Stories from Echo Lake to Etna

So right now I am sitting in the middle of nowhere California, aka a small town called Etna, that is about 100 trail miles from the Oregon border.  I wasn't planning on stopping in Etna, but when left Castella on Tuesday morning, which is about an hour north of Redding, Ca,  my right ankle started to hurt.  The worse part is that it didn't get any better, so I had to take a stop in Etna to figure out my foot.

After some talking to another hiker that was a nurse, I figured out that I have shin splints in my right leg.  This means that I will be spending my next few days icing my leg, staying off my feet, and trying to get rid of this, so I can get back on trail.  It is so hard to stop because I am so close to the Oregon border.  After more than three months of hiking in California, I am so ready to leave the state and get into the Pacific Northwest.

For those who have been waiting to hear about the trail since Echo Lake, here is a quick run down of the trail since then.  At Echo Lake on the 4th of July, a friend meet me there to hike with me for a day and it was a nice change to hike with someone.  The hike around Lake Tahoe was surprisingly disappointing because for the most part you never saw the lake and I never got close enough to swim in it.  It was one of the things I had looked forward to for weeks.

The next stop after Tahoe was in a place called Sierra City, a great old mining town.  The nicest couple opened their home and yard for us hikers to use and make us feel at home.  I was talking to the wife about how they started helping out hiker and she said when they moved to Sierra City, she thought it was strange why there were so many homeless people in this small little town in the middle of gold country.  After talking to some hiker, they figured out who and what were were.

After Sierra City, I went home for a week in the middle of July, went through this weird town call Belden (they have raves on the weekend and I walked though town around 515 am on a Saturday.  It was an interesting experience to say the least), meet up with my parents and younger brother in Lassen National Park (see earlier post), and then the weather turned hot again.

I thought that Northern California would be cool and comfortable weather wise but it turned out to be like a desert but with trees.  For about a week, the temps were in the high 90s and low 100s and it was miserable.  In the middle of this, I had to hike Hat Creek Rim, the longest, most exposed, driest section of the whole trail.  It was about 33 miles, so I had to night hike this section because otherwise I couldn't take enough water to last me.

After Hat Creek Rim, I stopped by Burney Falls State Park (the falls were fantastic) through Castella and then into Etna.  Lately, the trail has had a lot of fire near it so the last week or so has been very smokey and hazy but no threat to the trail as of yet.  Until I get my shin splints healed, I will be in Etna and trying to enjoy my time and not get to anxious to leave.