Day 108: Mt. Shasta - ⛺@ mile 1'518.9

Date: 24.07.2018 Miles hiked today: 17.7 Miles / 28.48 km Total mileage: Mile 1'518.9 The train which runs through the little town of Mt. Shasta woke us up early this morning. The American freight trains honk so loud and unnecessary often, it's so noisy! However, I manage to fall back to sleep and woke up as the last person of our group. We head to the black bear diner for breakfast. The same restaurant as we had dinner last night. Breakfast was delicious again and my belly is more than full one more time. While being at the restaurant I ask a waitress what that smog is outside. We have noticed the weather change from yesterday. It's all foggy, but from what? It didn't rain, could it be smoke? Yes, she confirms that there is a big fire in Redding and the smoke is covering the town. Wow, that's crazy! I've never seen something like this before. But no one seems to be bothered or worried. The fire is still too far away. Also, the fire has so far no impact on the PCT. But checking the news we find out that the PCT is closed shortly after crossing the Oregon boarder. There is an alternative route but the Pacific Crest Trail Association (pcta) recommends to hitch from Seiad Valley straight to Ashland and miss the Oregon boarder. That is no option for me. For sure I want to hike the boarder, after spending more than 3 months California! An other alternative would be to hike to Ashland on dirt roads, which is not really recommended by the pcta. We would have to find out about the water situation and get paper maps to find our way. But we are still a couple of days away and I shall bother about what to do when I'm in Seiad valley. There is no point of thinking about it too much now, things may chance anyway. The problem we shall think about now is how to get back on trail?! It seems to be a hard hitch back too. I try to get an Uber but I believe there is only one Uber driver in town and he must currently be busy as Uber is trying to find a driver for more than 30 minutes already! Finally, I get the confirmation that a driver will pick us up! And so we make it back on trail shortly before 11am, picking up another hiker on the street who was trying to get a hitch for a long time. We hoped to be back on trail much earlier. We wanted to hike 20 miles today. But things often don't work out as planned on the trail but they do always work out somehow, just differently! Flexibility and spontaneity is a must out here. Back on the trail it starts off with a very steep but thankfully rather short section! I'm already fully sweating in less than 10 minutes back on trail! It's getting hot too. The Trail leads us through a forest with loads of ups and downs and we pass many dry rivers for a couple of miles before the long uphill strech starts. Water is hard to get again and we have to plan well where and how many liters to get. Not really looking forward to the upcoming uphill also it's super hot now. Gladly we decided at the lunch break to only hike 18 miles. There must be an amazing camp spot which we don't wanna miss, apparently the best one along the PCT so far. I'm happy to walk 2 miles less today even if that means and we have to hike them tomorrow.

The uphill starts off quite nicely and in the shaded forest but soon we change the hill side, where there are no trees and the sun hits us. It's really hot and that makes the uphill worse than it actually must be. I've noticed that it is so much easier to hike if the temperature is low rather than if it's boiling hot outside. Also there are not many moskitos around, which is so nice, but loads of the small fruit flies (that's how we call them in switzerland) and these silly animals always fly around your face very closely and if they are lucky they fly into your eyes or nose! They are soooo annoying! I don't see the point why they even exist! Just to bother us hikers already struggling with the uphill! The only good thing about uphill hiking is that you reach higher elevation where it's a little cooler. Eventually i reach the camp spot and it is indeed really beautiful! We have a stunning view, can even see Mt. Shasta (which is currently covered in clouds) and can see both sun set and sun rise from here. While enjoying the evening and cooking our dinners the clouds around Mt. Shasta become worse. It must be raining and storming there. We can see lightning and count the seconds until we can hear the noise. Our camp spot is very exposed but it looks like the clouds and the thunderstorm are too far away and not moving in our direction. Suddendly, there is a lightning and only like 1 or 2 seconds later the thunder can be heard, very loud! Duchess got frightened and screamed out loud. That must have been very close to our camp spot. I guess all of us got a little nervous and we shortly consider to unpitch our tents and hike on. Every thunder we can hear now Duchess winces! But they are all far away again, I think we are save. So we decided to stay. That's wild and even so that are scary moments these are the moments I love out here too, where you feel fully alive and to be at the mercy of the nature.