August 31

Distance: 18.7 miles | Ascent: 1530′ | Descent: 5360′

Mile marker: 1151.1

Lunch: J – beef stew (A+), A –

Dinner: J – garlic mushroom orzo (B+), A – cheesy orzo

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Our camp had a great view of the sunrise on Mount Shasta with the sun lighting up the mountain and the fog in the surrounding valleys.

On paper, we had an easy day. And, the first bit of it was! Cruisey trail, minimal climbing and falling, just a pleasant stroll along the ridge and through the woods.

However, we had a serious descent into the Castle Crag wilderness. For nearly four grueling miles, we descended at a constant rate of nearly 600 ft/mile. Like, walking downhill seems easy, right? But the rockiness and exposure made it hot and painful on the feet. Uphill is hard on the muscles, downhill is hard on the joints. I almost would’ve preferred walking up this hill instead of down. Almost.

The saving grace was the great views of Castle Crags peaks.

We saw a rattlesnake! Our first one on this whole trip. He wasn’t mad, just moseying up the hill, probably annoyed that we disturbed his afternoon siesta.

We finally arrived at Castle Crags State Park for the night. It’s a fantastic park with great amenities, including showers! The camp host greeted us and offered a safe place to charge our electronics. We’re lucky we got here when we did. The camp host is heading out tomorrow after spending the whole summer here.

We ran into some friends we had met uptrail and offloaded our extra food onto them. Our miscalculation with the distance and timing in this stretch left us with a lot of extra meals and snacks. We’re glad they’re being used by someone and not left in the hiker box or thrown out.

We have a decent climb tomorrow – not nearly as steep as today’s descent – and we’ll be back at some higher elevation, which should hopefully be a bit cooler. And, tomorrow is September, which is basically fall time, right? No more heat waves, right?