1 pm: Under tree shade beside the Middle Fork Feather River east of a high steel bridge. River could be forded at present level -- it is nothing like the ferocious Kings River. Slight breeze, many dragonflies, a few houseflies, pleasant on the whole. Washed some clothes in an eddy and discovered more blisters on outside of both heels after washing feet. Some stomach irritation as a result of ice tea so keep the dosage light, just enough to mask the taste of iodine. Real food at Bucks Lodge tomorrow, a break from crackers.
pm: North Rim of Middle Fork Feather River. Reached canyon rim after a longish climb, delayed by a conversation with southbound hiker David Gwinn, a medical internist from South Dakota. He takes off from his practice several months a year to hike or travel parts of the world. He said the west coast [east?] of Ceylon is not safe anymore (I remember riding a rented bicycle around Trincomalee and eating ice cream and following wedding processions thirty years ago). He said Thailand is good for meditation practice but Japan too expensive, and New Zealand good for hiking except for rain and limited 3-month visas. He told me that iodine may not be effective against giardia if the water is cold because the cysts will not open up. Then I shared some of my knowledge of the southern PCT. Later, just as I was reaching the edge of the canyon rim, I startled a fat green Mojave rattlesnake very near the same location where I surprised one thirteen years ago. At that first time I didn't know rattlesnakes could be green. They are actually the most poisonous kind. This sleepy snake did not want to move off the narrow trail until I finally coaxed him to leave by walking forwards and backwards while carefully staying out of striking distance, until he got tired of the disturbance. [This was the last snake of about 22 I saw on my hike].
Day 131, Tue 8.10 am: Slept on my tarp under a tree on a moderate slope beyond the canyon edge in thick forest. Lots of mosquitoes make me wish I had a mosquito net, but is it worth the weight? Sky is overcast. Shake off this gloom and go for breakfast at Buck's Lake.
early afternoon: Resupplied at Bucks Lake after a fair breakfast. Stomach is gurgling again -- wonder if Gwinn's remarks about ineffectiveness of iodine have caused me to manifest symptoms of giardia just by the power of suggestion! Sky is clouding up again. A PCT trail register records that a Mexico-Canada thru hiker named Keith passed me only hours ago when I detoured off the trail to Bucks Lake.
6:30 pm: On a bushy shelf south of Mt. Pleasant about nine miles from Belden. Stopped a little early for several reasons: 1) You guessed it -- feet hurt. 2) Stomach restless 3) Sun came out and the earth here is soft for a good rest and it is cool for an August day at only 6600' 4) Enjoy goodies from Bucks Lake such as a butterfinger bar and last remaining quart of Crystal Light grapefruit drink 5) Jot down some ideas for the future. Wondering about the hypothetical case of a job offer from Argonne or Stanford -- I'd like to try out my TOUR program on clone ordering. Otherwise, after reaching Canada I might like to take a sabbatical to become proficient in Windows programming, someplace sunny and cheap. Does UPS deliver computers to Central America? I'm getting pretty far away from mindfulness of breath. Another subject: ghee. Salsa from Bucks Lake is not rich enough to justify its weight but ghee clarified from butter might be. Maybe I could be a high school science teacher in Albuquerque.
Day 132, Wed 8.11 am: Some animal, probably that scolding chipmunk, chewed a big hole in my sock last night and nibbled my shoelaces. Must remember to zip everything when camping without tent. Lots of dew, had to dry out sleeping bag at rest stop above the switchbacks down to Belden. Breakfast of granola with powdered milk and honey was a winner. Going back to basic satisfying chewable food such as bread, milk, honey, tea, ghee, tortillas. Need a little aluminum pot with a handle to boil enough water for an invigorating mug of black tea. Dreamed about writing computer programs. Would like to invent a machine to photograph a small object such as my human foot and then display the 3D image on a computer using alternating liquid-crystal glasses, then extrude a plastic model to mold a comfortable shoe to my custom fit. Someone ahead of me has really huge footprints [Keith].
