Day 88 – Hat Creek Rim to Burney

July 11

Miles: 1390.8 to 1411.3

Trail Miles: 20.5

The wind picked up as the sky started to lighten around 0430 this morning. It was a beautiful sunrise from my cowboy camp perch, but the wind made sure I couldn’t sleep. — One challenge to cowboy camping is making sure your gear doesn’t blow away (air mattresses in particular). I carefully packed up and was hiking by 0530.

Sunrise on Hat Creek Rim

A little after 6 AM, we ran into Good Karma. Stripes and a female hiker I didn’t know. She had hiked by last night just after sunset, as I was settling into my sleeping bag. She had paused to check her phone for mileages and distances like we all do. I assumed she was going to camp there when she took off her pack. Instead she pulled out her headlamp and continued hiking. As she passed close by, I said ‘be safe.’ She paused, not hearing me, and asked ‘what’ with a French accent. I repeated myself, saying “be safe night hiking’ – meaning be careful with the rocks and roots and tripping. She said thanks and continued on.

This morning when we came upon her, Stripes and Good Karma, about 2 miles from where we had camped, they had quite a story to tell.

Her trailname was Quoi (sounds like ‘Kwah’) and she’d run into a mountain lion last night. The story was pretty incredible and scary. It was crouched, ready to pounce as she came around a corner, about a half-mile from where Good karma and Stripe were camped, From the reflection of her headlamp she could see the eyes and outline of the body. She tried to make herself look big (too big to be prey) and yelled for help. She couldn’t run away – that would trigger the cat’s chase instinct, Fortunatley Stripes and Good Karma heard her yells and ran up the trail. She said to stand off lasted about five minutes, until they came running up the trail and scared the cat away. The rest of the night was uneventful for them, but I can’t imagine them getting much sleep.

I don’t care to hike at night. It’s too easy to trip and fall. Mountain lions are another reason why not to do so, particularly alone.

Passing mile 1400 — only 1261 more to go

The trail wound its way mostly through Manzanita shrubs today with a few trees. It eventually opened up and reminded me a lot of the Serengeti in Tanzania, just with different species of vegetation.

Looks like the Serengeti or Masai Mara

Smokebeard hikes towards Kilimanjaro (aka Mt Shasta)

It was hotter than yesterday and there wasn’t much shade as we lost altitude during a long descent into Burney, CA. Burney was my next resupply and zero. I hadn’t taken a zero since Tuolumne with HH. I needed a break, a day off from the trail mentally and physically to just veg out.

I was at least 11 days behind on the blog, but even that wasn’t weighing on me too much. All I wanted was a hotel room, a shower, laundry and sleep. Everything else could wait.

The high temps were amplified by the lava rocks and soil

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