Day 125&126 Miles 1459.7-1502.7

I woke up to seeing a buck running right by Mantis outside my tent. I guess there were a bunch of deer running around throughout the night. They kept Mantis up but I was so soundly asleep I didn’t notice. His sock was wet, apparently the deer were chewing on it. My sunglasses were further away than I had put them and upping further inspection my chums had been eaten. Only the rubber part that went on the glasses remained.

We packed up and left and had a bigger climb up a beautiful ridge to start the day. It was a bit hazy but not as bad as the day before. We eventually got to the top and had a long, 10 mile downhill section. We stopped for a brief break and continued downhill.

Right before our lunch break I walked past a snake that gave me a rattle as it moved out of the way. I warned Mantis and he moved quickly by it but the snake was silent for him. We had just heard a story the day before of a hiker having to be evacuated after a rattlesnake bite, which is supposedly very rare. Normally they don’t bite and if they do it’s a dry bite, where they don’t dispel poison.

We got down to a river we were to have lunch at and found Kiki, Trouble and that whole gang hanging by the river. We joined them and spent the next few hours swimming, eating, napping and relaxing.

We left that spot around 3:30/4 and went 7 miles further. We had a big climb after lunch and went about 3/4 of the way up and found a nice campsite with a good view. We had dinner outside but then I soon went to the shelter of my tent as the mosquitos were getting bad and I was getting bit quite often. A German couple D&D joined us at that campsite a bit later on. Mantis and I played a couple games of rumie before going to bed.

Day 126

Start: 1478.9 End: 1502.7 Total: 23.8

Mantis woke me up shortly after 5 and we were out a bit after 5:30. I was so tired this morning I could’ve slept a few more hours. We had a couple miles to finish our climb then a couple more to our first water source.

We took a small break there while we filtered water. D&D soon arrived to do the same. We kept going, planning on doing 3 more miles to a swimming hole and having a short coffee break.

We cruised the 3 miles then found a nice spot next to the river to relax for a bit. Our 30 minute break turned into over an hour, while we swam, dried off and made coffee. We found some suckers and candy underneath a bridge that was left as trail magic for hikers.

After our break we continued on our way. I knew there was supposed to be a big climb after. We went steeply up for a second then the trail evened out and went along the river. It was such a nice trail and Mantis and I were chatting away as we cruised along. About 10 minutes down the trail I realized it wasn’t supposed to be this easy. I checked the map and sure enough we went the wrong way. We turned around and went back the other way until we found the switchback that we had missed.

We had a 2 mile and 2000 feet steep climb before another 3 miles uphill but at a much more gradual pace. At the top of the climb we were rewarded with some really cool views of Mt. Shasta, much closer this time. We passed D&D taking their lunch break and we went a bit further.

We took a short cut that cut off like 3 miles of an unnecessarily long way to take. On that shortcut we found a cool spot with great views of Shasta for lunch. We took a quick break before continuing downhill. Mantis was really struggling with bodily pain and his feet so I gave him an ibuprofen to help get him down.

That numbed him enough for him to keep up with me in the downhill. Even make him want to run down when his song came on. I urged him to not go as fast as I knew he would be in even more pain later. We cruised down the mountain hut the ibuprofen wore off the last mile. At the trailhead we were greeted by magic man with some pastries and gatoraid. We also passed the 1500 mile mark!

We then walked a bit further to try to hitch into Shasta. But the road was not very much traveled and went into the interstate right away. A car stopped but had no room but said his mom was a bit behind him and would probably stop and get us. D&D showed up and they had payed someone to pick them up, he hurriedly told us he could give us a free ride to a better place to hitch and we took him up on it. However he went a couple miles south, we wanted to go north. He dropped us off at a gas station and two other hikers took our place in the ride to Shasta.

We waited outside that gas station for an hour and a half before a really nice lady finally picked us up. It was a hard time waiting and trying to hitch as we took turns holding our make shift sign and trying to get someone to pick us up. It was a long day and we were so tired. Kiki and the gang had already made it in that morning and found a trail angels house to stay at. He also met a man named Michael at the post office and connected Mantis and I with him so we could stay there as there was already 8 people at the other trail angels house.

Our hitch took us to Michael’s house and we were greeted by him and Mountain Dancer. He let us borrow bikes and we rode to the grocery store and bought some brats and other things for dinner. We then got some showers and helped prepare dinner before having a delicious feast! Michael is a super cool guy in his 60s who has done much traveling around the world, many bike tours and hiking trips and even hitch hiked from CA to the east coast. Mountain Dancer is from the Netherlands so it was a lively dinner of conversation. After we had some ice cream and went to bed. He has a spare king size bed that we were able to sleep in which was such a treat!