3 pm: Belden was a disappointment in several ways. Julie said my passport had not been returned to her from Echo Lake yet although it has been 12 days now since Echo Lake sent it back. All these frustrations with that passport may be warning me to stay in the country. The REI mail drop of mosquito juice, socks and suntan lotion was too late, so I asked REI to send another shipment to Castella. The country grocery store was out of many items including the aluminum pan I wanted, powdered milk and bread. After my unsolicited and probably untimely advice to Mom and Dad to exercise restraint at their banquets on their cruise, because "life is more than the pursuit of sensory enjoyments", I can't complain if I can't make tea, hoisted by my own petard. Belden did not have a pharmacy either, so there is nothing I can do about this recurrence of giardia even though I have one refill prescription. I could have hitched 28 miles over to Quincy like Keith 23, the PCT hiker ahead of me, who lost his driver's license according to local rumor. But it is not worth the trouble to bum two rides just to get groceries. I used to look forward to rest stops in town but now I'd rather stay on the trail.
Day 133, Thu 8.12 noon: Have decided to divert to Chester about 35 miles from here to attend to giardia which is becoming a nuisance. Not feeling good. Cloudy cool day, unsettled stomach, smoky smell of nylon jacket from wood fire last night, wasps buzzing around feet in viewless forest.
5 pm: First view of Lake Almanor. Feeling a little better after a 20 minute rest in sleeping bag at lunch. Viewless forest is so oppressive that I feel relieved on breaking out into open clearings. After the southern deserts and high sierras I was looking forward to rolling forests but I miss seeing the horizon.
pm: North of Humbolt Summit, only about 17 miles today. Good view of a rosy sunset from the top of a volcanic pluton.
Day 134, Fri 8.13 am: Calm clear night. Heard a bear snort nearby but did not feel alarmed. One gets used to these things. Peace was broken by hum of about twenty wasps at daybreak. They fly about one inch over the surface of the ground and pounce on each other and on small dark objects such as a pebble. They ignored my decoys of a pine needle and a bread crumb. They return again and again to the same pebble without remembering.
lunch: Butt Mountain, what a name. Had to retrace steps for a three mile detour because of a misleading sign. The sign had the PCT logo on the left side and the distance to Carter Meadows on the right side. When I blithely followed a left-bearing easy downhill trail to Carter Meadows only to dead end at a logging road, I realized that the sign maker intended the PCT logo to modify the meaning of the right side of the sign, not to point to the left direction. So I had to trudge all the way back. Somewhat peeved I rubbed a big fat X across the logo with a sharp rock. I have been thinking a lot lately about SBH [Sequencing By Hybridization, my work at ANL before starting this hike]. A fundamental problem was whether partial hybridization of 8-mers could be discriminated from complete hybridization, otherwise false positives and negatives could confuse the data. My imaging software revealed a broad fuzzy spectrum of hits among the hybrid test dots at Argonne National Laboratory, not the sharp yes-no pattern desired. A test set of about 96 clones from a 10K cosmid of known sequence was needed to verify my DOTS program and establish the thresholds for calling hits. Project scientists Radoje Drmanac and Radomir Crkvenjakov, and my friend Arnold Oliphant, did not get around to this step at the time I left in 1993. A test set might have proved the validity of clone ordering by TSP [Traveling Salesman Problem] methods, using a distance matrix computed from common probe hits. In my year at Argonne I never got to try out the merits of applying TSP methods to ordering DNA fragments, because the more urgent problem was quantifying the data. At the end, my image analysis work suggested that SBH discrimination using 8-mer oligonucleotides was not sharp enough, a disappointing conclusion, but typical of scientific research. Since then, research has advanced astronomically. I recently heard that Rade and Arnold are heading a company that will sequence an entire human genome for less than $5,000 next year 2009, and ultimately for less than $100. The company, Complete Genomics, plans to sequence 1000 genomes in 2009 and 20,000 in 2010. Fantastic! I sometimes wonder what if I had not dropped out of that team and what I could have contributed by staying.]
