Panoramic views of Mt Shasta.

We have made some good miles today, so as we should be in camp plenty early, we decided to stop here on the ridge & just sit & enjoy the view of Mt Shasta. Using the great stitching app in my iPhone, I can recreate the experience for you too... Well, kinda!
Hope you like.
Cheers.
RWK.
Viewing.

Another '14-er'

We got our first really good look at another '14-er' today... Mount Shasta. Pretty impressive as it is by far the largest thing around for miles!

Burney Falls State Park.

GeoTagged, [N40.98204, E121.61793]

What a difference a day makes...
Yesterday, we were getting royally toasted as we dropped down through the volcanic scrub of Lassen State Forest along the Hat Creek Rim Trail... But today, after a spectacular lightning & thunder storm last night, the air is cool and crisp, the forest is quiet, and the smells are amazing. Waves of olefactory nostalgia are washing over me as I try to recollect the memories of when and where I have experinced the smells before... It's awesome! Plus, the trail is wide and smooth, and as opposed to yesterdays dry upper 90's heat, the trekking is easy in this cool 60 F we have now.
We just stopped for second breakfast, and are overlooking a huge lake... In another 3 miles we will hit the falls of the park where maybe we'll have 3rd breakfast!
RWK
Smellin'!

I can almost smell the bacon...

Well, at around 1400 hrs today, we officially crossed the half-way point on the trail! 1325 miles done, 1325 to go.
Going by the data books Tom has, we knew we were roughly going to cross the half-way point sometime in the afternoon, but it was pretty sweet to find a proper marker.

As we have passed various milestones along the way, we have seen some clever ways of indicating the miles: 400 & 500 were both written in pine cones, 900 was big sticks and 1000 nicely done in large stones. My favourite though, was 600. The '6' was made up of a few sticks, but the two '0's were two big fat round dry cow-pats! Classic!!
So now, at roughy 1335 miles done, we are stopped for the night, ensconsed in our tents to avoid the bugs, & waiting to see if the rumbling overhead actually yeilds any rain tonight. We did get a bit of a downpour earlier as we stopped for lunch (lousy timing!), but since then it has been dry. Cooler too, which made the afternoons hike a bit easier.
Ok, time to upload then sleep!
Half-way! Yer-har!!
Cheers.
RWK.
Out.

A great Roadwarriors tradition...

OK, so this post isn't coming from my iPhone, but from my Eee PC... We are in Quincy, taking a planned rest day and I am doing the big web-update and picture/video back-up.

The reason I am "blogging" (ugh!) from the Eee PC is so I can upload a VIDEO clip... something different for a change! And I know it is rough and unedited... if I had my Mac, it'd be Speilberg-worthy... but I don't. Though I will gladly accept a donation of a nice light Macbook Air if anyone wants to send me one... hahaha.

Anyway, since we started our adventures, Tom and I have developed some... well, many, odd habits, sayings and traditions. Quite a few of these have been happily shared and passed on to some of the fellow travelers that we have met along the way, and especially adopted by the friends we have made... Ryan and Spencer in particular.
So, in honour of those 2 cray-zee guys, Tom and I followed one of our favourite traditions of the Throwing of the Rock!
Check it out..

Cheers,
RWK.
Throwin'!

Sierra City rest stop.

Well, we are back on the trail again after an unplanned rest stop in Sierra City.
We intended dropping into town, resupplying, & being back on the trail by lunchtime... But that didn't happen.
2 days after leaving Tahoe, Tom's new shoes had a blow-out... Well, the heel fell off of one of them. So we needed to get back to Reno to swap them out.
As always, our great trail-angel Stacie was there to give us a ride. A 4 hour round trip too, so we really appreciated her help.
Once the shoes were swapped, we got some shopping in the bigger city, then headed back to Sierra City... Well ' city' because lovely as it is, the population is just over 200.

Toms feet have been giving him some of the same sore blister problems I'd been suffering earlier, so we ended up deciding to spend the night camping at the church with some other thru-hikers, as well as provide some patronage to the great store there ( cold sodas... Aaah! ) & the bar, where a damn good BBQ chicken was on the menu.
This morning, feet rested & taped up to Egyptian mummy proportions, Tom & I hit the trail beginning with a 2500 ft climb out of the valley and up to the Sierra Buttes. From there we have mostly enjoyed fairly level ' ridge-running' ( not that we are running..) following the ridge-tops along through the pines.
Stopping for a short break just now, I took a few pix with my iPhone & used a great stitching app to create a panoramic of the view before me... Seeing as i also had a signal, i thought I'd get busy typing this too...So I hope it uploads & displays ok!
Catcha again soon.
RWK
Out.

The climb from Granite Chief.

GeoTagged, [N39.20313, E120.22071]

After a good nights sleep down at 5 Lakes Creek, we made our way up & over Granite Chief, dropped back down to a green valley, and have just made the second climb of the day to Tinkers Knob, & the junction along the Northern Ridge.
The views are great & the trail is pretty smooth, do we hope it keeps up as we head along this afternoon!
Onward!
RWK.
Out.