Melody:
Sitting here in the tent, bundled up in down and sil/nylon, the last few days seem a
blur of goodness. A great trip spent with my family back east and three more days
with Sati’s family in the Bay Area are still bringing up memories that make me
giggle out loud. And we’re both still glowing from our send-off at Mardi’s cozy, new
home. Good peeps saw us off and some guy with Goolie’s laugh crashed the party and
no one batted an eye.

Maya, a long-time friend of Sati’s family, brought us up here to Chester last night.
We all shared the last open motel room in town. More specifically, we all shared the
last empty bed in town. Maya is a gem and slept like a rock.

This morning, after much of a year of planning and preparation, we hit the trail.
And this trail is beautiful! Giant trees, strange mushrooms and perfect gladed
slopes abound. I think I’m going to like this trip.

melody

[Photo editor’s note: Unfortunately the first several days of images from their journey did not fair as well as they have, being corrupted on the way. However, this is the first image taken.]

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Melody:

We’re sitting by a creek in a meadow bespeckled with leafy green luscious plants and
small boulder domes. Our day three camp is nestled in a small stand of firs just
beyond the clearing. Getting here has been such an adventure and it’s only the
beginning of our journey.

Yesterday, brought us more over-snow travel than I’d anticipated. While exhausting
my legs and soaking my feet, the snow seemed fitting. We have obviously walked deep
into bear country and their claw prints crossed our path many times. Thankfully, we
had our instep crampons because they were invaluable for most of the day.

Some of the forests we walked through had been battered by storms. Trees two, three,
four feet in diameter had been snapped in two or thrown down steep slopes against
volcanic boulders.

Walking through the skeletons of a forest like that, I was startled by a little bird
that bolted from inside a tiny concave rock by my feet. Sati noticed its nest in
that wee spot. At first the nest appeared to be full of pink eggs, but then the eggs
began to wriggle. A squirmy pile of newly hatched babies made me realize how few
people really come through here.
Last night as we set up camp in our own private mountain saddle, a hiker came by
heading north. This English guy left Campo (on the Mexican border) on May 4th, went
straight through the snowbound High Sierra and all the way up here by himself in a
month and a half. We were the first hikers he’d seen since Kennedy Meadows where
we’re finishing in August.

He was feeling chatty so he camped with us. For dinner, he ate 2 pop tarts at once,
two ramens with 4 ounces of cheese, an energy bar and a taco we gave him.
Impressive.

Today, we covered lots of snowy miles. I’m feeling pretty tired, but good in
general. This meadow is great for keeping the spirits high. Sati and I are hiking
and camping well together and I feel so lucky to be here.

Melody

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Melody:
Today we spent hours climbing up over an unnamed snowy summit. We passed through
logged sections and Sati showed me the differences between clear cuts, shelter wood
cuts and seed tree cuts. One part of the forest had burned and had been salvaged,
leaving an eery, fungus-laden, decimated landscape near the pass.

In areas with complete snow coverage, route finding comes into play. In most of our
winter travel, we don’t try to stay right on a trail. I find comfort in that
experience because it’s easy to see where people could go wrong up here. The forests
have been mangled by the harsh winter and we find ourselves climbing over, under or
around fallen trees much of the time. For some reason, the picture in my mind of the
PCT was a neat and tidy path. I guess it’s because the times we have crossed it in
the past was on ridge lines and it looked to be well-manicured.

We busted our way under looming cornices over the top and down toward the Feather
River Valley. The melting snow trickled into drainages and gushed into a meadow
where we found a sign at the entrance of the Sierra Nevada! We have arrived at the
beginning.

melody

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Melody:
Now that I had lunch, swam and had a beer in Belden, I don’t have any complaints. If
anyone had asked before we got here, my story might be different. Bushwhacking
through literally miles of nearly imperceptible trail on a steep rocky slope in the
sun made me a wee cranky. Now, the world is good again.
Tomorrow, we pick up our resupply packages and head up 4000 vertical feet. For
anyone on the wombat trip last year … we’re basically hiking from the river to
camp!

melody

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Sati:
Last night we drove up to chester, CA with a family friend named Maya.She made a
fabulous traveling companion and we laughed a joked are way along the 4 hour
drive.In Chester, being a small town, we expected to have no trouble getting motel
room for the night. No one told us it was high school graduation weekend though.
Apparently we were luck to get what was described as “the last room in town.”
Fortunately Maya was a good sport since we all ended up sharing 1 queen sized bed.