2 pm: Made the sun come out by stowing hat in pack. A reason why I remember nothing of this trail hiked 13 years ago is the viewless forest. Given a choice between open desert trails, high sierra trails and forest trails, I would probably choose a computer console at this point. So I'll end this hike in Ashland after all since Oregon and Washington would probably be more of the same and my fire is burning out.
Day 135, Sat 8.14 am: Reached Highway 36 yesterday at 4:50 pm in spite of the three mile detour and got a ride 8 miles into Chester before the drug store closed. 30 metronidazole tablets cost only $9. Julie said the passport finally came back and will forward it by 2-day priority mail to Castella. I've fumed and fussed about the passport quite a bit. Got groceries, including an aluminum pan to boil hot tea over a wood fire in the wilderness. Managed to melt several plastic cord locks at high heat in the laundromat drier. Shaved and breakfasted. Slept in a wooded vacant lot last night on flat ground. It was hard to fall asleep on a full stomach. Julie said a letter from Andrew came to Dallas -- will wonder about it till reaching Castella in 10 days -- it's fun to have something to look forward to. Julie really did not want to rehash the passport issue on the phone so forget it, except to note that it is an identification document, and being homeless, proof of identity is important such as when stopped by the police in a manhunt.
5 pm: At south rim of North Fork Feather River. Mt. Lassen looms large, mostly covered with snow and afternoon clouds. Took a nap in sleeping bag but could not rest because of pesky black carpenter ants. Fresh food tastes good but weight is considerable. Tea brewed at lunch in my new aluminum pot was only tepid -- misjudged size of fire and could not rekindle it. Even with the help of a generous squirt of Ronson lighter fluid, making a wood fire is not simply 1-2-3, so plan to make only one fire a day. Also, even one 8-oz mug of black tea can cause jitters so do not drink it at night. Witnessed an remarkable mass migration of red ants. A 12-inch column of thousands of ants cut across the trail for about thirty feet, then veered off under forest litter. Each ant carried a single white larva. They were all going in the same direction. This reminded me of a morning march I saw once in the Mojave desert. Just as the sun was rising I came across a sight I had never seen before. A column of ants was leaving their nest for the day's foraging. The head of the column was about eight feet from the nest when I arrived, and it proceeded in a straight line towards some Joshua trees across the dirt road. All of the ants were going in the same direction. No other nests in the vicinity were so well organized but then no other nests were as large. This may have been a demonstration of natural selection favoring superior social organization.
Day 136, Sun 8.15 am: Camped last night in Lassen National Park about one mile south of Willow Lake in a high meadow, after making a short detour to Domingo Springs to fill up on pure spring water gushing out of a pipe. A family with a van full of teenage kids was visiting the springs as I walked up. The dad seemed impressed on learning I was a long-distance hiker and he called out this fact to his family who made oohs and aahs. It is so much fun to be the expert, to leap over buildings with a single bound. As they were piling into their van one son shouted at me to try the water because "it was delicious!". His dad kind of laughed at this exuberant outburst over plain water but I knew exactly what he meant and he was right. My afternoon rest and the cold spring water gave me energy to walk until the trail disappeared in deepening darkness. Clouds and silent sheet lightening filled the sky last night threatening rain. The man at Domingo Springs said snow was forecast above 7K feet. Woke this morning to the drone of yellow jackets in humid air.
noon: Rest stop in Lassen Park. Rain drizzled off and on all morning. At the Terminal Geyser a roaring vent of steam rose unendingly from a rocky gully in the side of a hill. The soft mud near the cleft was stained hues of yellow, brown and green and steam hissed from small holes in the walls. The white clouds of steam billowing up from the screeching vent hole blended into a low overcast. Below the vent hot water drained off into small pools. I sat on a stone and dipped my feet in a runoff too hot to immerse fully. After scrubbing grime off legs with a green pot scrubber I discovered calf muscles never known to exist before. The curves of my legs have become sharply defined. At this rest stop decided not to make a fire for tea -- it is too much trouble and illegal here anyway. Will probably discard pot because burnt smell smokes up rest of pack [note: my present opinion is that a metal pot is useful for boiling drinking water and is worth its weight even if no stove is carried]. Instead, Ramen noodles can warm up in the Lexan wide mouth container by a greenhouse effect. I use the red handkerchief to wipe the bowl clean after eating from it. It reminds me of the orioki ritual at the Red Feather Wyoming Tibetan Buddhist retreat years ago. Discarded excess chocolate milk mix -- it tastes OK but requires too much powdered milk which I need for cereal.
