July 6:"Hitcho" to Chester

Today was a "hitcho"- a term we coined with another hiker; a day where you don't walk any trail miles is a "zero"; a day where you walk only a couple miles on trail is a "nero" (nearly zero). So we decided to come up with a term that described a day you spent hitching. We weren't creative enough to come up with anything better than "hitcho", but it stays with the theme.

Another hiker had lined up a ride from Sierra City to Quincy, a town about halfway to Chester, with a trail angel in town, so we were able to get in on that. Quincy was very smokey because it was right near the fireline. There was also a music festival going on in Quincy so there was a disproportionate number of people wearing tie-dye shirts.

We got dropped at a grocery store, which we soon discovered had great sales going on. We decided that stores with great sales should pay hikers to shop there; we had a whole group of people running around, excitedly exclaiming things like, "Wow! You HAVE to come see the great deal they have on peanut butter!" We definitely brought some energy to the shopping experience.

The bus to Chester didn't run on Sundays, so since their were 6 of us, we hitched in two groups. Mark, JZ, and I were the second group, and we weren't in any hurry since we all neded to pick up packages at the PO Mon morning. It tok awhile, but our first hitch was an old couple that just took us to the other side of town. Our second one dropped us at a town called Greenville, and the third one was nice enough to go out of his way and take a longer route to his destination to drop us in Chester, where we reconnected with the rest of our group.

We spent most of the rest of the day hanging out on a grassy knoll outside the grocery store. It was nice and shady and had good proximity to food and bathrooms. We also had no idea where we were going to sleep that night. The hotels in town were pretty expensive and the park had signs that said "no camping" (to our dismay).

Around 5:30pm, a guy pulls up and asks us if we are PCT hikers. Not only did he offer us a ride to the trail in the morning, but he turned out to be the manager of the Best Western in town and he gave us a great deal on rooms for the night. So we all jammed into two rooms, which makes the cost very cheap, and were excited to have a place to lay our heads. We had dinner at the Kopper Kettle before jumping on the internet, taking a shower, and hitting the sack, ready to be back on the trail in the morning.

Total Miles:1335.8
Miles Today:0
Camp 70:Best Western- Chester

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