In the morning I woke excited and nervous to start our first day on the trail. The
weather as a mix of ominous looking clouds and the occasional sun break. I was rather
cold. We ate breakfast at a place that I think was named The Stove Pipe. The food
was surprisingly good.

After Breakfast it was time to go. Maya drove s up to the trailhead, we said our
goodbyes, snapped some pics and Mel and I took our first steps on the PCT. We hiked
through tall mix conifer national forest occasionally passing through a piece of
private land. Sometimes a very small piece of private land.

Before long we crossed a beautiful grassy creek and started to climb. As we went up
towards the forming Sierra Crest, it rained in between breaks in the clouds the let
in the sun. It was distinctly wintery and a the same time quite summery. Weird.

At round 6500ft we hit or first snow. Nothing to crazy, but after months of
predicting and estimating snow levels here t finally was! On we went across what
had to have been massive winter avy paths that had bowled over HUGE trees. finally
the trail leveled off as we gained a broad ridge here at about 7000ft the snow was
getting more abundant but was still patchy.

We settled on place to camp among well spaced trees and set camp for the first time.
The weather was now down right cold. The sky was pissing ice from time to time and
Mel and I huddled in our sleeping bags for warmth. finally, around, 10pm we crawled
out to the tent to find it a bit warmer, Te freezing rain had stopped so we decided
to make a hot dinner. It was scrumptious! A few sips of tequila, brush the teeth and
here I and in the tent again about to get back in my bag and call it a night

Sati

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Sati:
Today started off slowly after a sleepless first night. It was very cold and melody
and I had to put on all of our clothes to stay warm. But we made it through and were
still basically happy in the morning.

After a quick oatmeal and tea breakfast

857e4e4320]we broke camp and set off for another day.
at first the going was easy but then came our first major snow patches. With a
little slip sliding we made it across those and contoured on to south facing snow
free slopes.

The weather was slowly clearing for the past days storm. We managed to catch some
warm sun-rays was we walked on slowly gaining elevation. It turns out that you always
gain elevation slowly on the PCT. When the route for the trail was set on grades
over 15 degrees were allowed. So, because of this we switchbacked up and up. As we
went the snow became more an more abundant until right around Butt Mtn. (yes, BUTT
MTN.) we reached full snow coverage.

Up there you wouldn’t know that it wasn’t winter. It was fully skiable snow! We
postholed and postholed and postholed are way through. It was slow and hard but
finally we descended below the snow line.

We had nice lunch at a seasonal stream who water were snow not 10 minutes before.
After lunch we walked on over beautiful ridgetop terrain. By now the weather had
cleared and Mt. Lassen stood majestic in the distance.

After a long day we finally reached a low saddle and made camp. An hour after we
settled in a through hiker walked by and stopped to say hello. He was moving north
on the trail and an incredible speed. He was after a calendar year triple crown (the
PCT, AT and CDT all in one year) so he had to move fast. We chatted and ate dinner
and then all drifted off to sleep. In the morning we’ll hike south and he’ll hike
north another day.

Sati

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Sati:
The day started out well. I’m basically sleeping through the night now. The only time
I woke up lat night was at about 6am when our unnamed triple crown suitor was
packing his camp and getting ready to go. Melody and I rose at the civilized hour of
8am under beautiful sunny skies. We ate a quick breakfast, packed up and set off on
our longest hike this leg.

We really pounded down the trail in the morning. The sun was out, there was little
snow on the ground and we we happy to be hiking with each other. We stopped for a
glorious 11’es on the side of a cliff with breathtaking views of Mt. Lassen.