Day 137, Mon 8.16 noon: Serious rainfall portended for a week began pouring down yesterday afternoon about 4 pm with thunder and lightning sweeping down from the northwest. I was lucky to find a ranger cabin near Lower Twin Lake which had enough of an eave in the back to shelter me from the worst of the storm. I spread my tarp in the shape of a U, open side to the cabin wall, and folded the corners to make a little boat to keep my down bag dry. Snug enough, I ate three peanut butter sandwiches watching rain slant down among dark trees, then slept shivering until morning. Dawn came cold in fog. A family of deer grazed nearby. I rose and walked seven miles to the north park boundary. My fingers were so numb that I had to print in the PCT log. I read the familiar names of the thru hikers who had preceded me. Keith "Wolf" Kimball had been there only yesterday with a message that he was going to hitchhike back to Belden to "get some $". Scott W. was here one month ago. On 7/16 he reported "A good day 35 miles but kept awake all night by a bear". I'm sorry to think that I may not finish the whole distance with this elite group. I finally saw Lassen peak rising above Silver Lake. It is mantled with new snow. No bird song echoed until the morning fog burned off. It was eerie to walk silently through a forest with mist suspended above placid pools of water. Gurgling stomach shows no respect. However I will postpone second round of metronidazole treatments until the hike is done to avoid the possibility of a third relapse without an available prescription.
pm: North of Cave Campground on wooded knoll on west bank of Hat Creek, named after the hats blown off the pioneer's heads. Received a letter from Scott Williamson at the Old Station post office. He has already reached Washington. Resupplied for a ten day trip to Castella. Had greasy fried chicken and a beer at a bar near Cave Campground since the famous Uncle Runt's restaurant was closed today Monday. A football game played on the TV. Eight inverted ziploc bags drying on the branches of a small pine nearby make it look like a tree from the Land of Oz. It is pleasant to be under clear skies again. Scott said he had done as much as 40 miles in one day.
Day 138, Tue 8.17, New Moon: Walked up highway 89 against heavy traffic most of day. Had a cup of afternoon tea at an RV restaurant and noted a party of overweight tourists spooning ice cream. Found a recent Reader's Digest magazine tossed on the highway and read most of it at a long one-hour break. The land in this region is flat, marshy, teaming with skeeters. I reached the fish hatchery at Cassel at dusk and lost the trail twice in the gathering darkness. Many fishermen were casting flies. Camped above Crystal Lake in a flat grassy park in a grove of oak trees.
Day 139, Wed 8.18 am: Lost trail again. Circled Crystal Lake, will try heading north on a logging road to reconnect with PCT. Shooed some extremely fat Hereford and Angus cows near the lake edge. I notice that my log entries are becoming rather factual and fragmented lately. I hope it is not too boring for you. This may be the boredom I wished for in the excitement of the high sierras. I am interested in how much distance I can cover each day. It's not that I am particularly proud of it but it is something that I can do now, which I could not do before.
3 pm: Missed turnoff to Burney Falls. Rats! The PCT was constructed to bypass these famous falls, one of the largest in California in water volume, so that horses could use the trail too. I would like to have seen the falls but do not want to backtrack a mile. Have about four cereal portions and two loaves of Jewish rye bread, enough for four days for the 82 miles to Castella, but just barely. Oh well, travel light. My butterscotch drops mixed in the gorp rubbermaid melted at this low altitude of 3K feet. Hope the American cheese slices keep. Trail is poorly maintained. In this sparsely populated logging country the residents may not be interested in volunteer trail work on weekends. Feet sort of ache in general. Need a couple of days rest. May layover in Castella for a day to read a book, now that the Reader's Digest whetted my appetite. I soaked up that trivia like a sponge.
