Day 98

Chester to north fork feather river - 9.3 miles

Total - 1342.1 miles

For the life of me I cannot sleep in. Woke up around 5:15 am and doom scrolled until I couldn’t doom scroll no more. So I started organizing food as I still had a lil more resupply and I was officially sending my bear can home until washington. Finally around 8:30 I started packing up. After everyone else had woken up and packed up we moseyed our way to a cafe breakfast place. Very cute coffee shop mixed with a gift/book store. Very quant. I got my first eggs Benedict which had chorizo on it with hash browns on the side. It filled me up quick with delicious flavors. I also ordered a cinnamon roll and a brown cinnamon sugar iced latte. Anything that is brown cinnamon sugar tastes like sweet sweet candy. Highly recommend a brown cinnamon sugar iced chai with oat milk and one shot of espresso. SO GOOD. Always ordered it back in Salt Lake City and everytime I had it my taste buds were blown away. After breakfast we headed to holiday market where I got 6 extremely expensive breakfast bars (boba bars and pro bars) along with pouch meat, and caffeinated chocolate as I couldn’t find my twitch energy packets. So expensive. Love my grocery outlet and dollar general. We then chilled at the library charging our stuff again, before the library closed for 30 minute lunch break. Caleb and I agreed to head to the post office to mail our bear cans up to my house. The librarian kicked us out while Caleb was on the phone so I headed out. I got chirped which put me into a very rational frenzie. We had to talk it out after. Truly I would’ve been passive aggressive to him all day if I could but he’s the one that approached me after our miscommunication. This whole journey is actually insane from a physical standpoint and mental but also social standpoint. For most people, this is an insane experience for making friends. Imagine you get thrown into a room together, not knowing each other, and not necessarily being forced to hang out 24/7 but basically that but willingly. It’s very unnatural to spend so much time with someone. It’s normal to bicker, and it’s normal to be annoyed or be the annoying one. I have to keep reminding myself this because it’s completely fine to feel these feelings. It is a rollercoaster though because one hour you strongly dislike someone as you are either hangry, or in a bad mood, or in pain, to laughing and cracking jokes with that very same person. It’s also easier to be in a group where if one person is feeling like that, they can fade into the darkness, and let the others take over. In Caleb’s and I’s case, we don’t have that anymore like we did in the desert and sierras. Ben sadly got on trail, and Marc is with his girlfriend for three weeks on a roadtrip before coming back. We did make a new group with Ben from Boston, and rocklicker (still hasn’t caught up to us as he is nursing an injury), but majority of the time Caleb and I are together while either hiking or getting ahead of Ben for a lil. That’s tough on anyone. So we are hitting our max and need to communicate better which we are starting to do and it’s made a huge difference on just my anxiety and also his in a matter of seconds. Hopefully it continues as I really value his friendship and want to finish this thing with him as he does too. I feel so strong physically and mentally on trail so now that I’m struggling in the social aspect it’s thrown me for a loop. I just need to relax but its so hard out here for me for some reason. I enjoy being more on trail and hiking than I do in towns on zero days now because there are no anxieties on trail. All I have to do is pack up, walk, feed myself, hydrate, stop, set up tent, and go to sleep. That’s my day. I tried to explain this to someone that when I’m on trail I’m thinking but at the same time I’m not. I remember thinking about stuff but when someone asks me what I was thinking about, I couldn’t tell ya. It’s so peaceful. I keep telling mom and dad that the after trail depression that everyone talks about will hit me super hard. After, I need to throw myself into something physically so 1. I can keep my fitness up but 2. So I won’t go mentally insane. Never thru-hike people, it will fuck you up for life. I can just feel it.

ANYWAYS, got a lil sidetracked. We hung out at the library until 2:30, when we headed to go get sandwiches at the grocery store at the deli. A lady stopped us as talked about the pct before offering us money to pay for lunch which we STUPIDLY turned down. I instantly regretted saying no. Next time that won’t happen. The deli was SO GOOD. Lil small but for a non hiker it would be perfect. We sat and ate as well as sipped on pink lemonade. One hiker I saw at another table that we had previously briefly talked to, had eaten a whole large tub of Chobani Greek yogurt, a small pint of ice cream, a large coke, and was working through a half gallon jug of chocolate milk. I just know his farts are about to be diabolical. A truly heinous lunch that I just had to comment about it. I am honestky just super impressed that he was finishing it all. So much diary, only to mix it with COKE. His has an iron stomach. We left to go get a hitch after eating and within 5 minutes a lady had swooped around and picked us up and brought us to the trail. Truly phenomenal how kind people are. The 9 miles were super easy and went by quickly as Caleb and I talked majority of the way. It was hot like always and it was in a burn scar for majority of the way. With the guidance of Caleb and Ben, I realized I might have been too ambitious with the plan for 37 miles for tomorrow. I just felt so good after the 34 mile day, I was like fuck it, especially since we have to walk through lassen national park and we can’t camp without bear cans so a big day made sense. Under further inspection, it didn’t, so we shortened it to 29 miles. Compromise people! I was still happy and everyone else was too. We got to camp and there was already 8+ tents there which was super surprisingly as we haven’t camped around others for awhile it feels like. We got snuggled into the corner. I ate my other half of the sandwich before we rolled a joint aka I tried to learn and failed. I only got to the point where you try to roll and then I fucked up so Caleb had to take over. I will be good at it soon, I can feel it, but in the mean time, I am a student and Caleb is the sensei. Immediately got tired and headed to bed. Good rollercoaster of a day. Feeling good though being back on trail though, truly feels like home. It also had been 3+ months so it makes sense.

Omg also they reopened the etna fire area. So pissed about it as I needed a good reason to skip but now that they don’t recommend skipping 50 miles, we are gonna do it. UGH, tragic. We live by the motto if the pcta recommends it, we are doing it. Plus I just wanted some miles off but I GUESS we will do them.