Finally after practically run through the first half of our hike we started to
climb. 1500 vert. ft. later we we back in snow with nearly full coverage. fortunately
our friend from last night had left footprints in the snow so routefinding wasn’t so
bad.

Hiking in the snow is WORK! The second half of the hike seemed to go on for hours as
we postholed our way down a never ending ridge. Just minutes from reaching an
elevation we knew would be snow free we both collapsed and had to sit and make lunch.

Food recharged us so we pushed on. After a short while we can to a picturesque small
stream. We tanked up on water. Our campsite was only 0.5 miles a head but there was
no guarantee of was there.

We made that last half mile and found the most beautiful boulder filled meadow ever!
Exhausted we found a place to plop down and watched the remains for the day drift bay
on the green and grey fields.

It was spectacular and YES we are there!

Sati

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Sati:
There’s something special about sleeping not 100ft from a 500ft tall cascade. More
on that in a minute…

This morning we woke up to the solstice sun warming our little tarp tent (a great
little guy a 2 lbs. by the way). The meadow we had camped a was gorgeous in the
morning sun. What loomed ahead of us was snow and word on the trail was lots of it
so we ate breakfast and broke camp quick wanting to hike the snowy sections in the
morning while it was still firm.

Much to our joyous surprise the was not that much snow on the first section of our
hike. There was a large area that had been shelterwood logged however. Seeing that
kind of desolation in an area that is so pristine was pretty shocking. Even though I
know shelter wood logging is a ok way to go and I’m not really against all logging,
we all use wood, it was a little sad to see its aftermath.

Soon the north slope of the peak who’s snow we had been dreading came into view. It
had a cornice across much of the ridge! Unbelievable, it’s late june and we were
about to do a winter climb.So, up we went, there were places on the slope that had
over 8ft of snow. Finally we gained the ridge between a gap in the cornice. We had
hoped the south facing slopes on the other side would be snow free but… Let’s just
say we navigated down the next 700 vert ft. by GPS.

Back on solid ground we enter a breathtaking meadow full of water and green grass
and waterfalls. We made our way down it and came to a sign that read “Welcome to
Sierra Nevada!” We were now officially in the sierra and we danced with glee.

The route from here took us down the Chips Creek drainage which is full of raging
water. We made many ankle to knee deep fords and avoid a couple even deeper ones b
crossing on downed trees. The result, wet shoes and cool feet which was great for a
while.

We were getting tired and started to look for a creekside campsite. The problem was
that the canyon walls are very steep which greatly limits camping possibilities. We
knew there was a cabin down canyon a mile or two that is owned by a couple that let
PCT hikers stay there.

As we were about to settle on the cabin option it came in to view. This unbelievable
cascade of water that started at the canyon rim and stair stepped down at least 500ft to
the creek. Right in front of it is the campsite i’m at now.

Fantastic.

Sati

PS: It’s not all fun and beautiful views out here. We both have blisters on or feet
and are sore at the end of the day. But, it is a tiny price for tis adventure.

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Sati:

Here in Belden Town:
It’s hard to get to the post office before it closes at 1pm.

They don’t sell ANYTHING except lunch, ham salad, soda, and white bread.

Hamburgers with bacon are served on white bread.

The bartender/waitress/inn keeper/cashier/self proclaimed bitch is actually very
nice and ate lunch with us.

You can’t by a bottle of booze within a 30mi radius.

That same bartender etc. hooks us up with a bottle of mescal from her personal stash.

The river is cold.

The hitch east is hard but west is easy.

There’s a totem pole about to be erected.

Melody and sati are just fine.

Sati

Melody:

Yesterday’s hike was burly. Over 4000 vertical feet on switchback after switchback.
The words of Squeaky, the Englishman we’d met kept coming through my mind as I
huffed and puffed. He said that he thought the PCT was easy.

We climbed through a train that refused to budge, up through poison oak, over four
miles of switchbacks and popped out on a beautiful ridge. Fire had burned all the
manzanita several years ago, but it has come back quite well. The bony antlers of
the dead plants poke up through the new growth as far as I could see.

