Trail Reunion

We slept pretty good last night. More Pop tarts and away we go, leaving camp at 0750. My body is just plain rebelling and I feel very sluggish today, especially on the uphill’s.  About two miles in, a hiker carrying a small pack goes running by us. Shortly thereafter a girl runs by. When we reach Bear Trap Creek, they are there getting water. We stop for water too and chat while we filter and drink.

Napoleon and Red Cross

Their trail names are Napoleon and Red Cross. Napoleon is from Baton Rouge and likes to talk. Red Cross is from Switzerland. They met on the trail in the Sierras where Napoleon had gotten lost and she saved him as he put it. That is why he named her Red Cross. They run with their packs on or when not running, they walk really fast. I asked him how far they go each day and he says ” I like to get 25 in by noon”. I think I like our pace better.

When we leave the creek, Carol takes the lead and seems to be constantly waiting for me. I just press on the best I can. There are large fields of yellow flowers that we hike through.

Fields of Flowers

We climb and climb until we reach a beautiful hill top with 360 degree views and we both know that this is our lunch spot. There is a slight breeze and a gnarly tree to sit under. We lay out our pads and take a little lunch and siesta break. When I turn on my phone to take a panorama shot, I discover that we have a pretty good cell signal here. We did not have any in Sierra City, but two days away in the mountains, we are good. We take advantage of this to check in with some of our children and Carols mom. It is good to talk to them and to let them know we are safe. As we leave our lunch spot, we see some strange looking plants. They have a strawberry looking type of flower that is filled with air.

Weird Flowers

Very weird and something we have not seen before. We press on and start a descent off the hill top. We reach a trail junction that heads .3 miles to Whiskey Spring. Not needing water and after being disappointed by Jamieson Creek, we skip it and continue on. About 4 miles later we cross the paved Quincy LaPorte Road. There is a creek .3 miles down the road but we decide to press on to Alder Creek which is another two and a half miles but beyond our original planned camp.

The walk from here is almost all wooded and I am hurting and tired but we make it to the junction of Alder Spring. We grab a camp site right off the trail and I head down the 800 foot long side trail to the spring. Of course it is down hill, and a little steep in spots. When I get there, Napoleon and Red Cross are nearby sitting with Sonia who we had met at the Clair Tappan Lodge and again in Sierra City. They are going on but Sonia is camping near the spring. She invites us to camp with her but I do not like the buggy feel of the place so politely decline. I fill up and filter quite a bit of water for both cooking and our hike tomorrow. As I sit there, the bees land on me and my water bottles. They have a perfectly good spring gushing all the water they could possibly want, yet they decide my bottles are where they want to be. Just don’t get it. Weighed down with water, I climb the trail back up to our site.

Tent View

We get the tent set up and I being pretty wiped decide that I will eat my mash potato dinner in the tent. As we are finishing up, I hear a voice say, Hey hiker trash. It is Half and Half. Half and Half has been hiking south from Castle Crags for the past 3 weeks. When we last talked to him we figured we would pass each other the next day. However we went further than planned today and he did also, both of us looking at this spot to finish our day at. Fate can be a strange thing. We have a great reunion, telling our tales of the trail so far and stay up later than we have in a while. For us that means 9:30. This was a great ending to a tiring day. We hiked 13.4 miles at a pace of 2.5 MPH because Carol is trying to kill me. I did not feel that I was walking that fast and she was probably going 2.8 as I had the GPS on me and she was waiting a lot. The high point today was on our lunch ridge at 6996 feet and we are camped at 6055 feet.