Phew… I did not win any “husband of the year” awards today… let’s just say that to start. This morning it took 90 minutes to get moving and I got… impatient…after about the 1 hour mark, but a lot was working against us. For one - there was more weird deer shit in the night. The evening before, Amanda put her socks out to dry on a rock and this morning one was missing. What we think happened was that a deer walked through camp, because we definitely heard it dicking around in the woods near our tent, and spotted Amanda's socks, at which point it attempted to eat one, failed at that and threw it back up on the ground. Filled with shame, we think it attempted to bury the sock, which it did poorly, before stumbling off into the woods. Deer are so weird. We extrapolated all of this based on a few noises in the night and the fact that her sock was very damp and poorly buried under some pine needles near where she had left it. In any case, the sock incident mixed with just general exhaustion, made for a slow morning which I did not handle as well as I could have. No poise and grace from this guy. So we started with a bit of chippyness which prevailed through most of the morning.
Today’s route continues down the same Chip’s creek drainage we had fought through the day before. More steep grades, more golf balls and more overgrowth. The trail maintains above the bottom of the drainage before switching down and running out to the Feather River and accompanying road. About 1000 feet separated our camp the night before and the river itself. At the Feather River highway the trail runs parallel to the road, occasionally climbing above the road before eventually crossing it and the Feather river itself and making its way into Belden town. At Belden town, the trail crosses back west, against itself for about a quarter mile before delivering hikers to the foot of one of the more memorable climbs on the PCT - the Belden Grade. Admittedly, this is a descent for most NOBO’s but, in our current position, it was a climb. The trail crawls up a brutal grade for the next 7 miles gaining 4000 feet in the same distance. The worst part? The “hill” up which the grade makes its way doesn’t even have a name - just, “Nameless Peak” or something. At mile 13, the grade finally takes a break, but continues a light climb on the south side of an east-west running ridge. Southeast of Mt. Pleasant, the PCT finally peaks and maintains an annoying up-and-down cadence while gorgeous “sierra-ish” lake basins unfold below. Just after mile 20, a trail runs off northeast to Spanish peak while the PCT turns due south and descends to Buck’s Summit road.
One of the reasons I might have been a little off this morning was that I was secretly holding out hope we could make it to Bucks Lakeshore Resort by the end of the day. I should really stop doing this because it injects an unnecessary amount of anxiety into our days but I jump at any chance to get a burger now - for better or worse. Once the whole deer-sock situation had been put to bed and we had gotten some food and caffeine in us, we started off downhill on the bowling alley. The walk was quiet and tense as we skirted above the Chips river - in fact, I was encouraged to “walk ahead” since I seemed to be in such a big hurry. As the trail continued to descend, moods improved and by the time we had reached the road, everything had pretty much smoothed over. At the base we found ourselves looking up at a historic mining facility built by “Joshua Hendy Iron Works’ which we immediately took a picture of to send to our friend Josh. As we walked across the parking lot next to the road, some power line technicians beckoned us over and offered us water. Begrudgingly - because I was still hoping for the burger - I went over to talk with them and accepted the bottled water. Having done a lot of work on lines near the PCT they were familiar with the trail and peppered us with the typical questions. We happily relayed our experience and chatted with them for a while. They offered us some apples which we accepted before thanking them and moving on…to the pit toilet, which we both made use of.
At 5.6 miles in, we crossed the Feather River - a beautiful granite floored river spanned by an old trestle bridge - and entered Belden town. In Belden town we were met by silence. Literally, nothing was open. We had been forewarned about this on FarOut but still - sucked to find it so abandoned. It sounds like everything comes alive around 4 pm so I guess if you can get here in the evening it’s amazing but ‘twas not the case for us. In any case, we stopped at a bench and took a quick rest. As we sat there, a younger, bean pole of a kid showed up behind us and asked if we thought anything was open. We smiled and said we had seen on FarOut that nothing was likely going to open for some time. He looked at us a little absently before saying “oh well, i’m going to go pick some apples then.” Sure enough, there was an apple tree behind him that he promptly went up to and began foraging. We laughed silently before shouldering our backpacks to start the climb. “See you in a bit,” we called over our shoulder as we began our venture out of Belden town.
The road led back westward along the southern edge of the Feather River. It was a beautiful day and still relatively cool, which we were so grateful for. The trail climbed up, slightly, to a railroad where we crossed and started the climb in earnest. Amanda and I were now on slightly better terms so I turned to her and said “you ready?” “Let’s get it done with” she replied and, just like that, we were on our way up. There was one thing I was worried about today more than the steepness of the grade. FarOut had been very clear that poison oak was everywhere along the climb and they were not wrong. Almost immediately, I noticed shiny green and red leaves crowding in from the side of the trail. “Is that poison oak?” Amanda asked, pointing to one of many small bushes on the side of the trail. “Yea,” I replied “it’s everywhere.” When I was 12, my family moved out of California to Oregon and just about every year after that, throughout my teens, I had one major Poison Oak incident a year. They were not light incidents either. I’ve had my eyes swollen shut and rashes over 70-80 percent of my body. Let’s just say - memorable experiences with the stuff - but after I was about 17 years old, the reactions just stopped and it had been a long time since an incident. Even so - seeing those oily leaves didn’t make me too comfortable. “Try not to touch it if you can,” I murmured to Amanda as we wound our way up and up.