Today, we saw two bears! They were munching manzanita berries on the trail about 30
feet ahead. I stopped short and all I could say was, “There are bears … There are
bears!” They looked at us and it was all bear butt from then on. I blew my whistle
and we sang songs for the rest of the trail.

melody

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Melody:

When we decided to hike further than we’d planned so we could bank a day to use as
an extra rest day, we planned on a 13.75 mile day. Our furthest distance so far, it
seemed tough, but doable. This would also bring us to our first rest day, a dreamy
day of sleeping in, swimming in the wild and scenic middle fork of the Feather
River, bathing, cleaning our clothes, fishing, eating a lot and resting our sore
bones.

We had hitched the three miles down to Buck’s Lake hoping to buy a warm hat because
I had left mine on the rocks one morning when Sati washed my hair. Finding a cold
beer and no warm hat, we plopped down at a campsite for the night and planned for
our long hike the next day.

Buck’s Lake is not a place that gets much traffic so we dreaded hiking an extra
three miles uphill to the summit just to get to the trail head. All morning while we
were getting ready, I had only seen two pickups headed our direction. So, we started
walking.

An eagle and a great blue heron were having an aerial tiff above a huge nest on top
of a tree by the road. Sati and I were spectating, heads bent up, when a car came
by. We had ourselves a ride.

The first six miles of the trail went quickly and we snacked on top of lookout rock.
Fire foot had already set in for me so I took my shoes off as we rested. Much to my
dismay, a PCT sign there said that it was 10 miles to the middle fork, making the
trip almost three miles longer than we’d planned.

We walked and walked and walked. While I didn’t feel worn out and felt like my legs
could walk forever, my feet were in a lot of pain. After a while, Sati suggested
that I listen to some music to take my mind off of the pain. Thanks to Mishka and
Mark B who unknowingly had me dancing down the trail for a bit.

I have read in so many thru-hikers’ journals about the distances they travel in a
day. This trip has already given me great admiration for people who walk more than
twenty miles a day, often for months on end. Thru-hikers are real athletes with
tough bodies and strong minds.

When we stopped at Bear Creek, my feet were on fire. I dunked them in the icy and
Sati massaged the life back into them. I felt ashamed that my body just couldn’t
keep up with mind. Stumbling into camp after the sun had gone, I found myself
wondering if I was tough enough for this trip.

Today, we awoke lazily on our first rest day. We’d finished our water when we got to
camp to Technu our bodies so we walked a few feet down to the river. What a lovely
place! A dragonfly had just crawled from it’s larval shell and was slowly growing
its body as it stood on its old shell.

We had pancakes with raspberry compote and scrambled eggs to celebrate this rest day
and the one we had earned for ourselves by coming so far yesterday. Our afternoon by
the river has been wonderful. I’m clean and relaxed and I feel lucky again. Sati is
helping me out so much as I hike. He sticks right there with me and having his
reassurance helps me keep my spirit up.

Tomorrow, it’s up and out of this valley. It’ll be intense.

melody

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Melody:

People sightings are almost as rare as big animal sightings for us here. Suddenly,
out of nowhere, a hiker is standing in front of us on the trail, as taken aback as
we are. Each person has their own crazy stories to tell and some of them come out
even in a quick chat as we pass each other by. Squeaky told us of rounding a
switchback and hearing a clattering up a tree next to him only to see a bear cub
climbing and mama bear staring him down. We met a guy called Salt Lick yesterday who
had been, “Beat up by an eagle.” Squawking back at an irritated eagle, he found
himself facedown, knocked flat by the bird who stole his hat. He was wearing a
“Sierra City” baseball cap from the last resupply spot. We passed an old man the
other day whose dog was so surprised to see us that it stopped dead in its tracks
and wouldn’t budge until he coaxed it on. It’s definitely out there where we are.

We ascended from the middle fork Feather River through sun dappled, blooming
mountain dogwood, tiger lilies and maples. A sweet campsite on Onion Creek is one
that we would love to return to with friends. We walked all day long out of that
valley and onto the manzanita ridge above.

melody

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Melody:
Sitting on the balcony at the Old Sierra City Hotel, snippets of the last few days
keep bobbing around in my head. Above the country store across the street the Sierra
Buttes tower and fade toward the sky. We had sen the buttes since early on in our
trip, little rocky pinnacles poking up out of the landscape. We have crossed them now
and after our first 150 miles, we are off toward Lake Tahoe.

