Start point
Paynes Lake, mile 1595.1
End point
Etna Summit Trailhead, mile 1600.8
Miles hiked
5.7
Wilderness area
Klamath National Forest
The day on trail
Nearo to town!
Today was cool and packed a lot of interesting things into under six miles.
Lots of people filled in around the lake last night. I know the forest belongs to everyone but I still love having my space and get a little cranky around people filling in and getting in my view. I’m sure others feel the same way when I come in. One of those life paradoxes, I suppose.
The lake was gorgeous though. It was still and the sun lit the trees golden as it rose. There wasn’t too much condensation in the tent, though there was some wetness between the tent floor and the groundsheet. That’s not too bad for sleeping next to a body of water in cool weather.
Nonny and I started out. She was ahead of me because she’s an earlier riser than I am. I soon caught up to her, though, and we hiked for a bit together. The terrain wasn’t bad: a little climbing, a good amount of descent. The climb was mostly in the first two miles.
The trail wrapped around a mountain and showed off some lakes and a valley.
Soon after, we came to the trailhead at the freeway to hitch to Etna.
There was a lot of graffiti on a structure there.
I especially liked “hold shift to run” because things would be so much easier if it were a computer game.
I tried contacting some trail angels to get a ride, but they were all busy. It looked a little bleak because there was absolutely no traffic on the road. Eventually, we heard a car and got our thumbs out!
Yeah. The first car we tried to hitch from stopped. We got in and headed to Etna. Man oh man was it a weird hitch though. They were talking chemtrail conspiracies and thought the government was trying to smoke and burn them out of their home with wildfires. Not to mention their terrifying driving down the middle of the road.
We were so glad to get out of that car.
We dropped out stuff off at a weird little hotel that had somehow domesticated a pigeon.
And then we went to a spa that Nonny had booked. It had tubs, a sauna, a shower, and you got to make your own aromatherapy blend of bath salts. Oof was it needed.
I showered off an absurd amount of dirt. I scrubbed myself top to toes. Yet somehow I still had probably a couple ounces of dirt at the bottom of the tub. Hiking is dirty, filthy, grimy business.
After two hours of soaking, roasting in a sauna, and rinsing off multiple times, we headed to the brewery. It would be closed the following day, so there was no time to lose. We had some drinks and ate some food. They had the most entertaining restroom signage.
After eating there we headed to get more food and some supplies for breakfast the next day (shakshuka for Nonny, Flamethrower, Cookie, Angry Dane, and me). The second destination was a local burger shop. The burger was good, though not amazing.
We started to figure out accommodations for the next day because we realized the spa took so much time that we weren’t going to be able to set our resupply strategy and get that today. I’m good with that. A zero sounds nice.
Back at the hotel we ran into Mad Hatter, Pacifico, and Bartender. There were a bunch of other hikers there too, all of whose names I can’t remember.
With full bellies and approaching hiker midnight, it was time for bed.