July 9th, 2020 by Jon
Well, I’m back writing this thing after becoming one with the bathroom for the last two days. GI bugs are no joke! After feeling like death for the last two days, I finally feel better this morning and am ready to hike. We got up around 7:00, packed our things, took one last shower, and then headed over to the Allreds so we could take them up on their offer of breakfast before they drove us back up to the trailhead. Christina made an amazing mix of French toast, bacon, eggs, blueberries, fresh melon, and coffee! They have been the absolute kindest people to get to know during a very difficult time on the trail for me.
Once we were totally full of food, we jumped in the car, and we were back up at the trailhead about 30 minutes later. We thanked them for everything, took a few photos with the PCT sign, and resumed hiking. It felt good to finally be back on the trail, although I’ll admit going uphill was very difficult for me. I was already starting from a pretty steep calorie deficit from being sick, and that’s going to work against me this entire section. Usually, I use town to catch up on calories, but I’ve only just started eating again. My legs just felt like they didn’t have their usual umph to get up the hills like I usually do. In other regards, though, all my joints loved the two days of rest and felt great! Singsong and Biscuit were both super ready to go, though, after all their time off.
We had about 5 miles of climbing to start us off. It began with a climb up an old blocked off forest road and after 2.5 miles it turned into a trail. The trail switchbacked up a ridge and when we got to the top, we arrived at a trail junction for Spanish Peak, a popular hiking trail in the area. We continued straight to stay on the PCT, and for the next many miles we had gentle ups and downs; it was in this section that the devastation of the Dixie Fire became apparent. For those who aren’t aware, last year the Dixie Fire became one of the largest fires in California history, burning just shy of a million acres of beautiful Northern California forest. Unfortunately, it also burned right on the PCT, and so we have somewhere around 100 miles of burn to walk through.
The fire burned more completely in some areas, while leaving others largely untouched. Soot covered the trail and I had to give Singsong a lot more room than I normally do so I wouldn’t get dust in my mouth from her footsteps. Burned trees had fallen all over the place, although the forest service has done a fantastic job clearing the trail, so we don’t have to climb over unsafe burnt logs. All the bushes were gone, and as we looked off the ledge back down towards Quincy, we could see huge grey and red scars covering the hillsides, interspersed with miraculously green patches. It’s a sad sight, but also part of our journey this year. One thing about the PCT that’s interesting is that, from year to year, hikers can have vastly different experiences. Weather, fires, closures, and COVID all make each year unique.
We meandered through the forest for a while before coming to a small creek in the crook between two hills. Biscuit was there, and she was about to leave, but since we got there, she decided to snack a bit more before she left. When she did, we said we would meet in Belden, which was only another 10 miles away. Singsong and finished our lunch. It took a bit of force-feeding to make myself eat, but I don’t think my body quite understands that it needs to get back in hiker mode yet.
After filtering water, we packed up and began hiking again. We paralleled the stream we had just crossed for a while before hiking over one or two more ridges and coming out of the trees to a totally exposed ridge line. The hillside was mostly rocks and burnt bushes, but even before the fire, there couldn’t have been much here. We walked around the mountain, taking in views of the valley below. We could see the Feather River below and the highway that ran alongside it. Belden was down below in that valley, though farther upstream than we could see now.
We hiked on top for a while, working our way past large mounds of boulders. Still admiring the beauty of the land, burn scars and all. It was a crystal-clear day, and we could see a peak directly north of us, some ways off, that still had a bit of snow on it. We wondered if it was Mt. Lassen but couldn’t be sure. Soon, we began to descend as we crossed what we realized was a very flat saddle and began our long climb down into the canyon. The switchbacks started here, and they didn’t stop for 7 miles until we got all the way down to the bottom.
Back and forth we went, we had about 2 miles of exposed trail on the side of a mountain. We stopped at a trail junction where we could have gone down to a spring, but we still had just enough water, so we decided to take a break instead, forced a bar into our mouths, enjoyed the views, and rested from wearing our packs. When we began walking again, we turned a corner at the end of the switchback, and suddenly we were in trees again. Mostly burnt ones, that is, but mostly just scorched. There was actually a fair amount of shade, which was nice because the afternoon was definitely getting warm. The next 5 miles became a mindless blur through the trees. At times, we had a brief glimpse through the tree trunks and could see the road grow tantalizingly closer, yet still so far away.
When it seemed like our muscles couldn’t bear even one more switchback going downhill, we came out to some train tracks. We crossed them and then joined a road that would signal the end of our descent. Fabulous! Now, just a half mile into “town” where we hoped for a cold drink, and then find Biscuit.
Sadly, we were unsuccessful on both counts. Biscuit was nowhere to be seen, and “town” was really just this RV resort with a general store. And they were closed. They have had staffing problems all summer long and have had to close suddenly sometimes. Oh well. We walked past the spigot and filled our water without needing to filter, which is always nice while on trail, before crossing a small one-lane bridge over the Feather River. It was very picturesque in this canyon, and once on the other side, we crossed the very much-not-busy highway. On the other side, we walked past the parking lot, which doubled as a rest stop and trailhead for the PCT. Right next to the road was an old stamp mill, which we checked out for a bit before messaging Biscuit on our Garmin to see where she was. We didn’t get a response, and we knew she was feeling good when we saw her earlier. Feeling confident that we would have seen her or that she would have found us, we decided to hike up a bit to see if we could find her.
One thing you have to realize about the climb out of Belden is that it is LONG. I’m pretty sure it’s the longest climb, or at least tied with the longest climb so far on trail. It’s 13-14 miles and goes from 2,200 feet to 7,100 feet. And thanks to the fire, it’s largely exposed as well. Yay! We had already planned to hike it tomorrow morning, but got our start on it this evening. The sun had already gone behind the hills, and there was a nice breeze coming through that made it not too bad by the time we started climbing around 6:00. We climbed for a mile and came to a creek that used to have a wooden bridge over it. It had burned in the fire, though we scrambled down some rocks, checked for campsites along the creek in case Biscuit was there, and then, when we didn’t see anyone, we kept going. We took a dinner break around 7:00 and decided to camp about a half mile farther, near a creek just down a flat side trail, before calling it a night there. Dinner felt good, and by then I was actually feeling pretty close to normal again.
We hiked a bit further and got to an amazing creek with a perfect little swimming hole and everything. We got a message from Biscuit then that she had been trying to message us but didn’t have service but she was about 3.5 miles ahead at a different campsite because she caught up with Raccoon! We wish we could have seen him too. We might catch them tomorrow; we might not. We will have to see. We set up our tent and washed our feet off in the creek and lay on flat rocks that were still warm from the day’s sunlight. We listened to the water for a while and talked about our day before finally heading to bed by 9:00.