On day 11, for the first time in a while, we made it to camp in the early afternoon.
I was so content to laze around by the creek and listen to our audio book, The
DaVinci Code. The albino (isn’t always some crazy albino?) says, “Physical pain is
not important.” As I hike, and I can’t get my mind off the suffering of my feet, I
wonder why it is that I can’t yet find the discipline to ignore the pain. Evil
albino, how do you do it?

Speaking of pain, days 12 and 13 were painful. On day 12, the snowy slopes made for
precarious traverses with long treacherous runouts. We each took falls that reminded
us to ditch our instep crampons and get our full crampons from the bounce box at our
next resupply.

Day 13 brought us to the Sierra Buttes. With beautiful vistas around every corner,
this stretch of the hike was spectacular. All was going well on a sweltering day
until we rounded to the south side of the buttes and were met with miles of
punishing trail over mine tailings and serpentine rocks. Hello, fire foot.

Coming into town, we found a friendly reception in Sierra City. We got to the post
office twenty minutes before it closed so we planned to take our boxes with us
overnight and resend our bounce box and minidisc to Tony in the morning. We wanted a
cold beer, a long shower and a bed for the night.

The hotel across the street had an old saloon that had been serving since the gold
rush. The proprietor and bartender sat on the front porch saw us carrying backpacks,
poles and three boxes and they immediately called out to us. Bob showed us to a
room, to the balcony where I’m sitting now and to a tall, cold beer.

After sharing three delicious meals between the two of us, we bellied up to the bar.
The crowd at the saloon welcomed us with stories of the town, silly gossip and ideas
about other dimensions. Sandy can make a mean bloody mary and Bob can cook a fine
barbecued prawn, tri-tip steak, batter fried chicken, buttered green beans, mashed
taters and french fries. Thru-hikers and anyone passing through would be happy to
find this place.

I’d better eat my granola before the post office opens!

melody

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Sati – 4661:
That’s the number of feet we climbed to get out of the Feather River valley. It was
hot we had been at the Belden “post office” until 1pm dealing with resupply
technical difficulties. After getting all that straight we head for the trail only to
be stop by a, umm, union pacific freight train. After waiting for it to move for
about 20min Mel and I decided we were climbing through. Off we went, swinging off
freight car ladders.

Finally we climbed switchback after switchback. Huffing and
puffing we finally reach the “top.” Slope backed off and we were above treeline.

We had lunch with a fine view of the Feather River Valley. Afterwards we made the
last 3 miles to our camp in at Three Lakes. We arrived beaten and tired. Our spirits
we low. I made a feeble attempt at fishing but quickly gave that up. Finally we
decided to cook dinner and go to bed. Sleep would heal our bodies and minds.

In the morning Mel and I slept past our alarm for the first time. I was still tired.
But we had to go. We have a grand plan to get a day ahead on this leg to avoid
resupply hell in Sierra City (we get in on a Sat. and the post closes at 12:30pm)
and also to pick up another rest day in Tahoe.

So we hiked and hiked. The going was slow because the route was clogged by snow (as
usual). We stopped for lunch on the flank of Spanish Peak where we were originally
going to end our day. Then we pushed on to Buck’s Summit and caught a ride down to
bucks lake so Mel could search (in vein) for a new warm hat. But none of this happened before we saw our first bears. Two of the brown furries eating berries on the trail. Of course, like all good black bears, they ran the moment they saw us.

Now we are at bucks lake a half day ahead. hopefully tomorrow it will be a full day and
we will be at the wild and scenic middle fork Feather River and our first rest day.

Sati

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Sati:
But the road there turned to hell at about mile 14.

