Total: 1263.5
Miles to Chester: 62
Krista arranged for a shuttle to pick us up at the Big Creek Road trailhead at 12pm. I tried to time it so I wouldn’t be late, but also I didn’t want to sit there for an hour. Leaving at normal time seemed like it would be enough, but somehow I was the last to leave. Maybe it was just excitement for town day. I made it up and down the first hill within 3 hours so I thought I was making good timing, but next came a 7 mile hill that seemed to never end. Some of the trail on the ridge kept breaking out from underneath me, where I would push rocks down the hill creating a tiny avalanches of rocks. I’m glad there were no switchbacks, because it would have hit someone. I kept trying to push as far as I could without breaking. And when I really reached felt discouraged, I put some music on to help. I reached Lifeguard about 2 miles from the top taking pictures of flowers. She seemed to be really enjoying her day! It boosted my mood. And sure enough we made it to the top like we have done for all the hills before. Our reward was Lookout Rock which was right on trail. The flat rock jutted out past the cliff face and gave us 180 views of the valley. It was spectacular! The weather felt amazing too up there. It was in the 60s, overcast, and there was a light breeze. The time was now 10:00 am so we had 2 hours to make it less than 4 miles and it was mostly downhill, or as Raechel would call it: net downhill. That’s where there might be some uphill along the way, but it’s more downhill. She started saying that after being scrutinized for being wrong about saying all downhill. Every time we’d go up we’d blame her like she’d blazed the trail herself. Mostly she just never zoomed in far enough on the map to see the little inclines. Anyway, I knew I could enjoy the rest of the hike because I knew I could make it to the trailhead in time. I even stopped to rest on a couple of logs.
While waiting for our ride, we watched a gang of street bikers pass pretty quickly. I mention this because we saw them stopped not too far ahead after one of them crashed. He was ok, but needed some tape to fix his leaking coolant. Lifeguard came to the rescue with Leukotape. The car ride felt relaxing because all I had to do for once was just sit there. No chores or hiking. We saw a lot of the Dixie burn aftermath. There were houses that were just bare bones now. But somehow the Dollar General remained untouched. I can only imagine the employee getting called into work after the fire had passed.
Chester is a lot less stressful than Tahoe. We went straight to our rooms and dropped off our stuff, then ran across a four lane highway to the diner across the street. Seriously, why don’t these small towns have more crosswalks? Then the market was also across the street, so we got our resupply done. The hotel offers laundry for $10 per load, and they will do it all for you! This has to be the least stressful town yet. So with all this extra time, I spent like two hours on the phone with my mom and brother. It was so nice to not feel rushed. Dinner was take out pizza while we flipped between The Proposal and Star Wars. When I got finished brushing my teeth, I realized both boys had laid out their sleeping arrangements on the floor. I don’t know how that happened, but I guess they didn’t want to sleep in the same bed while trying to be nice and let the other have the bed. The stubbornness worked in my favor, because Lifeguard took the bed so we each ended up with a bed to ourselves. I’ll take it.
No comments:
Post a Comment