July 25th
For almost the entire day we traversed the steep walls of a canyon complex high, and dry, above the main streams. Never breaking out onto the ridge and never opening up to any views. A green tunnel.
Again a hot and humid day, hiking in temps hovering near 100F. Bearable only because of the almost constant shade of thick forest canopy. Too thick. Lack of fire has increased the intrusive growth of Douglas Firs and other species. Unnatural but welcome relief for us on this day. The steep terrain has limited the intrusiveness of logging. Occasional very old Ponderosa Pines are mixed in with all the younger trees. Dry woods, deadfall branches cracking beneath our steps. Dry kindling. The whole scene is a massive fire waiting to ignite. The fire is already built in the fireplace and just waiting for a match.
With long stretches between running water, no views and a mind numbing series of ins and outs from one gully to the next, the hike is a test of mental endurance. In many place the under brush has grown thick and there was a lot of whacking at small overhanging branches in order to be able to hike through. The best thing that can be said of today’s walk is that it mostly was in the shade, helping to keep the most oppressive heat at bay.
With no views and very mindless walking my thoughts kept turning toward town tomorrow, and to food. The things we miss the most – pizza, cold sodas, ice cream and a big breakfast with eggs and pancakes.
At a morning break a young doe grazing nearby followed the trail to within 15 feet of where we were sitting. Her nervousness, curiosity and hunger all remained in balance for about ten minutes as she continued eating her meal while we ate ours. An accidental and very slight move of my foot, no more than an inch, tipped her comfort balance and she bolted off for higher ground.
On the trail we are seeing lots of bear scat. We have seen no bears, but more scat than “normal.” We are not sure if it means there are more bears here and that they only come out at night because of the heat. OR if the bears limit themselves to the easily used trails rather than the difficult cross country slopes.
We saw one other hiker, “D”, who passes us in the morning as he was trying to put in big miles to catch up to hiking companions of his that are a week ahead. Beyond that we saw no one else, remaining in our bubble between hikers for now.
We had lunch in the cool confines of a side canyon with running water, splashing cool water over the body, rinsing clothes, relaxing and then moving on.
Clouds rolled in late in the afternoon dropping the temps but raising the humidity. We took dinner by Squaw Creek so that we would not have to carry water up the 2,000-foot climb out of the canyon. Finally after 22 miles we pulled up and out of the canyon, crested a wooded ridge and had our first views of the day, a fine look at Shasta filtered through some trees.
With dark approaching we followed the trail and the ridge another mile to a low saddle and made camp in a rare flat spot.