Have you ever walked 18 mile and descended nearly 5000 vert. ft. in a day with 25-30
lbs. on you back? It’s not for the faint of heart, I’ll tell you that! Mel and I were
off determined to push ahead another half day (to make a full day when added to
yesterday’s good work). According to or maps we had 6+8 miles. 14 miles, a long but
doable proposition.

There were a couple things though (aren’t there always a couple things). First,
since we had come off to bucks lake the night before we had to either hike the 3
miles back to bucks summit and the PCT or get a hitch at 8am. We weren’t to hopeful
about the hitch and were kinda cursing our decision to come off the night before but
then as we were walking down the road watching and eagle attack a heron’s nest, the
very first car to drive by stopped. We we discombobulated between being wrenched from
the very real drama of the heron/eagle battle and the fact that there was a car on
the road AND that it stopped for us. We pulled it together and hopped in the car
with a very nice guy who dropped us right at the trailhead.

We busted out the first 6 miles without hardly a stop depositing ourselves at
Lookout Rock. This place lives up to it’s name in a big way. We could see the enter
Quincy/Meadow Valley region while standing on the edge of the rock cliff with a
precipitous 500 ft. drop to the steep slopes below. We had our 11zee of dry fruit,
dry salmon and GORP on the edge of the rocks and the dove in to the massive descend
to the Wild and Scenic Middle Fork Feather River. Funny thing, we expected our total
milage to be 14 mi. but a sign at Lookout Rock informed us that there were still 10
mi. let to Middle Fork. OK, so 16 mi.. Down we went and the low we got the ore
beautiful the trail became. The dogwood was in bloom along with a host of many other
forest wildflowers. There were streams and springs cascading water down the canyon
wall all going to the same place we were deep in this bottomless abyss.

Finally after much toil we reached to river just before nightfall. We were tired,
melody was in visible pain and we needed to find a place to camp quickly. Our guide
book side there was a good campsite on the south side of the river so we crossed the
immense footbridge (the largest one on the PCT) and stared at the roaring high
Feather.

On the other side there was no campsite. At least not that we could find after
scrambling around on shattered granite for as long as we could bear. Finally we
decided to go back to the other side of the river where I had spied a campsite on
the way in.

When we got there we set up camp and went to sleep to tired to even make dinner.

18 mi. and now we are a day ahead. whew.

Sati

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Sati:

That’s long distance hiking speak for a rest day when 0 mi. are hiked.

We woke up late this morning, bashing in all the glory of getting to hang out on the
Middle Fork Feather river all day. After a scrumptious breakfast of pancakes and eggs
we set out to find a good basking spot riverside.

We found a nice sandy beach and settled in. I dunked myself in the river’s chilly
water and washed of days of grime. The river is running really high right now but in
late summer there is one glorious swimming hole here that would be a fantastic trip
for any backpacker hardcore enough to tackle the 10 mi. almost 5000 vert. ft. decent
and especially climb back out.

We washed all of our clothes and ourselves which as great because we were starting
to smell scary. Then we laid on the beach and listened to The DaVinci Code. When the
sun dipped below the canyon rim it was time to get out the fishin’ pole.

It was a good fish. We caught 2 rainbow trout one that was quite impressive size.
Melody made up a delicious wasabe garlic marinade and we cooked the up and ate them
with some stuffing and veggies. It was all delicious.

Bellies full we laid down to rest for tomorrow’s climb our of the canyon.

Sati

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Sati:
Refreshed from our rest day we woke and packed camp. Today we had to climb out of
the deep Middle Fork valley (4000+ ft. deep). We were fearing the worst after our
climb out of the the Feather River Valley but our maps reassured us that this climb
would be more gradual and pleasant.

Up we went way from the Feather for the last time following one of the walls of
Onion Creek canyon. We found a spectacular campsite beside the creek where we tanked
up on water.

About 2.5 miles up we discovered a beautiful thing, road access. Late summer the
glory of the middle fork swim holes is only a 2.5 mi backpack trip away. Sweet.

The climb was much more mellow then thtee other Feather River. We meandered are way up
to the sierra crest. We meandered so much in fact that our milages were much greater
then I estimate on our maps. So, 15 miles later we arrived a tiny little camp site
perched on the crest. But before that we managed a nice lunch in a picture perfect
grassy forest clearing complete with deer wandering by.

