It was a pretty standard morning. I woke up at 5 to finish writing blog post and slowly got myself going. It wasn’t too cold, but my tent was damp and holding onto more dirt than usual. I got started walking around 7 and had made it to Gully Spring within fifteen minutes.
I didn’t stay long enough to filter the water I collected. I just threw the full reservoir on top of my pack and kept hiking. I stopped again a little after 9 when I had made it down into the Disappearing Creek ravine. It was shady and cool and there was a nice sitting rock and trees to hang my gravity filtration system from. So I sat for 30 minutes or so before continuing down the ravine and then out onto the ridge again and into the hot sun. It was 3 miles before I reached at 11am the point where I knew I would have cell service, and reported to mom that I was 3-4 hours (7 miles) from the highway.
Much of the trail through the Castle Crags Wilderness and Castle Crags State Park was in direct sun, with only occasional short sections in shade and trees, and the temperature was already in the 90s by this point, so I took advantage of every bit of shade and coolness I could find.
That’s why when I reached West Fork Sulphur Creek, I took a break to lie down on the bank with my head in the cold water and soaked my shirt through. The pool was shared by the first salamander I had seen in the California wilderness, though I have heard they are all around this section.
I saw another salamander deep in a bathtub sized pool in Dump Creek a few miles further on where I soaked my shirt again. There were other little streams along the way but sometimes I just opted to keep moving.
In fact, I didn’t take any more snack breaks until I reached the road at 3pm. There was shade there but basically no cool air. The sun cooked up from the pavement below. The concrete barriers were too hot to sit, so I sat on my pack for half an hour waiting on Mama to arrive in who knew what kind of vehicle. Turns out she was stuck in construction traffic in a trail-ready Jeep Compass.
Anyway, she met me with an ice-cold root beer, took the obligatory picture, and then drove us half an hour through Weed to a country club where we checked into a condo. I got cleaned up and changed clothes before we left to visit the Mt. Shasta Brewing Co. in Weed.
This was a great choice. They had some interesting brews and the spinach artichoke cheesy bread was too die for. Plus the stories about the brewery itself and the town were incredible. Apparently, Weed was voted the funniest town in America, Netflix bought everyone in town dinner, and Ziggy Marley helped the brewery sue the federal government for destruction of $20000 in product plus lost wages and suffering.
After I had sampled as much as I wanted, we hit up the dollar general for laundry detergent and ice cream, drove down to see what once had been a sizeable lake but was now a grassland with a few puddles of water, and finally went back to the condo. I spent all evening lying around watching videos online while my clothes were washing. I also ate a ton of ice cream and drank a ton of root beer. Why not?
I didn’t get to sleep until 2am, but that just meant less sleep for the road trip to follow.
Trail miles: 15.5
Number of unfinished (closed) PCT miles to clean up some other year: 115.1
castle crags 
