June 24, 2016

Bushcamp (mile 1480.7) to Castle Crags State Park (mile 1499.6)

Miles: 18.9

Our bodies were tired so we allowed ourselves to sleep in. We were packed and walking by 7:30.

The trail was nicely groomed with patches of poison oak but nothing like what we had been through the day before.

We dropped down to Squaw Creek where we met High Mileage, another northbound thru hiker from Virginia Beach. We chatted for a bit before getting water and heading on.

From here the trail climbed. It was gradual but as High Mileage said as he passed us about half way up, “We are climbing Mt Forever!”

Thankfully the trail was mostly shaded and we had more of a breeze than we had felt in a week. The air was cool and the ground was soft under our feet.

As we reached the top we had a nice view of Shasta. It has been really fun to walk closer and closer to Shasta and see it from different angles. It is a beautiful mountain and we plan to return to climb it some spring.

From here the trail was mostly downhill. We stopped for a short break because we had cell service. Andy tried again to upload our blog posts but it kept failing. Arg!

We walked on, playing hangman to keep our minds sharp. 

Around 4 pm we got to Soda Springs road and Interstate 5. As we walked under the I-5 freeway a day hiker, who we had seen about 20 minutes earlier, stopped and offered us a ride to Anmirati’s Market.

We gladly took him up on his offer and within 15 minutes Laurie had a coconut popsicle in her mouth. We picked up our boxes and sorted through our food for the next 6 days.

Sue joined us about 30 minutes later. Laurie bought a coconut popsicle for her and another for herself. We devised a plan for the evening and parted ways.

We walked to the campground while Sue drove. Given her poison oak sensitivity and our exposure we didn’t want to get into the RV until we and our clothes were clean.

We showered (coin slots were broken so we got unlimited hot showers!) and then drove to Mt Shasta to do laundry and have Thai Food.

Andy has been craving Thai curry for over 500 miles. Although not as good as our favorite neighborhood Thai restaurant, the variety was tasty.

By the time we got back to the campground it was 9 o’clock. We cleaned our backpacks with alcohol swabs to get rid of any possible poison oak oils and crawled into our tent.

Andy sewed his gloves and Laurie blogged.

Town stops are never long enough. Hopefully we will tackle our To Do list on our next zero or nero in Etna, 5-6 days from now.

We are very grateful for Sue’s generosity and assistance in cleaning our clothes. We will start our next “backpacking trip” with relaxed minds knowing we are not at risk of poison oak.

Tonight we are grateful for laundromats and red Thai curry.