By the time we reached camp we were tired so we made a quick dinner and tucked in
for the night.

The next morning the crest walking continued. The trail sat lofty n the mountains.
This is my favorite type of trail. There is so much to see and I feel like I’m
floating above the world. There was no shortage of wild flowers on the piece of
Sierra crest either. The landscape was blooming in purples and yellows.

After some time we reentered forest cover and lying there on the trail was am injured
fawn. It couldn’t mover and you could tell it was very scared. We gave it wide berth
as we passed but I was really wishing I had a way to end it’s suffering. It was
either going to lay there on the trail until something came along ant ate it or
until it succumb to its injuries slowly. Very sad.

Back on the crest from there, there was a swarm of bees blocking the trail (exciting
day). Again wide berth as we went around them. Finally we were on our way down to
West Branch Nelson Creek were promise of a fine campsite awaited us.

We some searching around we did indeed find a great campsite. What’s even greater is
we arrived before lunch. What a treat to eat lunch and get to laazz around camp all
afternoon. Wonderful.

Tomorrow we have a big sow climb ahead up over Gibraltar and into Tahoe national
forest. So off to bed for me.

Goodnight.

Sati

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Sati:

Today was one of the hardest days so far. 12 miles most of it snow covered. The snow
is consolidated so walking on it is not to hard. But, the routefinding is incredibly
tedious. GPS navigation is amazing but it is not nearly as fast as just walking the
trail.

The first obstacle of the day is an impressive hunk of rock call Gibraltar. We
passed across at least 3 of it steep north facing gullies. The snow in them was
slippery ad hard. A slip however meant a long and hazardous ride.

Nerves rattled but OK we crested Gibraltar and regained the Sierra Crest. Up there
every north to east aspect had snow. In many places it was full coverage. So, we GPS
navigated our way along. Most of the day the many lakes of The Lakes Basin beckoned
to us 1500 ft. below to the east.

Even with the snow and hard travel conditions it was beautiful. Water poured from
the snowpack under the blazing afternoon sun and formed into cascades that seemed to
be everywhere.

Finally, at 8pm after hiking for 11 hours, we arrived at our camp at summit lake.
Tired we filtered water, had tea and then dinner and fell asleep. Tomorrow we make
it to Sierra City and its resupply fun!

Sati

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Sati:
We hiked hard today to make it to Sierra City post office before it closed at
4:30pm. At least there was almost no snow though.

The Sierra Buttes are incredible. A huge rocky massif that looks more like it
belongs in the High Sierra then here in the north. We hiked in from its north side
and traversed all the way around to its steep brushy south where the sun battered us
and 2 hours of endless feet battering switchbacks ensued. Still we make it we
knocked of 12 miles at it was only 3pm.

A nice local guy gave us a lift into town and we breezed into the post office where
we picked us our packages without incident. We had decide on the trail the day
before that we were going to get a room so we could bath in Sierra City (2 weeks out
had a very “interesting” smell). Now there was a man and women sitting outside a
bar across the street from the post hollering questions about the PCT at us.

After a short conversation we found out that the man was the proprietor of the
aforementioned bar which also had a small hotel upstairs. Within minutes are packs
were in our room and we were sitting at the bar with a beer. We decided
beer-shower-beer so after our first up stairs we went. Oh my god a shower felt good.
The nice proprietor, named Bob, even lent me a shirt to wear for the evening. Sweet!

It happened to be thursday and Thurs. is the day Bob cooks ad serves dinner. Today
the choices were BBQed tri-tip, Buttermilk fried chicken and teriyaki prawns. Melody
and I decided to share one of each. It’s true what they say about the hunger that
develops from long distance hiking. We ate every last bite.
By the time we finished dinner The entire population of Sierra City had showed up at
the bar and we were meeting all of them over drinks. Great fun.

Sierra city is a friendly then most small town that is VERY hiker friendly. Good
grocery store, great bar and restaurant and lots of great friendly people.

Sati

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