Campsite at mile 1543 to campsite at mile 1566
The thing about the Pacific Crest Trail is that it only travels north on average; on any given mile or day you may be heading in the complete wrong direction—as we are now. Today Mount Shasta poked occasionally over the eastern horizon, which was great because it meant that I could clearly monitor all the progress we were undoing as the trail wound south. In between crossing under the I-5 and reaching the road that will take us into Etna, the trail hangs a large scraggly S turn. We are no further north today than we were yesterday, despite the 23 trail miles that were hiked. This is exemplary of so much of what happens during the course of waking the height of a country, which is to say seemingly irrelevant bull waffle.
Today much of the scenery was reminiscent of Southern California—hot hazy mountains set in rows of receding ridges that eventually drop into a flat basin town. Then it was chaparral dropping towards Los Angeles , now it is pine forest fencing in Redding, but the endless marching forests feel the same. The shuttered views under the blazing sun, hard rocky ground under foot. The sensation, the memory of those days hiking along the ridges of Los Angeles felt so familiar and close, that when I pull my mind back to the present it feels akin to time travel. It suddenly felt impossible that I could have walked the land between these two points. That I had hitched in to and out of dozens of small towns, eaten unknown general store hamburgers. Certainly no. How is it that of all the people we started with, of all the hopeful hikers who stand at the southern terminus in early spring, I am still walking? The scope of the thing is almost overwhelming in it’s confirmation that we are, that I am doing this hard hard act. The reality settles upon me like warm summer rain, seeping under my skin until it is part of who I am.
