today as well and found a spot without mosquitos, always nice to have. Also I did not expect it but we have been seeing quite a lot of hikers coming in from both directions, I guess everyone is trying to escape the snow.

Day 70

‌13 June 2019

Mi 1460.5 - 1443

We had to walk 5 miles on snow today. It was fairly physical and challenging mentally as we didn’t make much progress. For Cecile’s first time on snow she did great though and we plowed through this stretch quite easily after all.

Day 71

‌14 June 2019

Mi 1443 - 1423

A fairly standard day on trail. We keep seeing a lot of deers which look nice during the day but definitely not at night when they are trying to steal our food.
We got to a nice river by the end of the day, it was a nice reward after a long and hot walk.

We saw a few eagles while having dinner consisting of refried beans. They flew by our campsite effortlessly scouting the area for food.

Day 72

‌15 June 2019

Mi 1423 - 1411

The goal for today was Burney Falls and Burney, a small town home to 3000 people. After five days out in the wild we were really excited and couldn’t wait for a shower, some food that isn’t cereal bars, dehydrated meals or peanut butter.

We got to Burney falls by 10am and chilled around for a while. A lot of tourists were also there, it’s always weird to suddenly come across a lot of people after a long stretch of fairly remote hiking.

We got a hitch to Burney by a local who told us stories about mountain lions and bears visiting his garden, he was really nice and happy to see hikers. We got some laundry done, destroyed some McDonald’s and watched The Office for the remainder of the day.

On another note I’ve been out here for a couple of months already so my body doesn’t really ache anymore but it isn’t the same for Cecile. She has kept up really well though despite multiple blisters and knee pain.