Day 104

Rock creek to mooshead creek - 22.9 miles

Total - 1449.2 miles

The mornings are darker as the sun doesn’t quite rise when I get up at 5:20. Last night a medium sized animal was stalking our tents around 9pmish but ran away before any of us could get a good look at it. Ben said it looked like a cat no more than 20 pounds. Honestly my guess was a fox. I think it was after my sausage as even I could smell it in my tent. Ben also made more noises last night, almost like a whimper. He had made some meowing noises at Burney mountain ranch which I might not have mentioned so I’ll mention it again just in case. Apparently he sat up in bed and asked why we all went to bed. When Caleb shushed him, Ben’s only response was to meow in a sleep ridden state. Wish I actually was awake for it but sadly only Caleb and rocklicker heard it. All morning we were getting on Ben’s ass to get the fuck up. In the past the man has deflated his pad and still gone back to sleep. He’s even gone further than that, deflated his pad, changed, and brushed his teeth only to fall back to sleep again. We went to bed at 8:30. Than man got his 8 hours so we were harassing him all morning to get his ass up. He changed, brushed his teeth, and deflated his pad and was up when we eventually left camp right before 6. We get a text later on in the day of him confessing to his crime of being an eepy boy and didn’t leave camp until 9am. At that point we were 10 miles into our own day. I did leave camp first but pulled off to take a dump when Caleb unknownily passed me. I had a gut feeling when I saw his prints in the dust that he was going to try to catch me even though I was behind him. I was right. I caught up to him after some long climbs at the water source 12 miles in. I was greeted with the most confused look as he thought I had been ahead of him this entire time. Apparently he had just texted me that I was cookin today lol. He also made the connection, after the fact, that there was no way I could’ve been in front as he was eating spider webs all morning thinking I had strategically dodged all of them out of spite. I would if I could. That section was also brutal as we were getting bush wacked for majority of it. I have the battle scars to prove it. I was getting poked and prodded all morning by the overgrown bushes. At one point I couldn’t see the trail and was guessing where I was going blindly as my eyes were closed. That, the spider webs, and trying/failing to catch me, was grinding Caleb’s gears all morning. Luckily some snacks, cold water, and clear trail calmed both of us down. I went another 8ish miles before stopping at a the top of the last climb overlooking Shasta to eat my lunch of a bagel, cheese, and summer sausage. Delicious! Most of the day so far had been in the shaded trees but it quickly opened up and it was hot. I pushed on, trying to catch Caleb, while watching the clouds above Shasta grow into some thunder clouds. Eventually, I got to one of the pull offs for mooshead creek where we planned on camping, but there was a lil miscommunication as I checked in earlier to see which of the two mooshead campsites we were going to as Caleb made the plan this section. He thought I meant the 1st one but I was talking about the 2nd one. I pulled up to the second one expecting Caleb and he wasn’t there. I texted him asking where he was and getting a response that he was at the first one. I asked if he wanted me to backtrack or could he come up here but I didn’t hear back from him until I heard him yelling my name lol. His texts were so delayed sending that I was still getting texts from that conversation 4 hours later. In this case, the garmin was not working which was extremely frustrating. We hung out at camp and washed off before just sitting and talking when I heard thunder in the distance. We set up our tents and just chilled out. Mind you I did 23 miles by 2. Slower day, I know, no need to tell me. Jk. Basically what I’m saying is we had a lot of down time which was very much needed as I was an sleepy girl. I listened to my audio book and relaxed and mucked some extra food I had. It didn’t rain but a few drops came down but that was all. Lots and lots of thunder and lightning. Around 6, we made dinner. I had ramen, soup mix, and Thai chili tuna. The Thai chili tuna was so good, highly recommend. I was so full as I had snacked so much before that I was audibly, visibly, and mentally uncomfortable with the amount of food and liquid in my stomach. So I had to do my first dinner bury in the dirt which I felt bad about but I physically couldn’t eat anymore without the risk of puking. I rather keep my food down. It is an early night tonight with a big day tomorrow so it is good. I’m very tired. Ben still isn’t to camp yet. We are all rooting for him but I have a feeling he will stop early because of the drizzle that is currently happening right now.

This is the first time in probably 2+ weeks I’ve put my rain fly on my tent. Normally I don’t have it on and I forget that privacy is nice. I do hate putting it on though.

The ramen color was insane as well. Bright red from all the red 40. MHMMMMM MY FAVORITE. It was Sriracha flavored. Super good!