Start point
Tentsite at mile 1515.9
End point
Deadfall Lakes, mile 1537.8
Miles hiked
21.9
Wilderness area
Shasta National Forest
People I met
Bard
Lost Sole
The day on trail
As slow as yesterday was, this morning was a lot peppier.
True to form, I was the last out of camp. I filled up at a spring just down the trail.
And the trail opened up over some sprawling views.
I found a really cute lizard.
The trail continued on with some minor blowdowns.
It turned a corner to overlook some really reflective lakes.
We were around a lot of lakes that had violent names. Butcher lake. Deadfall lake. And some others I can’t remember. We started joking about naming lakes with gratuitously horrific names like Murder Lake and Bloody Horror Pond. It got worse, but those are ramblings to stay between friends on trail.
One thing that I always end up noticing is when the trail drops off to the right side of me instead of the left. I spend so much time hiking with the drop off to my left that when it flips around, my head clashes with my muscle memory.
There was a junction sign and a tree boundary. Then the trail meandered on.
I caught up to Nonny at the lunch spot, a spring. The pipe it came from was nice because I was able to hold my water bladder under it and fully fill it.
There was this plant that looked, to me, like a pole of baby birds looking for a meal.
There was a puffball mushroom past it’s prime. These guys are fun because if you stomp on them they explode in a cloud of greenish golden spores.
And these flowers. I think they’re irises, but I’m really not sure.
The trail continued on, twisting, winding, rising, and falling. It went between cairns, along mountainsides, peeking over mountain ranges, and along fallen signs.
It went by the appropriately named Shasta View Springs.
There was an area with a mesh erosion abatement structure.
Finally I got to camp and it was time to set up.
My dirty water bladder’s hang loop broke. I’d been using the plastic attachment which holds the sliding seal to the bladder, so you don’t lose either. The plastic piece had been stretching and it looked like it was about to give up any day. I’d bought some paracord to replace it while in Shasta, but put it in the wrong bag and accidentally left it in a hiker box. So I decided to cut off some of my hang line for my bear hang kit. It worked really well!
Then it was time for dinner. Hikertrash pasta in meat sauce.
Unfortunately Swiss Cheese and Eva weren’t able to make the miles. They messaged us they were hanging back. Boo.
Brush my teeth, then off to bed. Not a bad day, though I’ll miss camping with the girls.