I got up by my 6am alarm and started packing immediately, filling my water bag at a nearby spigot while doing so. I was ready to leave the park by 6:40. I walked into town looking for a power outlet for my phone to get a little bit of charge while I waited for the Wildwood Cafe to open.
Luckily, when I showed up at the cafe, they opened ten minutes early for me, so I got to plug in right away and order right away. Five minutes later I had a latte. Ten minutes later I had a loaded breakfast burrito (a hard decision–this cafe had every breakfast item you could dream of: breakfast biscuits, croissant sandwiches, pocket omelets, avocado toast, yogurt parfaits, oats with fruit, and every pastry you can imagine). No sooner had the burrito arrived than I was ordering a peach mango smoothie.
Shortly after I had received the latter and eaten the former, I got a call from Sole Saver (Shannon), who was already ready to go five minutes earlier than requested. She had her mom’s car, a puppy, and another hiker who had claimed the front seat and would be starting 20 miles south of me headed north.
I didn’t get many chances to add to the conversation between the other two. They talked pretty much the whole way up to Etna Summit to drop me off. I get the sense they had a lot in common, such as being part of military families. I know nothing about what that’s like, so I mostly just listened.
I was dropped off just before 8am and by the time I got my sunscreen on and hiked out, it was that time. I had to start with a 3 mile climb up from the pass. You never get on trail from town without a long uphill section. Fortunately, even though the sun was already out in full force, the trail stayed on the shady side of the ridge. Even when it briefly switched sides near the end of that long climb, there were enough trees to give me some shade.
I also had to get over a number of snowbanks at that point, large and small. The biggest one, I climbed over and around by kicking little steps into the slope. And of course, to beat the heat, I kept taking handfuls of snow and putting them on the back of my neck under my Buff, which held it all there until it melted (which took somewhat longer than you might guess but not nearly long enough). All in all, the high point of that initial climb was also the high point of the day in terms of scenery, looking down on a lake that itself sat way above the valley below with all the people and their tiny ant-sized buildings in it.
I took a morning snack break on a shady rock just before I reached the outlet of Payne’s Lake, where the water was not near as cold as I would have wanted as I spread the water all over my shirt. I missed the snow already. Then I got to immediately climb another two mile hill.
I was back on the other side of the ridge for the rest of the day, and as midday came and went, so also was the sun. Luckily, clouds had gathered by this time, and there was a several hour period where the sun spent more time behind clouds than beating down on me.
I climbed up to Statue Creek by 2pm, which I deemed lunchtime. I ate sitting on a low rock between two trickling streams. This was clearly the headwaters of the creek in question because no one would call a stream that small a creek by itself. I was disappointed that the first lime from the batch I bought in Etna was bad and already tasted like furniture polish or floor cleaner. I ate it anyway for the vitamins.
As much as I wanted to not be hiking, I had to go on. I dropped elevation very quickly coming out onto the side of the long uninterrupted ridge on which I would spend the rest of the day. For a couple of hours, I crossed several streams per mile. Most were small and cute, but my aim was the last one for the day, a place for another snack break and water collection. It ran under a rock slide over which the trail was built, then popped out just below the trail, where there was a nice rock to sit on and catch it as it fell from the edge of a small pool. There was a bit of shade nearby too, but no place to sit off trail. I ended up sitting with all my stuff in the middle of the trail, but no one else came along to be bothered by it.
My next destination was a dirt road just after an unreliable spring. This meant another two mile steep climb and then a short descent. The spring was actually flowing well, right over the road and down a chipmunk hole drain. I followed the road to a saddle and threw down my Tyvek right in the middle of it. I had dinner sitting on the ground on this rarely used forest service road. There were tons of mosquitos and other bugs, but I had my DEET and headnet.
I didn’t want to quit while there was still light, but I didn’t want to hike after dark either. I rejoined the trail and went another two miles before entering a dark and spooky pine grove nestled in a crook in the ridge. Here I left the trail and climbed straight up the a saddle in the ridge. There were no marked tentsites here, but I got lucky. The saddle was a small clearing, a meadow of sorts. There were more mosquitos than I’d yet seen here, but it was nearly dark, so I set up amongst them.
I was in bed before 10, and going to sleep by 10:30. I was awoken by brief rain showers at 11 and again at midnight, but they were brief and light and did not recur, so there was plenty of sleep to follow to make up for the lack thereof the night before.
Trail miles: 17.0
Distance to I-5: 82.3 miles
snow bank on the trail on one of the hottest days of the year 
The sky was so weird. 
smile 
She is the one who rode with me in the morning 
I almost stepped on this cutie 