September 27:Belden Town Resort

This is how some previous thru-hikers described Belden in one of our note guides: "Belden is creepy;" "My opinion of Belden is that it is a haven for hard drug/alchol abuse;" "This place sucks." So needless to say, we were interested to see what it was like.

We had a somewhat longer day to get into this "town," but the trail looked good in our notes, so we figured we could do it.

We had a pretty smooth day but for one small glitch. There was one point where the trail hit a "shady glen" where the trail shot left. At the same moment, we went around a downed tree, and followed what we thought was our trail to the right. It was wel worn, but soon became hard to follow through a meadow (filled with cows). Eventually it completely disappeared, and we decided to shoot left, knowing we had to run into it at some point. Luckily we ran into it within minutes, but we had already lost 20 min or so rooting around in the woods. A mile down the tubes.

Back on trail, we eventually began the crazy descent into Belden. We dropped 3000+ ft into the valley, and I was already dreading having to climb back out the next day.

Just as we were nearing the road we ran into three people (20's-ish) who seemed to be out for a stroll. They were dressed really strangely (costumes...I hoped), and they told us Belden, which is a resort town (7 local residents!) was rented out for a party this weekend. Interesting. We wondered what this would mean for us since we no place else to go.

We hit the road and walked for a inute or two and started seeing cars and hearing music. The North Fork Feather River runs through the valley and it was lined with tents for three quarters of a mile.

Then we hit town.

More tents. Hundreds of people. Crazy costumes. Loud music. A guy came over to us and asked what we were up to. He explained that this was a Burning Man-esque party weekend. They were a "community of people who like to party." And we had walked into the middle of the Dr. Seuss party night. Hence the costumes. They had art all over, swing sets, a trampoline, a dance floor, a magician,and VERY loud music. It was pretty crazy. Everyone was super nice, and we were invited to stay and enjoy the festivities; being that we weren't into drugs and alcohol, we decided to hit the restaurant and store and find a place to camp.

We ended up heading across the highway near the trail and setting up camp there. We were more than thankful we had earplugs because the music was pumping LOUDLY all night. No joke. It never quit. Not once. Regardless, we slept surprisingly well and decided to sleep in a little in the morning before heading out and up.

Our consensus on Belden? Not really creepy, persay. Possibly a haven for hard drug and alcohol abuse, though. It's a place to walk through, but not a place you think, "We should go THERE for vacation."

Total Miles:1289.3
Miles Today:26.8
Camp 144:The Rave

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