Day 85 - Wednesday, July 21

Tenting at Fitzhugh Gulch (mile 1473.1).  Walked  25.8 miles today.

It took us a while to get out of camp this morning.  I left ahead of the others...and I didn't leave until 6:15.  I hiked uphill for a couple miles until I got to a great view of Mt. Shasta from a logged area.

Here, there was cell service and I waited for the others to show up.  They eventually did and we all did phone chores for a while.  After we finished, we hiked up some more before going along a long ridge.

The trail lost and gained some elevation.  J-PRO hiked ahead and Frank and I played catch up.

We usually meet at water sources, but there wasn't one for a while today and we didn't reach our planned source until 1:30 pm or so when we had lunch.

Frank's shoulders are hurting today and I have intermittent pains in my legs (it moves from my knee to my shin to my feet and all around).  Anyway, we found J-PRO at the water and we ate lunch with him and Rambler.  We then pushed ahead, doing a very long descent to the McCloud River.

Along the way the trail was lined with poison oak which was fun to avoid.  We stopped at a campsite where Boujee and Vagabond were camped and chatted with them.  Just prior, we had come across a rattlesnake (which I didn't hear but Frank did and pulled me away from it).  A hiker we met just after the snake told us a nightmare-fueling story about how last night he witnesses a rattler slither under another hiker's tent...sweet dreams...

Just after chatting with Boujee and Vagabond, we came across a bear which needed some persuasion to get off and away from the trail

We reached the river finally and J-PRO stopped here as he wanted to get set up before dark.  He takes a long time to cook because he needs a lot of food.  He's super skinny, but has an insanely fast metabolism.  He's currently eating about 6000 calories per day to just maintain his weight.

Frank and I continued on across the insanely-silty river and arrived at camp about 8 pm (super late for us).

Camp was crowded and there was only one site left.  The mosquitoes were far too bad to think about cowboy camping, the next camp was another 3 miles (on top of the exhausting 26 we've already done), and the site was also too small for my new tent which meant that our only option was for Frank and I to squeeze into her 1-person tent.  It's a tight fit and we'll see how it goes, but I'm not optimistic.