September 24:Back to Sierra City

Jim and Jan were kind enough to offer to drive us to Sierra City, even though it was a two hour drive for them one way. We rolled into town at noon and had a great picnic lunch while we waited for the PO to open (they closed for lunch). About 3 months ago we had mailed ourselves a box of shakes and guidebook pages, and when we realized we were going to skip the section, we asked if we could have them hold it for a time. They had me write in big, bold letters with a red permenant marker, "Hold until July 30." Our plan was to call at the end of July and have them forward it to Cascade Locks, with full intentions of sending it back to them so we could pick it up when we came back to hike this section. For whatever reason they never forwarded it (we thought it was lost in postal no-mans-land), and it was still waiting for us when we showed up. Score.

We hit the trail at 1pm (in shorts and tshirts nonetheless!), and began the 2700 ft climb out of Sierra City. The bummer is that there was no water for 14 miles, so we lugged 3 liters of water each up the hill. Luckily the climb wasn't too bad, but the views of Sierra Butte and beyond were gorgeous! Awhile back another hiker (thru-hiker in 2007) wrinkled her nose and told me I wasn't missing anything in this section; boy was she wrong! The views have been incredibly beautiful so far. We have loved it!

Thus far the trail has been extremely dusty and dry. Many of the water sources are dried up by this time, and only the most reliable ones are still flowing. It's hard to judge how much to carry. We will probably just end up carrying way more than necessary just to make sure.

We hiked in about 14 miles to our first water source to camp. We made camp and slept better than we have in a long time. Hiking is starting to feel normal again...

Total Miles:1211.8
Miles Today:14.2
Camp 141:Summit Lake

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