After finishing my meal
and recharging my cell phone batteries, I retraced my steps back through the
campground, past the pickups and horse trailers, to where I could pick the
trail up again. It was now dark and I didn’t want to walk any farther, so
I went off into the woods and with the help of my headlamp, clear a space on
the ground underneath the trees and laid out my bedroll.
Heading north, the trail
builders now had a difficult decision to make – route the trail low, around
private land holdings where water from Hat Creek was available in the valley
adjacent to Highway 89 or build it high on the valley’s volcanic rim, where no
water was available. For whatever reason, thirty miles of waterless trail
was built high on Hat Creek Rim, a volcanic plateau that overlooked Hat Rim
Creek in the valley far below.
Like many points on the
trail that require true grit, great physical effort, and prolonged endurance to
succeed, the upcoming thirty-mile section of volcanic, waterless trail had a
reputation that will demand the best effort on the part of any hiker setting
foot on the trail. It was not exactly the same as the eighty miles of mud
and salty muck that the Donner Party faced in crossing the salt flats south of
the Great Salt Lake, but the Hat Creek Rim Trail is a second cousin. I
started the trail this morning with five liters of water and was confident it
will be enough to see me through to the next water source, even if the water
caches along the way were dry.
From my camping site
last night, the trail climbed a small ridge, and then paralleled Highway 89 for
several miles before crossing Highway 44 that came off the top of Hat Creek
Rim. The drop off the rim appeared to be at the same location as the
original William Noble 1852 trail.
Much of the vegetation
at the beginning of the rim trail had been destroyed by one or more forest
fires, and the resident land manager had cut down many of the blackened trees,
leaving a vast, wide-open space that was currently being reseeded. From
the top of the rim, I could look west into the valley far below and see traffic
moving along Highway 89. It was, indeed, hot and dry on the rim with
little shade. In the early afternoon after walking for several hours
along the dusty and rocky trail, I rested for a bit in the sparse shade of a
juniper tree. Yashinka passed me, but did not see me lying on the ground
under the tree.
There were two prominent
geographical features that dominated the view from the rim; first, the massive
lava flow on the valley floor, just below the rim, whose origin was some
unnamed volcano to the north; and secondly, snow-covered Mount Shasta about
seventy-five miles to the north as the crow flies.
I walked until nine that
evening, and then camped on a small rock outcropping overlooking the Hat Creek
Valley below. The temperatures were moderate today, so the hiking wasn’t
as bad as anticipated. The moon was full, and there was no wind to
disrupt the serenity of the evening. Far in the distance to the north
were the blinking red lights that signaled the presence of many wind turbines,
and indeed, during today’s walk, I could see the outline of numerous turbines
on ridges below Mount Shasta. I covered twenty-six miles today, one of my
better days, primarily because there were no uphill climbs.
I was on the trail by
four thirty this morning; I was wide awake at four o'clock, and it just seemed
a shame to waste valuable walking time lying in bed. Five hours of
walking should get me ten miles by 10:00 a.m. Preparing for the trail, I
put my Camelbak hydration pack on first, followed by my backpack. I still
suffered pain from wearing the backpack, especially late in the day, but I have
just learned to live with it.
As I began the morning’s
trek, I noticed tiny little piss ants were crawling all over my shirt and
hydration pack. I brushed them off, but they kept reappearing. For
most of the day, I found ants still crawling on my shirt. After an
investigation, I discovered that the bulk of the ants were inside the sleeve
that held the hydration pack. I had been putting powdered flavoring in my
water reservoir and some of the flavored water had spilled inside the sleeve.
The ants discovered the sugar water, and during the night, a whole colony
took up residence in the bottom of the hydration sleeve; they got high on the
liquid, and forgot to leave in the morning.
I encountered two water
caches on the rim walk; one was sheltered under a large juniper tree that had
the appearance of an Indian wickiup, complete with lounge chairs, and the other
was beside a communication’s tower, known as cache 22, named for State Road 22
that passed in front of the tower. I still had plenty of water by the
time I found these caches, but I took advantage of both of them and refilled my
water containers.
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