August 21, 2016 1370.9-1394.3 23.4 miles Hunger. A gnawing, twisting hunger that threatens to turn me inside myself until there’s nothing left. Luckily, there’s a cafe nearby. I almost can’t pack up fast enough. It’s almost like doing the potty dance, except it’s the hunger dance and I know I’m still going to have to wait for someone to take my order and cook my food once I get there. I check my phone to see exactly where this place is. Shit. Apparently it’s not nearby. I have a 4-mile hike ahead of me before breakfast. I pull out a bar just to stave off the worst of it, but I still want to keep a big appetite. Nothing tastes better than breakfast on hiker hunger. I’m out of dowloaded podcasts, so it’s just me and my thoughts this morning. I spend the time pleasantly dreaming of breakfast and disassociatively wandering from subject to subject. Luckily, the morning miles always travel fastest, and when I check my map at a junction, it says that the breakfast place is right over there. I can’t see it, and the junction doesn’t have any signs, so I’m taking a bit of a risk by not following the PCT to where the map says it meets the road ahead. If I go that way, I’ll have to double back a quarter mile. But if this side trail doesn’t go where I think it does, I’m going to have to either bushwhack or double back to the trail, then double back again at the road. Whatever. Bushwhacking isn’t that bad, I lie to myself (it’s nearly always worse, and slower, than I expect). The side trail is a dirt road, and it passes through a fire station on the way to town. I might be trespassing, I’m not really sure, but no one says anything as I pass by. I’m probably not the first thru-hiker they’ve seen. The dirt road does come out roughly where I think it should, although I do end up bushwhacking through about a hundred yards of overgrown field in order to avoid going the long way around. It seems I’ve arrived right as they’re opening. JJ’s Cafe is a small place, the sort of small-town diner that I absolutely love. I take a seat by a window where I can charge my phone and where I can watch the cafe operate. I’ve made a sort of study of small-town diner waitresses over the years. The way they interact with customers is endlessly fascinating. No two are exactly the same. They are balancing a ton of variables with hardly any notice or recognition. Often, they are the owners of the cafe, so they are both servant and master of the hall. The customers are usually a mix of regulars and tourists, all of whom have distinct needs and expectations, and all of whom want to feel special. Most of them will call you “honey” or “sweetheart”, but the way they say it can often sound like they want to scrape you from the tread of their shoe with a stick. Some of them are endlessly distracted, as you would expect from someone who is solely responsible for just about everything that happens in the place, but many of them give you the total presence and attention that you would only expect from a buddhist monk. As a vegetarian, I nearly always ask to replace sausage or bacon with hash browns. I have no issue with paying a little extra, and I don’t mind if they say no, but the way that they react to it speaks volumes about who they are. As a filthy thru-hiker, people’s true nature comes out even more distinctly. The waitress at JJs cafe is one of the best. Attentive, kind, completely the master of her domain. If she is put off by my odor or my appearance, it doesn’t register on her face. Throughout breakfast, she is quick with a smile and the coffee, doesn’t blink an eye at my menu alterations, makes easy conversation with all of the patrons, and moves around the room entirely at ease. The food itself is solid fare, nothing fancy but wholly delicious. By the time I finish, I am thoroughly stuffed and ready for a nap. I sit outside on a bench and read for a while, using the wireless to download some more podcasts. I read until 10:30, when the pressure to hike gets to be too much. I grab a bag of chips and fill up my waterbottles at the gas station next door and head back to the trail. After a good climb up to the top of Hat Creek Rim, and a break at the rest area where a few people emerge from their cars to stretch and look around, I start one of the most notorious sections of the PCT. The rim is flat, but it’s exposed, hot, and mostly waterless desert for 34 miles. Many people night hike through here, but I’m here now, I’m falling behind schedule, and the views are fantastic. I plug into a podcast and leave the cars and people behind. The heat is peaking and the sweat is rolling off me. Today I’m listening to Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History. It’s a strange episode about a failed Anabaptist revolution. It’s four hours of slightly meandering, passionate historical exposition—perfect for a thru-hike. The rim drops off to my left and I have an expansive view of the valley, filled with churned-lava and brown grass. The texture resembles torn bread. There is something mythical about walking here along the edge of things. In the afternoon I make a side trip down a chasm to Lost Creek to refill. It’s a steep, somewhat dangerous climb, and there are yellow jackets swarming near where the water comes out of the rocks. When I get back up to the rim I’m fatigued and a little woozy from the heat. I stop for a late lunch in the shade a short while later. The view is mostly the same for the rest of the day. It’s beautiful, but monotonous after a while. A stop at Cache 22 yields hot water, fruit snacks, and spray bottles. I sit in a plastic chair for a while and read my book, hoping someone will show up and I can have a conversation, but I can’t wait for long—I still have to make my miles. I push on. As the sun makes its final descent to the horizon, I am startled out of my skin by the sound of a ratchet, fortissimo. I shift momentum in a split second, before conscious thought, and I leap backwards. A thick black rattlesnake holds its head up facing toward me. The first foot of its body vertical as it slides away, rattling loudly the whole time. It is at least seven feet long. I’ve seen plenty of rattlesnakes, but never one that large.
I decide it’s time to start looking for a campsite. I find a spot near a lone oak tree. The last rays of the sun cast long shadows and give the surrounding grasses a golden glow. It’s a perfect ending to a long, hard day. I make dinner looking east, toward a solitary dusky peak that I’m pretty sure is Mt. Shasta.
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Nick is a teacher, writer, and amateur adventurer. Archives
June 2020
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