July 3, 2016 - I’m not going to lie but I’m really surprised I made it the 30 miles today.
Since I got to bed so late I knew I would try to sleep in. I figured no point waking up early if I wanted to hitch the 1.5 miles back to trail as most people wouldn’t be driving on the road that early.
I was woken up around 5am while some were packing up and heading out. I went back to sleep and woke up at 6am and saw almost everyone that camped at the church last night was gone. So I decided to get up and pack up but that seemed to take longer than normal.
Finally around 7:15am I got to the road and started walking and tried to get a hitch from the passing cars. Just like yesterday I had no luck and ended up hiking the whole way. As soon as I got to the trail a car pulled up, looked like some day hikers, I just missed out.
So I started the day off having already climbed a few 100 feet out of Sierra City but had another 2500 feet to go up Sierra Butte. Lucky for me it was over 9 miles so it was very gradual and nice level trail for the first part. Once the trail left the woods it got very rocky and walking along a narrow ridge. Then it was back in the woods. Soon after heading back in the woods I passed the first water source for the day with the next one not for awhile. For some reason I decide I didn’t need it but about a half a mile I realized I made a mistake but didn’t want to double back so I kept moving.
The trail came out of the woods and onto some dirt roads and crossing several parking areas. With it being 4th of July weekend there were a lot of people out. I was hoping some might offer a drink or 2 but no luck.
I crossed the last road in this heavily populated area and was thinking to myself some trail magic would sure be nice. Then a few moments later I saw just down the trail some flags hanging. I started to get excited because it had trail magic written all over it. Then I got closer and saw a sign pointing up to a RV with people around. Sure enough it was a group of people feeding hikers called Morgan’s Diner. It’s something these friends started doing 3 years ago on this weekend every year.
They had a good selections of drinks so I knew I had enough to get me to the water source, I was so happy and relieved. I didn’t plan to stay long but thought it would be rude to leave right away. So I chat with the group and the other hikers. Whiling chatting they had lots of food out so I kept eating. Then we get a game of corn-hole going, of course my team won. So I had been there an hour by this point. I figured it was time to move on if I wanted to get to camp I wanted for the day. Then they start talking about grilling burgers so I decide to wait. I got my burger but I ended up staying a lot longer than planned, over 2 hours. However I had a fun time hanging out. So by now I figure those extra 21 miles weren’t happening.
After saying thank you, never did get to meet Morgan as he was out biking, and fill up water I was off. With about 8 hours of daylight left and a lot of flat trail ahead I figured camp was still possible if I could get in my 3.5mph pace.
The hiking was easy but got kind of tired after awhile as I only took about a 45 minute break halfway to fill up on water.
I got to camp just after 8pm. Lots of trees around so not much daylight to set up camp and eat. It was a terrible campsite as there were several people around and not really any spots left but I managed to find a spot. If I would have had a little more daylight I would have moved onto the next campsite but I was tired so I settled for this spot despite camping on a slant. Once again getting to bed late but I got my miles in.