We climbed in silence. The grade was brutal but we made good progress. There is something about committing to a dedicated climb that is encouraging. It’s like you know every step is progress and there is comfort in that. An hour brought us up a few thousand feet and we stopped to talk to a woman coming down the grade. She indicated that we had come up a ways but that we still had a thousand feet or so to go. We thanked her, ate some “pocky-yakis” and then returned to the grade. A little further one we passed Joe and Sarah who had stopped in the shade of a granite boulder. We talked for a little bit and commented on a herd of deer below. Amanda told them about her deer experience the night before, which elicited some laughter, and we continued on. Another 45 minutes brought us to the first of many mini summits for the day and we proceeded to dip in and out of the contours of a ridgeline. The views now that we were on top were amazing. We sped along the ridgeline and stopped around mile 15 to fill water at Mill creek. Here, we ran into a familiar face, Jay, whom we last saw at the Italian restaurant in Idyllwild 93 days before. He had originally been with Charlie’s group but had made it a point to try to get to all of the “high-point” sidequests along the trail and had fallen a bit behind. We chatted with him for a while, while I filled up our water, and eventually went our separate ways. We crossed Mill creek and committed to a much smaller but still despised climb up out of the little Mill creek river valley to a saddle near Mt. Pleasant. It was not pleasant… On top, though, we were treated to more epic views of a landscape looking more and more like Yosemite with every step. We hiked along the edge of a steep precipice, which plunged down into deep, granite cirques with little pools nestled in the bottom.
The trail continued in a despised up-and-down fashion as it made its way along a southeast running ridge. I got some cell service and looked up the Buck’s Lakeshore Lodge which suggested that the bar would be open until 8. “I think we can make this,” I said to Amanda. We sped along, hope of a burger and beer putting a little more speed in our step. At this point in the day, if I have an objective, I start doing math. Like - it’s 4 o’clock and we are walking at 2.4 miles per hour and we have 8 miles to go - okay, this is going to be a close one. And it always is, it always seems to be close. In any case, at the turnoff to Spanish peak, the trail began it’s nosedive down to Buck’s Summit. So began the endless descent, complete with a few annoying switchbacks. On the way down, we re-passed Joe and Sarah as well as the bean-pole of a kid setting up about a mile before the summit. They waved and we yelled that we were “risking it for the biscuit,” which, in this case, was a burger and beer. “Good luck,” they called back.
A seemingly endless set of switchbacks brought us down to a road. We saw a few good tent pads that we thought might work as a backup and Amanda took a restroom stop while I headed out to the road to see if I could flag down a car. I have to admit, hope was running low because we had had the road in our sights for a good hour and I had heard maybe one car on the entire descent. None-the-less, I settled myself on the side of the road and waited. Amazingly, 30 seconds brought the sounds of an approaching vehicle up the road. It was going the wrong way but it was coming. I threw my thumb out and a sheepish grin on my face as a mid 2000’s Toyota Tacoma raced up to the saddle. As soon as the driver saw me he threw on his brakes and pulled over. A middle-aged male face asked “where are you headed.” “I know it’s the wrong way, but my wife and I were hoping to get to Buck’s Lake Resort tonight.” Amazingly he just smiled and told me he would be happy to take us down there. “Thank you so much,” I said with a huge grin on my face. He jumped out and got to work getting his tailgate down and I called up to Amanda who didn’t respond. A few more shouts brought her out in a bit of a hurry as I loaded up my backpack. She reached the truck and added her backpack to the chaos before jumping in the truck looking at me sideways. Evidently, my calls for her to come down to the road had sounded a little frantic and she thought something was wrong. In any case, the driver flipped a U-ee and headed back towards Bucks lake.
15 minutes brought us down to the lake and the front steps of Buck’s Lakeshore resort where we thanked our driver, tried to give him 10 bucks, which he refused, and unloaded ourselves into the resort. Resort might be too strong of a word, but it was a very nice lodge and we stowed our things out of the way in the entrance and found our way to the bar. A kindly middle-aged man was conversing with a large group of regulars but eventually extracted himself to come get our order. “Is the kitchen still open,” I said with a weak smile. “For you guys, I think it can still be,” he said with a wry smile. “That would be amazing,” I said. Amanda and I both ordered burgers and I got a 10% IPA because, you know, it had been a day and that sounded like a great way to round it out. The burger was AMAZING. I really don’t think it was the rabbid hunger talking, this burger was one of the best on the trail. Not quite better than Yaks, but easily #2 or 3 on the trail so far. While we ate, we asked the bartender if he knew of anywhere we could sleep. We had heard the campground was full and that there might be a state campground about a mile or so up the road - but walking was going to be rough after a 25 mile day. “Tell you what,” the bartender said, “ you see the volleyball court behind you.” We turned and, sure enough, there was indeed a green space with a volleyball net behind us. “I don’t generally offer this out, so please don’t post it, but feel free to stay there tonight so you don’t have to walk the road out tonight.” We thanked him profusely and he just smiled before getting back to the large group of regulars. We ate, talked and drank for another hour before the bar eventually started to shut down. We helped turn up the chairs in the bar before saying thanks again to the bartender/owner and making our way out to the nice volleyball court, setting up our tent next to a large propane tank. Clouds were forming overhead and a front was making itself obvious out west of us. “I think we should probably put the rainfly on tonight,” I said to Amanda. “You mean the rainfly that doesn’t work?” Amanda said back, half joking. “Yea…” I replied “that one.” Another 15 minutes had us set up and on our backs, with full stomachs looking up at the inside of the rainfly. We both fell asleep shortly after as the first raindrops began to fall from the sky.
