Walking through Ash
- klamarre5
- Jul 10
- 3 min read
Hi everyone!
Service has been hard to find out on the trail and I think that will continue. I'm sitting in the town of Old Station, California. It's been an interesting few days on the trail. I spent the last number of days walking through the aftermath of the Dixie fire from 2021. I've seen the results of fire fires back home, but the scale of this one in Northern California is beyond words.....over 963,000 acres.
I, along with a number of others, did skip over a portion of this traill. Some of the trail in this area is very difficult to navigate through.....many blow downs and thorney brushes taking over the landscape. I've had some bloody shins for a few days until I figured out to cut the toe part of my extra socks off and pull them up over my chins. Worked wonderfully!
In skipping over a section I got to talk some trail angels who were locals. Very interesting to hear how that fire has transformed communities and people's individual lives out here.
I teamed up with another hiker to go through this burn area. Always nice to have a second set of eyes. Ryan and I traveled a couple days together until he got sick. A couple days ago we slowly got him off the trail and down to town. It was the first time I wondered if we were going to have to press the SOS inreach button for him. Luckily we were able to walk him out. Medical stuff takes on a whole new level in the Backcountry.
Yesterday I hiked 19 miles through the Backcountry of Lassen Volcanic National Park. I got up at 3:45am to get started early to beat some of the heat. There is very little shade in the burn zone. I traveled for 10 hours on my own through a vast expanse of burnt trees . The trail was flat almost the whole way .......which is unheard of on the PCT. I did a 360 a few times during the hike. There was no one out there........like I was the only one on the planet. I've had that feeling a couple times on this trip. I actually thoughly enjoyed the hike! No thorn bushes......that in itself made it a wonderful hike. But even though it was burned, it was beautiful. You could see forever. Lassen peak stayed a constant companion off my left shoulder for much of the hike. The snow on the peak was a stark difference to the hot dry valley I was traveling through. But the burnt valley was beautiful in its own way. There were hikers that skipped this portion. I'm glad I didn't!
I continue to take my time and I'm thoughly still enjoying the trail. Tomorrow I'll make it to Burney Falls. I might spend a couple days there exploring.
In about 10 days I'll arrive in Dunsmuir. I've decided I will pull off the trail there for the season. Logistically it's a great spot to end (and start again) in the future. The return to the trail has been absolutely incredible! I'll share more when I get to Dunsmuir. But for now, I have some more trail to explore!
I put together a video of the last number of days. The link is below. I hope you enjoy!
I hope everyone is doing well! Take care!