July 26, 2008 Pacific Crest Trail

Destination: Burney Falls State Park Campground
Miles: 20

Adrian:
We are camped at Burney Falls State Park campground in the hiker/biker sites. The only other person sharing the site with us is Joel, a PCTer.

Burney Falls starts as a dry creek and in a half mile becomes California's biggest waterfall in terms of volume; bigger than any of the falls in Yosemite. It's secret is a series of springs that start as a trickle and soon become a raging torrent.

The park has a nice store where we bought a hotdog and some soda while picking up the resupply box we sent here. Moonshine, Tiger Lily, and iPod are with us. Since we packed to much food in the box way back in April, they got to score some free food. Most of the stuff was from Trader Joe's, so we are eating well this stretch.

Smoke still limits visibility and thus our views of Mount Shasta. It's been real hazy since Mammoth at mile 906. Crazy. There's another fire near Etna that I hear has been out for some time but still has 20 miles of the PCT closed causing a 40-mile road walk. We hope the trail will be reopened by the time we get up there.

All is well. I hope everyone will pray for less smoke and fire in Cali!

Kirsten:
We woke up this morning and jetted down to our next on trail water about seven miles north. The dust and heat seemed a little better today. Although the promise of food - real food - at the Burney Falls campground may have eased any discomfort caused by the blazing sun.

I was shocked by how much food we sent ourselves. How could we have been that far off? We probably packed seven days of food in the box we shipped to Burney Falls. The food amounts were off. Way off. The food choices we made were brilliant. Chocolate-covered espresso beans, for one. The joy we got out of opening the box and tearing through the contents made me realize how much we or at least I think, dream, and obsess about food. I wasn't like this before getting on the trail. There were the occasional cravings usually centered around a favorite dish at a restaurant. These days I think about food all the time. Sometimes I imagine what I might buy in the next town. Other times I reminisce about meals in my past. It's sort of sad and scary when I think of how many hours I spend daydreaming about food while I hike. So you ask, what did I eat today once we arrived at the campground? Hmmmm. A hot dog, soda, ice cream bar, tortilla chips and then an assortment of snacks from our box!
Then I had dinner.