Day 120: First Blueberries

Cowboy camp on summit of Mount McLoughlin - forest near Imagination Peak
4 miles from Mount McLoughlin back to PCT + PCT mile 1775 - 1789
Total 18 miles

For the first time in my life I have woken up on top of a volcano this high: the 9495 ft high summit of Mount McLoughlin. The night was cold and windy, but the one-person bivy site provided a comfortable sleeping spot. In the night I woke up several times and gazed at the stars. In the second half of the night, perhaps a couple of hours before sunrise, Orion showed up in the southern sky - a sure sign that the summer is slowly coming to an end.

The eastern half of the sky is turning from dark blue to white with shades of red on the horizon as the time of sunrise approaches.



Immediately after sunrise the volcanic cone is again throwing a triangular shadow, this time on its west side.


Staying inside my sleeping bag, I make a "breakfast in bed": oats and hot tea. Shortly after eating breakfast an emergency arises: I need to use the restroom. I am well prepared for the emergency case and poop inside a double ziploc bag. I close the ziploc bag, put it in the back pocket of my backpack, and I'm going to carry it down into the forest. There I'll dig a proper cathole, put the poop inside the cathole, and carry the empty dirty bag to the next town. Apologies for a graphic image :-) No, I didn't forget the shit bag up there. I successfully carried it all the way down.

It is around 10 AM when I hear first human voices. Three boy scouts have just reached the summit. They are soon followed by more scouts. It is time for me to start going down. I would have stayed for longer, but my water supply is limited and the distance to the next water source is 13 miles. I navigate my way down the mountain, saying hi to more scouts on the way. The size of the group is 50 scouts and many of them are Mormons. They are surprised when they see my BYU hat :-)


Finally I am back in the forest where I can dig a proper cathole for my poop and then continue walking north on the PCT. On the north side of a low forested saddle the shrubs under the trees suddenly change. The bushes have dark purple, blue and black colored berries: blueberries!



It is time to stop and enjoy the gifts of nature. Then I arrive at Christy's Spring with abundant water. The six liters of water that I filled up yesterday morning were calculated well; my water bottles are almost empty. I fill up water for the next 14 miles and slowly continue walking, stopping many times on the way to taste the delicious blueberries. The blueberries look a bit different than the ones I know from Central Europe or Scandinavia. The shrubs and the leaves are much bigger. In Czech I think we call them "Kanadské borůvky" ("Canadian blueberries"). Another signal that Canada is not too far away! The further north, the better the food along the trail gets.



As the sun starts hiding behind the trees, the PCT starts to resemble an obstacle course. Every few steps there is a fallen tree to climb over, crawl under or walk around. It is time to start looking for a safe and hidden camping spot. After a few tries, I find a bare and flat spot about 100 feet off-trail where I build my tent, crawl inside, and fall in deep sleep.

Day 86: Lassen Peak on the Horizon

Cowboy camp on rocky summit above Paradise Valley - cowboy camp on rocks above Milton Creek
Mile 1166 - 1187
Total 21 miles










It is a beautiful morning up on a rocky summit in the northern part of the Sierra. Deer are grazing on the ridge as the eastern half of the sky turns from dark blue to pale blue and white.
On the PCT it is almost always better to camp up on hilltops than down in valleys. Up on hills the night are warmer, the bugs are fewer and the sun shows up earlier and also the "leave no trace" approach recommends camping at least 200 feet away from water to keep the streams clean.

I quickly pack up, and for motivation walk down into the next valley and up on the next ridge before making today's first stop for breakfast. Even in the summer there's a little bit of frost on the grass down in the valley.






Up in the ridge I pass some hikers who are still in deep sleep, and then enjoy a rich breakfast watching the rising sun. Thanks to my good friends from Utah who sent me lots of nuts, seeds and raisins, I don't have to worry how much I eat and I eat a full three cups of the delicious breakfast mix and drink hot black tea.








On the ridge there are still some snow drifts and a nice little spring ("snowbank spring") where I replenish my water supply. Water is still plentiful in this part of California in late July thanks to the above average snow pack of this year's winter season.








There are more ridges, mountain meadows and volcanic rocky outcrops. I say hi to a couple of backpackers and also a PCT section hiker who has completed the whole California section of the trail, having walked around 100 miles each summer in the last 16 years.








At the next water source someone has left an unintentional gift for bypassing PCT hikers: there's an almost new pair of socks, probably forgotten by a backpacker who was planning to wash the socks in the stream. I don't hesitate and in accordance with the "pack all trash out" rule, I take the socks with me.








From the top of the next ridge, I can see a sharp snow-covered peak on the far north-west horizon. The section hiker that I met earlier today confirms that the mountain is Lassen Peak, the southernmost active volcano of the Cascade Range!








The camera on my mobile phone is unable to capture the peak in high resolution. But it is there and the PCT route further north leads hikers right through the Lassen Volcanic National Park.








Past rugged rocks of volcanic lava flow origin, the trail goes uphill and downhill, but the uphills are gentle and overall there are more downhills. 








It is nice to meet a group of riders on horses. The whole PCT is open for foot and horse travellers alike. Because it was designed also for horses, it is never too steep and it overcomes uphills and downhills by gentle switchbacks, and most long distance hikers including me are very thankful for the switchbacks that make us steadily overcome even  the highest hills and the deepest valleys.






The forest in this area is not a complete wilderness. There are forest roads crossing the trail every couple of miles. Some of the trees are harvested for timber, but the harvesting is done selectively, always leaving some of the trees standing.








The trail goes above the Jackson Meadow reservoir. In the hillside there are more springs and little creeks. The sun is starting to hide behind the ridges and some hikers have already set up their tents for tonight.








I continue walking a little bit further through a narrow rocky valley and up on another ridge. On top of the ridge, there are flat rocky outcrops with an excellent view of the Sierra Buttes above the little town of Sierra City. Here I setup my cowboy camp for tonight, and tomorrow is Sunday and I'm headed down into town for a little break and to recharge my physical and spiritual batteries before I continue walking towards the Cascade Range.

Next update probably on 28th July from Bucks Lake OK or Belden Town ...
Příští aktualizace za pár dní, pravděpodobně 28. července :-)