6:30 pm: One mile past Rock Creek on a west facing ridge about 4K feet in grass, oaks and manzanita. About 17 miles today. Camped an hour before sunset at an attractive niche beside a lone ponderosa pine for some nude sunbathing to kill bacteria and absorb Vitamin D before the mosquitoes come out at sunset. For the next few days the trail will swing to the north and west around the large basin below.
Day 140, Thu 8.19 am: Slept poorly due to insects and humidity. The tarp was on the ground but the best method is to spread the poncho on the ground and use the stiffer tarp as a pseudo tent for a bug shield. Both the poncho and nylon jacket were clammy. Dreamed about Jose in the early morning -- after a long separation we met again but he had become very fat. Wonder where he is now.
3 pm: Pummeled by a shower of hailstones, some as large as one inch. The trail is slippery with hundreds of white ball bearings. While eating lunch before the storm broke, was overtaken by Keith "Wolf" Kimball who was making up lost time from a detour back to Belden to get some money wired by his mother. So I got to see at long last the size 15 feet which made such large Bigfoot tracks recently. Keith is not as big as his giant feet but does have long lanky legs. He is doing 20-25 miles a day. He was not impressed when I told him about Scott Williamson, the leader of the thru pack, although he was interested in knowing more about him. Keith's personal best is 56 miles in 22 hours. He wants to reach Canada by October 1 because of a six-week job opportunity to coach kids at a camp on the East Coast. This means he will have to boost his average to 30 miles a day every day for the next six weeks. I shared some cheese sandwiches with him even though my supplies are low. After we had each eaten one sandwich I was reluctant to offer a second one because of worries about running out before Castella, but offered him one anyway which he accepted. I'm glad I wasn't stingy because I will always remember a happy meeting but quickly forget a hungry day. His 22-lb pack was about the size of a daypack but he said it contained enough food for ten days. He had no stove, just a blackened stainless steel pot. He did not have a Thermarest or any kind of foam pad except for a goretex bivy sack for the sleeping bag. His water filter consisted of a paper refill cartridge with a straw stuck down in it for sipping. I kept up with him for half an hour, then dropped back to my slower pace.
Day 141, Fri 8.20 am: Finished last of cereal. It only rained about 15 minutes yesterday but it stayed cloudy, damp and cold all night. The sun rose into an overcast sky. Maybe the fall wet season is arriving.
11 am: Lunch before Grizzly Peak. Drying out sleeping bag while mountains of cumulus clouds pile up again. Have an idea for writing my own word processor "J" with most of the features of "M"; only better. I'd like it to anticipate what I want to say. It should remember my most frequently used words. When enough of a word has been entered, it will display its best guess for the rest of the word in provisional gray half tone, but leave the cursor under the next letter. To accept the suggested word I will hit the space bar [but what if I want to enter a space?], otherwise enter the next character which will narrow the choice to the next most probable word. It would be interesting to see what my favorite words are. I could even create Markov chains of pseudo speech using my personal vocabulary. " my,feet,ache" would show up for sure. Mild stomach cramps. Impressive views of Mt. Shasta to the northwest. There is more snow on it than when I climbed it years ago.
3 pm: Past Grizzly Peak. Saw my first tree-eater machine in action on a side logging road. A ripping noise made me curious so I set my pack down and sneaked through the trees for a closer look. It was a huge machine mounted on caterpillar tracks in a small clearing, operated by one man in a central cage which could rotate 360 degrees. A massive arm reached up from the back over the top and down to an 8' claw which gripped trees with adjustable forks. A dozen hydraulic tubes draped down the back looking like an Eiger set from Aliens. The tree-eater was cutting and stacking trees about 1'-2' in diameter and 100' to 200' long, about three per minute. As I watched I kept a tree between me and the operator so that he would not see me. The tracks screeched as the machine advanced to the next tree, diesel motor throbbing. Then the claw would grip the base of the tree and hold it firmly while a chain saw cut the trunk in 3 seconds emitting a high-pitched shriek. If the chain did not cut all the way through, no matter -- the arm would snap the trunk like a broken toothpick. It would pick up the trunk, swing it around and drop it onto a pile of logs with a crunching thud, then turn to the next tree without a moment's pause.
