Trail Day 97: Tentsite (mile 1588.1) to Sawyers Bar Rd (mile 1597.2) and Etna

9.1 PCT miles, plus 10 miles road walk to Etna

This morning I couldn't afford to be cranky and reset my alarm a bunch of times. I needed to get into Etna as soon as possible to do my town chores, mostly my blog posts. Because I was short on electricity and internet in the last resupply stops, I was almost 2 weeks behind on getting them in the queue for daily postings.

I started hiking in the dark, then got to a stream to fill up on water.  I was going to do a large water carry because I wasn't sure what my water sources would be like on my road walk. While eating breakfast at the stream, I was passed by another northbound thru-hiker named Fastball.  He heard me hiking past his tent and thought I was his hiking buddy, Cucumber, and he rushed to get up. Sorry, Fastball.

I then hiked through a burned area and watched the sunrise through the smoke caused by the current forest fire, just north of Etna summit. When trying to take a picture of this, I noticed my camera battery was dead. I took a picture with my phone and tried using the last bit of juice in my battery pack to charge my camera battery. The battery pack also drained quickly, but it gave the camera battery enough juice to get a few more pictures today. Good thing I am heading into town today.

Smokey sunrise.

As I continued down the trail towards Etna Summit it continued to get smokier. I passed several southbound hikers who wished me luck getting a ride around the fire closures. It made it sound like rides were hard to get.

The fires are near.

I got to the trailhead at Sawyers Bar Rd and saw Fastball and Cucumber waiting to hitch into town. I wished them luck, as it was not a particularly busy road, and turned to walk the 10 miles into town. I was going to walk into town in order to try to maintain my “continuous footpath” from Mexico to Canada.  I had been in contact with Songbeard who seemed to think he could find a road walk alternate around the fire closure. I was going to try to do it too, if possible. My thoughts were: If I already hiked 250 miles with sutures in my knee, what is a little road walk?

Trail closed signs across the way.

The road walk to Etna wasn't bad at all for being 10 miles. It was all downhill, very little traffic, and had a large enough shoulder to walk most of the way. I was carrying water but there were plenty of places to refill if I needed to. Also, road walking is much faster than walking on the trail so I made it to town pretty quickly, even though 3 nice people had stopped to ask if I needed a ride into town.

Sawyers Bar Rd. 

The town itself was a cute small town with large properties (some with horses) and a main street in the center. The town was unfortunately smoked out because of the fires.

Smokey Etna, CA.

I first went to check the motel to see if they had rooms. It was the only motel in town and they only had 10 rooms. Unfortunately, they did not have vacancy.  Cucumber, who had gotten a ride, had gotten a room so he must have snatched up the last one.

I headed to the other option in town, The Hiker Hut, an extension of a local bread and breakfast designed to accommodate hikers. It had a room with a couple bunks, couches, wifi, a shower, and laundry. If the bunks were full you could set up your tent in the yard and still use the amenities, but for a cheaper price.

I originally wanted to avoid The Hiker Hut because I knew it would be a really social place. It is hard to churn out the blog posts with people talking around me and to me, and I had a lot to posts.

When I arrived at the Hiker Hut I saw Spice Merchant.  I couldn't believe that I had caught him. He said that Songbeard and Phoenix had just left today to start their road walk. Pushing all those miles was paying off.

I checked into The Hiker Hut and was able to get the last bunk  (there were only 4) in the air conditioned, forest fire smokeless bunkhouse, which was only $7 more than camping for the night.

I took a shower and it took an embarrassingly long time to scrub all the dirt off. It was hard to tell at times what was a bruise and what was dirt. Then I split a load of laundry with a couple other hikers and wore some “loaner clothes” that the hut provided for hikers while they were in town or doing laundry.

Then I tried uploading blog posts amidst the chaos of the common room. I got several if them up before everyone wanted to go to dinner. By that time I was really hungry. I had jusy come off trail, so I had my hiker hunger, and I hadn't really eaten much of a lunch so I was extra hungry.

We went to Bob's Ranch House where I ordered a malt, a bacon cheeseburger,  fries, and I side salad. I was really hungry and when I had looked in the mirror today I had noticed I was losing weight too rapidly again. I had better fill up.

After dinner I stopped at the Dollar General next door to get food for the small section to Seiad Valley, went back to the hostel, worked on a couple of blog posts, and went to bed.