July 29, 2017
Mile 1244.6 to Mile 1268.8!! (Past Quincy!)
Pacific Crest Trail Thru-Hike: Day 85

Morning

Currently sitting on the Bear Creek bridge having a snack, wishing there was a good spot to swim with sun but it’s all trees and shade and a rocky bottom in the swirling Middle Fork of the Feather River.

We are, as of right now, ahead of Opi/German and Chill/Benny. I’m wondering what will happen with timing since they are all planning to go into town to resupply and we are just popping into Caribou Crossing.

We have a 7 mile, 2,700 foot climb starting right after this bridge and it’s going to be hotter and muggier today than it has been yet. Also, I thought I was smelling Lakewoods (the cabin resort in Wisconsin) but realized it’s because there is a ton of forest fire smoke in the air.

Noon

At lunch and afternoon break we watched and listened to plane after plane after plane drop fire retardant and water on a (what looks to be) growing fire less than 30 miles away. There was even a 747 outfitted for firefighting that circled around over the fire. I’m worried we’ll see a ranger walking up trail to kick us off. We are less than 5 miles from our goal for the day. I hope we make it. If we can get past Quincy we should be in the clear.

Night

We did great today considering we had two massive climbs. We’re only 15.6 from the start of the Caribou Crossing road walk. We’re camping on a ridge, well off trail so we can get some breeze in this stifling heat. We can see the massive fire glowing below. It’s heading for Quincy. We had a talk with a young local couple who said the fire started today. They said it was arson, because it started in several different places at once, and that sometimes firefighters start fires to create work.

We didn’t see Benny and Chill today, but left a note in the trail register (!!). that we were there at 7pm on 7/29. It was so nice to se a register again! We looked through it to see where everyone was—Madison and Jackpot passed on 7/22, Colten 7/23, Sam didn’t sign it (he never does), and we saw a mishmash of other people’s names in there.

I heard from a SOBO hiker that you can hear the raves in Belden from 10 miles away. It’s true! Except, we’re 15 miles away and we can hear the raves. Hopefully the festival is over tomorrow so we can go through without any trouble. Apparently sometimes hikers aren’t allowed to go through town when there’s a festival going on because security thinks we’re trying to just get into the festival for free.