I failed to pick up the PCT south of Grizzly Peak after my side excursion to the top of the mountain for another view of Mt. Shasta. I've taken a logging road which I hope will rejoin the trail at Ash Camp at a bridge over the McCloud river. This is an excellent road but no traffic on it at all. Light sprinkles of rain dampen the dust. If I can reach Ash Camp it will be a 25 mile day, a personal best.
Day 142, Sat 8.21 dawn: Reached Ash Camp at sunset, and to my surprise met Keith who was boiling some water for a supper of mashed potatoes. He boiled some water for my Ramen noodles. He doesn't bother to clean the pot, just wipes the black crusty shell in the dirt. By the time supper was over the night was pitch black but I didn't want to camp near the noise of the river and some auto campers, so I followed Keith with a flashlight for about a mile until the trail widened enough to lay down beside it. We shook hands and he continued on. It was the first time I ever hiked at night without moonlight.
11 am: Squaw Valley Creek, have done 11 miles before lunch. I passed Keith (Wolf) Kimball this morning sleeping late in his bivy bag about a mile past my camp, and challenged him to catch up with me. He is not going to reach Canada by October 1 at this rate. All of the thru hikers have passed me by now. Even Keith will pass me soon because I have to wait for mail on Monday at the Castella Post Office south of Dunsmuir. I've chosen a trail name: Echo Thunder. The thru hikers are the big thunders. I am the last of the thunders, the last rumble of a storm, the echo of the giants, Jonathan "Echo Thunder" Jarvis. I passed a tree cut down so recently by NFS trail maintenance that it was still oozing sap. It had fifty rings, my age exactly. I wrote this message on the golden rings with a black sharpie felt tip pen: "50 years like me. Echo Thunder 8-21-93" for Wolf to see.
sunset: On west bank of Sacramento River below the Dunsmuir train yard. A 29 mile day, personal best so far. Keith never caught up to me. I scrawled a final goodbye message in the dirt on a high ridge viewing magnificent Mt. Shasta to the northeast. At an RV park I tried to call Jose's home in Sturgis, Michigan, but the phone has been disconnected. Lost my Darth Vader hat somewhere, maybe in the dark last night. Sampled juicy blackberries along the bank of the Sacramento river. Many unfamiliar but fragrant low altitude plants abound including yellow-flowered thistles. Took a short cut down an abandoned road to save 3.1 miles (accounted for above) but lost forty minutes bushwhacking through thick bushes and trees. Pea green color of tarp is beautiful against golden grass, thistles and blackberry vines around me now.
Day 143, Sun 8.22 am: This hidden camp gets A+ for seclusion but D- for noise. Ponderous locomotives chugged back and forth all night venting steam. When daylight came all the activity ceased. I felt like Mowgli witnessing the dance of the elephants. My shoes stink due to a soaking they got in Squaw Creek when in order to dip some water from the steep bank I had to drop down into the stream to keep my balance. The canyon at Squaw Creek is very steep because the creek existed before the volcanic upthrust began and the creek has been eroding the canyon to keep pace with the uplift. A yellow jacket wasp stung me yesterday for no reason at all.
Day 144, Mon 8.23 am: Dunsmuir on a Sunday is a sleepy back country town sliding into ruin. After I packed my gear and walked over from the train yard, I enjoyed a leisurely 4-egg breakfast at the Travelers Hotel, a seedy establishment for down-and-out bums who smoke in the lobby on ripped chairs. Bought a Comet aluminum pan to replace the one left behind in Lassen. Resupplied at the local grocery store. Had a baked spaghetti lunch at the pizza place and shaved in the upstairs bathroom near the video arcade machines. Through the walls I kept hearing one of the games say "Move it!" or "Cool Whip!" over and over. By the time I had walked the railroad tracks a few miles down to Castella it was late afternoon. I stopped at an outdoors pay telephone with a breathtaking view of majestic Mt. Shasta and phoned my parents. I also called Jeff on reaching Ammarati's market in Castella and asked him to be my personal representative for my Last Will and Testament which needs updating regarding cremation of remains. He invited me to come to Atlanta to visit for a few weeks.
