Start point
Burney, mile 1412.4
End point
Tentsite at mile 1425.8
Miles hiked
13.4
Wilderness area
Shasta National Forest
People I met
Hypotenuse and Tangent
The day on trail
Today was so much better. Cities and towns are weird. Trail makes sense.
Trail doesn’t say racist things. Trail doesn’t care if you exist. Trail just needs your feet on it to not get overgrown.
Trail makes sense.
Puddles picked up our bags around 8:30 in the morning. She was headed to a dam to do some trail angeling and offered to meet us there with our packs. Not having to carry weight for 8 miles is a great deal!
We stopped for mango smoothies at McDonald’s. Easy. Sweet. Yummy.
First we had to get out of town. It took us about 10 minutes to get our first hitch. This woman pulled up in her SUV with her two daughters and told us that she had space for two, but if we could all fit, she could take us all. Then another lady pulled up in a truck and said she could take us. So we split up in twos and took off. Swiss Cheese and Eva in the SUV and Nonny and me in the truck.
Finally back on trail! I saw this weird looking plant right out the gate.
There was this pockmarked tree. I think it might be from beetle infestation, but I’m not sure.
And a shot up sign. Look closely and you can see who wrote what on it.
I hiked around Lingo for a bit in the desert!
A little bit into the hike we met Hypotenuse and Tangent. Hypotenuse got his name because he’s so tall that he needs to sleep diagonally in the tent, splitting it into two triangles — creating a hypotenuse. Tangent had a different name, but she has a tendency to get off track in her stories (she pointed this out, though it’s apparent!) and I do love a pun, so I offered that as a new trail name for her. She loved it. So then they were a hiking couple both with math based trail names!
Oh look. I’m over halfway there!
And then we got to Burney Falls, our side quest today. It’s a huge state park with lots of visitors and a “general store.” The store sold basic camping provisions, souvenirs, limited snacks and drink, and soft serve ice cream. We all got a cone of soft serve. I would soon regret not having my first aid kit with my lactaid (it was in my pack and we were slackpacking). But oh well! The ice cream was exactly what I needed and the falls were beautiful!
I especially enjoyed the spots where the water went under the ground and rock before falling instead of over it.
We lingered there far too long. It was easy to chat wait locals and people watch. We also ran into Dirty South there. He’s a character and I enjoy him.
We got out of there and just walked onward. Slackpacking is amazing. It’s so easy to walk without the weight!
There was a cute little painted rock and a hand drawn sign.
We got to the dam where Puddles and Dino were doing magic. There were a few other hikers there: some guys I didn’t know who left shortly after, and Hypotenuse and Tangent. Dirty South came by a bit after.
They brought chips, mini cupcakes, fruit, soda, Gatorade, and some fruit drinks. We mixed a fruit drink with some tequila I brought and enjoyed that, along with an assortment of all the snacks they brought. It was incredibly refreshing.
After spending a good 45 or so minutes, we took off. They offered to slackpack us another few miles because they found a way to get to a dirt road that crosses the trail later.
Yes, please. And thank you!
Refreshed and a little sluggish from the snacks in the heat, we continued on and found this wholesome cute blaze.
There was some sort of plant tumor consuming this blaze.
And another, what I think was a, parasite on this plant.
We finally got to the dirt road crossing and got our packs. It was only a couple miles to where we wanted to camp. We got there without any problems and had a great evening after a day of easy walking and too much sweets.