22 July - Day 92 - Shasta Town!

From ridge camp in the woods (Mile 1493) to Highway 5 (Mile 1506.5)

Total PCT Miles hiked today: 13.5

Pan here.

We got up with no water for our coffee, so broke camp early and headed down to find a spring. But town food started calling to us, so we skipped coffee at the spring, drank water instead, and kept banging out the miles. What a strange and wonderful descent! Beautiful woods clinging to the steep mountainsides that our narrow trail neatly cut across.

We crossed the 1500-mile mark!

We pass the 1500-mile mark!!

Pan phoning a local taxi in the shade of a boat for sale. Sunny and hot!

After 13.5 miles, we reached the bottom. We crossed the Sacramento River on a broad bridge and faced a freeway. What to do? Hitchhiking on a freeway is tough.

We hiked on the freeway (with a policeman's permission) to the next off ramp, hiked down it to the frontage road, then by road and trail we hiked to the town of Dunsmuir. There we drank beer and ate ice cream at a gas station convenience store, and asked about rides to the town of Mt Shasta, 13 miles away.

We finally phoned a cab, and soon were off to town.

Shasta. Interesting town. The cabbie gave us a DVD of his guru teaching Eastern Enlightenment, Shasta style. We noticed lots of crystal shops ... a small town with LOTS of shops selling crystals. And the gray-haired men in town had ponytails. And facial hair. And lots of paintings on the sides of buildings of the 14,179-ft tall Mt. Shasta looming to the north. According to our cabbie, some local spiritual groups worship the mountain. "Shastafarians." We could understand, in a way, why. It has such visual & emotional impact.

Checked into our hotel, picked up our packages (though this Best Western had returned most of of our packages saying we should have notified them ahead of time. VERY frustrating -- and unlike other hotels on the PCT.

Seano at the hotel.

Sean's new shoes next to his current ones!

In town, we saw Dirty Brown, a few other hikers, then later bumped into Data and got food & drink at the local pub where he had just been eating & drinking; he stayed and chatted and drank some more.

Then we headed back for laundry and showers and all the other necessities. Data hung out in our room -- and drank beer. That evening the five of us went out for Dionysus's birthday meal at a lovely little restaurant. The restaurant turned out to be a dud. Argh.

Most aggravating.

Oh well, back to the Best Western for rest. [How compulsively we watch any old stuff on TV -- the visual stimulation is entertaining all in itself, despite parts of our brains protesting how vacuous the content of whatever movie it is. Oh well.]

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