11 am: Post Office. Got passport at last! Replied to a letter from Andrew enclosing a photo of his Confederate uniform and long rifle with bayonet. Received REI order and forwarded some extra items, now that I have decided not to continue on to Canada after all, to myself in care of John Mulligan in Palo Alto where I will visit Stanford after the hike is done. Recorded the names of these thru hikers found in the PCT log in the post office: Scott Williamson 6/24, Ad Van Verkel & Trudi De Ruyter 7/19 [Trudi dropped out], Dave Fleishman and Leticia Lacative 7/29, Jon Roach 7/29, George Metcalf (Temple, TX) 8/2, Brian Born & Scott Corner (the cousins) 8/2, Hooper (Seattle) 8/9, Andrew Rose (Iowa, broken finger, bear incident) 8/13, Peter Guzman (Avon, Colorado) 8/13, Rich Miska (Minnesota) 8/16, David Shimek (Houston, the Gingerbread Man) [he gave me some extra granola at Echo Lake] 8/19, Karl Ullman (Seattle) 8/20. Keith's name was not there because the post office was closed on Sunday when he passed through.
pm: On west arm of a spur southwest of Castle Craigs near the park boundary. Not much distance today. Had to backtrack from a false start to reconnect to PCT. Camped early to make ghee by simmering 4 sticks of butter and skimming off the milk solids. It worked! Poured the clear amber liquid into a new 8-oz Nalgene container to harden overnight. It tasted dripping delicious with a can of pinto beans and jalapeno, cooked in the new 5/8-qt pot, which unfortunately is too small. Ghee does not spoil like butter without refrigeration.
Day 145, Tue 8.24 am: The ghee hardened overnight. It looks like fine milk chocolate. No bears came -- before going to sleep I tossed the empty bean can down a cliff where no one will ever see it and covered the fire hole to leave no trace or smell. I felt qualms about the can though. Next time I should transfer the beans to a ziploc bag or extra water bottle before heading out on the trail.
Day 146, Wed 8.25 am: Reached White Ridge near sunset yesterday, about 21 miles. Met a hiker named Tony, a patent attorney, on a short hike from Dunsmuir to Seiad Valley. He wore clean clothes and carried new gear but I didn't hold that against him. We paired together for awhile until eventually he dropped behind on a rising trail. The tables were turned -- I a follower become a leader, a handicapped amateur turned pro. We met a photographer riding a mule and packing camera boxes on a second mule. Tony said he recognized him from a national magazine. As I look towards the western face of Mt.Shasta I can not remember the exact route which I used to climb to the summit. Late yesterday afternoon a bow-and-arrow hunter dressed in camouflage asked me if I had seen any deer. I lied and said "No". I am not sympathetic to sport hunters, especially when their weapons might target me by mistake and also when they are poaching out of season. Yesterday at lunch it was breezy and cold so I slipped into my sleeping bag to warm up and dry the bag out and actually fell asleep for an hour. I used to take long rests like this at the beginning of the hike. Mashed potatoes with ghee made an outstanding supper.
supper: Bull Lake. It was a pleasant walk along ridges today. Realized that I have not used sunglasses for more than a week. Eyes have adapted too. Over a small wood fire hole, using one stone as a windbreak, boiled water for a satisfying cup of tea, then boiled another pot for potatoes au ghee, tasty with salt and pepper. Hot mug of tea gives a shot of energy to walk another mile or two; hope it doesn't keep me awake all night like coffee at Markleville. Tried to stay mindful of breathing during afternoon walk. It's like touching home plate -- you are safe. After a busy day the landscape often seems especially peaceful at sunset. A few insects may be active but the breeze dies down and birds stop calling and start roosting for the night.
Solo Hike 93 page 6 of 7
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