A thru-hike attempt

Castella is a small town on Interstate 5, with the bigger towns of Dunsmuir and Mt. Shasta on the other side of I-5. Literally the only businesses in Castella are a fuel station with a convenience store, a post office and a couple of campgrounds/RV parks (as far as I could tell). Apart from these, there is the Castle Crags State Park. The crag formation is what you see in the pic above. For us, the most important part was the post office since we had sent our resupply food box there. Of course, the convenience store was exciting since it would have a variety of food and drink 🙂. A quick 12-mile hike in the morning got us close to Castella. Took the road to the State Park campground, as there were showers there. And they were free! Washed clothes too in the shower, since laundry was not an option. Dried them out on the camp gate. Then headed to the post office which was next to the fuel station & opened only at 11 am & shut at 3 pm.  Th

The whole country is baking from the one headline I read a few days ago. And so are the hikers on the PCT. And unlike the desert, even the wind is not cool. It helps, when it occasionally blows, but only a little. And, now the nights are also not cold. Cooler definitely and quite pleasant, but not cold. No need for a sleeping bag or quilt to cover up. To beat the heat, started the hike yesterday and today at 4 am to get as many miles in as possible before the sun comes out in full force. Luckily big chunks of the trail these two days were under the canopy of trees, and that helps. Today the water sources were much more numerous and spread out, unlike yesterday when there were only a few and pretty much all of them were off-trail, which meant walking some distance to the creek or stream.   Some creeks like this were under bushes & difficult to access All water sources have cold water, though by the time one filters it, it has warmed up a bit. Another bi

NOTE: Some of you may have noticed that my GPS tracker map has not updated for the last few days. Rest assured that I am still on the trail and am hiking & not slacking off. The Spot Gen 4 tracker stopped working and the company had to send a replacement as it was under warranty. Unfortunately they goofed up and sent it to somebody else. Anyway, they had to send another unit and that one is on its way to me. I should get it in the next 4-5 days and the tracker map will once again be online. Some of you noticed a check-in from San Ramon - that was just a test and can be ignored. Day 66 was going into town day... yaaaaaay 😀. Somehow, getting into town or even to a small store is still very exciting to almost all thru-hikers, even if one had been in town just a couple of days ago. And if you are going to stay in town, it is doubly exciting. In this case, Chester was the town and we were staying overnight. Had to stay anyway, since my resupply box was at the post off

  All data below in italics is for M-1, for comparison Distance traveled on PCT: 554 mi / 892 km   (631 mi / 1015 km) Total time: 280 (280)  hours Total ascent: 99,040 ft / 30,190 m (117,830 ft / 35,915 m) Total descent: 99,730 ft / 30,400 m (115,912 ft / 35,330 m) Highest point: 13,120 ft / 4000 m (9407 ft / 2867 m) Average distance/day: 18.7 mi/30.1 km (21 mi/34 km) Average distance/hiking day: 21.3 mi/34.3 km (21.8 mi/35.1 km) Average time hiking/day: 9.3 (9.3)  hours (incl Zero days) Average pace: 2 mi/hr (or) 3.2 km/hr (2.3 mi/hr (or) 3.6 km/hr) Number of Zero days: 4 (1) Number of Nero days: 8 (4) Weather-related breaks: 1 Zero & 1 Nero (incl in above) Number of meals eaten that I hadn't carried on my back: 25 (15) Number of proper showers taken: 14 (7) Number of bears seen: 1 (1) *Most of the trail was above 8000-9000 ft in M-2, unlike in M-1.

It has been 65 days since I started this hike. Doesn't really seem like it, but that's more than 2 months gone by! Things have definitely changed in these 2+ months. Physically I have lost some weight (~4-6 kg/10 lbs, I think), got a couple of blisters, stronger legs presumably, grew a beard (don't ask me why...on somewhat popular demand by a few friends 😋) etc. Mentally, it has been a slow but definite transition to making the daily hike as THE routine, getting comfortable living in a tent, packing/unpacking every morning & night, being completely comfortable camping in the wilderness alone, getting used to missing family & friends knowing that this too shall end, accepting but minimizing risks as much as possible, etc. All this was on my mind yesterday, as I went through more burned sections of the trail. BTW, I was grossly wrong about the extent of trail that was impacted by the Dixie fire...it more like 150 miles and not just 40 miles. In fact, stil