7/29/14 Tuesday. Flipping To Sierra City To Hike South. 7/30/14 Wednesday. Thunder Rumblings

7/29/14. The Drive to Sierra City and back on the trail, 4.5 miles.

After a weeks rest in Medford, Robin drove Peggy & I  6 hours south to Sierra City where we found the trailhead, said goodbye to him once again and at 2:30pm we disappeared into the woods.

  Once again Robin is our trail angel!

Jane & Peggy at the trailhead near Sierra City.  This clean version of Jane & Peggy won't last long!

It was muggy and warm as we swung our packs on and waved goodbye.  The day before we left Medford it had been 106 degrees.  It was only 75 here but felt damp and warm.  We crossed the Yuba River in the first 1/2 mile.  

A nice bridge crossed the Yuba with great pools below for cooling off but we had a goal in mind so we kept going.

The flies were many and annoying so we both donned head nets to keep them from our eyes, nose, mouth...yuck!

We crossed 2 more bridges and streams where we got our shirts wet to cool off, filtered some water and moved on.  

This is our camp at Milton Creek. Peggy has a new tent, her old one had a broken zipper so she replaced it with another Big Agnes tent (foreground).

A group of 4 hiked in, one woman stayed in the camp site with us and the other 3 guys hiked on. 

Today we saw 4 mountain bikers on the trail.  The PCT is closed to all but hikers and equestrians, we stood our ground and they were nice enough to stop and let us through.  We also nicely but firmly told them they were not on a trail that was open to biking.  Bikes can really tear up the trail as well as being a hazard to horses and hikers. 

Our first day on the trail was finished, we were 4.5 miles on our way to Soda Springs, our next resupply in 3.5 days.

7/30/14. Wednesday. 14 miles

It rained in the night, we'd slept with our tent flys partially off so when I felt the rain on my face I jumped out, secured the fly and noticed headlamps on in the other 2 tents.  We all were covering up.  It didn't rain much, just enough to get slightly wet. I had trouble sleeping so at 5am I felt pretty rummy but we knew it could be hot out again today and it's good to get an early start.  We had a 1,200 ft climb up to 6,000 feet.   Zigzagging around mountains and finally up to a rocky peak we could see the mountains around Sierra City.  

Looking down at Jackson Meadow Reservoir not far from Sierra City. 

At the 9 mile mark we started hearing thunder and could see dark clouds to the east and some overhead. 

Rain coming down to the east. 

We waited too long to take a break, thinking we needed to hurry to beat the storm.  Finally we just needed to stop. Everything hurt and we were both beyond hungry.  We took a quick food & water break, resting sore feet while clouds gathered overhead and thunder rolled.  We needed water and this section didn't have much available so after deciding to keep the break short we went  looking for the water source supposedly nearby.  We found the water down a gully, rested some more while waiting for rain to start pouring down.  When no rain seemed to be falling, we hiked on up the trail looking for a good camp spot.  Some of the coming miles were on ridges & we knew that was not a place to be in a storm.  

Rain in the distance and stormy weather coming our way. 

A Bristle Cone Pine outlined against the dark sky.

We passed 8 day hikers (1 family group) while hurrying across an open mountaintop.  Once we entered the forest again we found a great camp site off the trail tucked in the trees, we were home!

On this part of our hike we are in bear territory and it's advisable if not required to have a bear canister for our food.  We stashed the canisters where they couldn't be rolled off a cliff or into water, set up camp and crashed. Our camp is at 8,000 feet but we were comfortable and not cold at all.