Milestones

Leaving our much needed respite in Sierra city, we began our climb up the Yuba Buttes with wings on our feet and feathers for packs. We switch-backed up the trail for hours, slowly climbing towards the picturesque fire lookout that stands above everything else. The trail here was poorly maintained, overgrown with sticker bushes, making for slow miles over the exposed scree. We passed several flowing springs through here, many adorned with one of our favorite flowers, the tiger lily.

The following day we had quite a surprise; as we followed the trail through the woods, we startled a golden eagle catching its prey. Before we could recognize what was happening, this massive bird took flight between the two of us, just a couple feet overhead. In the middle of all the commotion, the eagle lost grip of its prey and dropped it, missing our heads by a yard or two. For several minutes we stood in awe of what had just happened, unable to speak, as neither one of us had ever been that close to a golden eagle before. A treat to remember for years to come. 

Thinking back to when we climbed Mt. Whitney, we ascended over 4000ft on our way to the summit. This gave rise to the term, “Whitney Days,” where we climb a comparable amount of elevation, if not more. Lucky for us, all of our days through this section were Whitney days, maxing out at 5500ft over a 23 mile day. With heat advisories all around, we were fortunate enough to intersect the North fork of the Feather river, providing one of the best swimming holes to date. We floated through the “rapids” on our bellies, explored the deep pockets, and basked in sun on our watery thrones. In the evening we were treated an amazing campsite on Lookout rock, where we enjoyed both an epic sunset and sunrise across the smokey skies to the East.

Four and a half days after we left Sierra city, we arrived in Belden Town. Though there was very little to constitute a town, the area plays host to many music festivals during the warm months. As the timing worked out, we arrived into the canyon just as preparations were underway for the StillDream electronic music festival. As the PCT runs directly through the grounds, we were granted free admittance and a good time. We set up a base camp, and within the few hours, tents, canopies, coolers, dogs and everything in-between began to fill in the space around us. It quickly became evident that we had a very desirable spot, sheltered from the sun for the majority of the day. By Friday afternoon, there was hardly a walkway left to navigate between and through all the tents. For once, these dirty hikers with made up names didn’t stick out in the crowd, often getting praise from music fans when they learned that we had hiked in. We stayed for a couple days enjoying the music, and catching up with other hikers we hadn’t seen in hundreds of miles. By Saturday there were probably close to 80 of us slowly taking over the festival, getting sucked in to the bright lights and loud music. We hiked out that night, breaking another 5500ft climb into two pieces.

As we slowly worked our way North towards Mt. Lassen, the first of our Cascade volcanoes, we hit a couple of exciting milestones. On the first of August, we celebrated Mandalynn’s 30th birthday, one of the inspirations for taking this trip when we did. Simultaneously, we crossed the halfway point of trail. For the first time in 105 days, we can say that we are closer to Canada than Mexico. We just hope that this second half will go much faster than the first. If this didn’t generate enough excitement, then we are very excited to announce that Mandalynn and I got engaged, making for a very full day. After 18 miles, we landed in town of Chester, where we finished celebrating her birthday and the newest development in our relationship. That’s all for now, but more updates to come soon.

Cheers from the trail,
Stump & Mandalynn