Day 111: South Fork Scott River - Etna

Date: 27.07.2018

Miles hiked today: 20.7 Miles / 33.31 km Total Mileage: 1'599.7 For sure we got up early today cause we're going into Etna! I'm walking fast, wanna get there as soon as possible, also because it's still a 20 miles day and not a really short one. At that time I'm not worried at all about the hitch into town. Normally it works out very well, so I don't expect it to be hard. The day starts off with quite a steep uphill, followed by another hill and one more steep hill until we enter the Russian Wilderness. The what?! Yes exactly, we are hiking through the Russia Wilderness today! I've never thought I'll be hiking through Russia on this trip! :) And the Russian Wildness is wild and though, with steep but small up- and downhills, wild forests, through burned areas and very rocky ground, and a longer uphill to a gorgeous lake before it's all downhill to the street where we are hitching from. I'm passing everyone one may way, I'm on a mission! It was not that smoky in the morning, but entering the Russian Wilderness the smoke gets quite thick again for a while. While im hiking downhill im listening to music. I haven't really stopped all day long. Only quickly to get some water but I didn't break for lunch. I can feel I'm getting tired but it's only a couple of miles downhill before I reach the road and I don't wanna stop anymore. So with music in my ears I run down the last strech and shortly before I reach the street I pass one more hiker, a woman, which is not very unusual, about half of the hikers are female this year! But when she turns around it takes me a moment to understand the situation. It's Maria aka Sparkles! I knew that she passed me a couple of days ago but we missed each other and I didn't expect to see her again! What a lovely surprise! She however was not that surprised to see me. Apachi and Helther, with whom I hiked with yesterday, informed her. Last night they hiked on 2 more miles to the next camp site where they met Maria for the first time. As she is also Swiss they asked her if she knows that other Swiss hiker - me. So Maria knew that sometime today we gonna meet, while I've never expected to see her again on the trail and I was quite sad that we missed each other. Soon later, about 2pm, we reach the street. About 4 hikers are there already, saying the are waiting for a long time already to get a hitch. Apparently this is the hardest hitch on the PCT. I didn't know that! But now I can see why. This street is very remote and only one car passes within 1 hour. The first car stops and picks up the 4 hikers. As we are waiting for other cars to pass by, sitting next to the street, exposed to the sun without any possibility to sit in the shade, and its very hot, more and more hikers arrive. But the street remains empty. After waiting for more than 1.5 hours a second car passes and we manage to squeeze in 4 hikers in the back of the car. I'm in too, finally. But there are about 8 more hikers wanting to hitch into Etna. I hope they don't have to wait that long anymore! I'm just happy I got in the car and that passed all the hikers on my way here today, otherwise I would still be waiting there. Etna is a small but very cute and hiker friendly town. Hikers are allowed to camp in the park at a designated area. There are showers there too for a little fee, free wifi which actually works quite well and many plugging stations to load your power bank and electronic devices. So all the most important things for hikers are right there. The public swimming pool is open for free too! And there are many of us here, sitting on the ground below the trees or at the picnic tables. Etna is quite low in elevation. The ride to town took about 30 minutes and was all downhill. It's very hot here. Just sitting here without moving I'm sweating. As the pool closes at 5pm I quickly pitch up my tent, grab my stuff and head to the public swimming pool. First thing is to take a shower. No way I can jump into the pool without washing off the dirt first, the water would just turn brown otherwise! I have no soap with me, but in the toilets there is. I run between the shower and the toilet to wash myself in my underwear, Hikertrash! Now I'm ready to jump into the pool and there are several hikers there too! There is Hitch, Dingo female and Dingo male, Nathalie, Pilgrim, Lullaby (I haven't seen her for weeks!), and also Duchess and Parmesan arrive a little later! I was hiking faster then them but they were luckier with getting a Hitch into Etna. They only waited for couple of minutes and made it here also just in time. After the nice shower and swim in the pool I have to get back into my dirty clothes, which kinda sucks but I didn't wash them yet. Being really hungry, I have not yet eaten much today, we go out for dinner. I meet Sparkles at the brewery where we share some snacks and drink a Cider. We decide to go to another place for dinner. Suddendly there are 10 hikers, all together, going to the same restaurant for dinner. That poor place is completely overwhelmed by the number of people and it takes more than 1.5 hours to get food! Sparkles even waits more than 1 hour to get her beer! Food was OK but not the best either. We head back to the brewery where there is live music for a little while before I head back to the park, where many hikers are still up, drinking and chatting till late. It's still very hot outside and I wonder if I can fall asleep in that heat...