July 27, 2008 Pacific Crest Trail

Destination: Saddle near Bartle Gap
Miles: 23.5

Adrian:
The trail today was very much overgrown with manzanita and creosote, two very strong and tough shrub types. This does two things; shred your legs if you're not wearing pants, and breaks any breeze that might be swirling above you with the cooling power you need to keep from getting drenched in sweat. At least the trail was easy to follow with the help of tape on trees.

We walked through a mixture of awesome pine forests, clear cuts, and oak groves. This morning we crossed a big dam on Lake Britton. Water was gushing out the base and slamming into concrete dividers creating quite a spectacle. On the trail with us were Moonshine, Tiger Lily, Kathleen, iPod, Chris and Johnny Cache. Yep, we caught those two again. It's kinda fun catching people and being caught on the trail. It can totally change the dynamic of your hike.

Well, it's getting dark and my stuff is laying all over the place here in camp. Kirsten is in the tent and I'm headed there now. Good night and God bless you all.

Kirsten:
I had big aspirations of hiking 25 or more miles today and ended up completely bonking out. We still managed to eck out 23 miles or so. I guess it's sort of comforting that even on the hard days I can still manage to hike more than 20 miles.

I still can't quite believe that we've passed Burney Falls State Park. I remember back in April packing up our food boxes and thinking, "Will we ever reach Burney?" It seemed so far at the time.

A word about section O, the part of the trail we're walking through. I've been warned about it for some time now. The highlights up to this point have been poison oak so thick it's impossible to avoid and large clear-cut areas. Not exactly the most picturesque section. There have been a few beautiful sections of forest and I hope they don't suffer the same fate as some of these other logging areas. I'm not going to go on some environmental tirade. It's just a little sad to walk amongst these giant and then come upon a clear-cut area.