Sierra City to Belden to Chester

It has been on the radar for a while but our hiking friend Wabosh is leaving the trail for 2 weeks to be the best man at his brother's wedding.

Here is Wabosh showing some attitude.

After slack packing into Sierra City my dad picked us up and we headed to Downieville where my cousin Matt was also taking a zero day (though he is further south). He cooked us burgers and my Aunt was there to keep us happy and serve us pie and ice cream. Amazing night after a long 36 mile day.

The next day, Wabosh wanted to push a pretty ridiculous pace to have a good shot at finishing when he got back and the rest of us decided to try and keep up. It wasn't easy! We hiked 18 out of Sierra City and then hiked 35 miles the next day followed by another 30 mile day. The next day we popped down into Belden, where the drug/rave scene is sadly apparent in the quality of the restaurant service, and then climbed 5000 feet up and out the same day. That was something like 26 miles. Anyways we made it to Chester today, and I finally got to catch up on my blog. 

Tomorrow is 4th of July and we hit the thrift store to party down on our zero mile day tomorrow. 

The dentist office in town is amazing! It gives hikers free 20 dollar vouchers to a local pizza place. That's the last spot we were with Wabosh. He left to go back to the trail and push 170 miles in 6 days. It wasn't worth it to us to go that fast so we let him go. 

From left to right: hike-a-while, me (Lorax), Zen, and Wabosh.

Tonight we are staying in a local RV park as all the motels are booked. The dentists office paid for our night. Wow. 

Also I woke up to this!

And I saw my first bear of the trip yesterday. Awesome. My dad called it too saying bears would be around the Oroville area. He grew up there.

Oh yeah!! The PCT mid point was this morning! That's 1,325 miles down and the same to go! 

I feel like I'm so dialed in to my hiking that the second half will fly by far faster than the first half. That's assuming we beat the rain in Washington, though. The rain really gets to me. 

Oh, a note on my charity over at http://hike4hope.org - the goal has been raised from 2,650 dollars to 5,000. We reached our original goal before halfway so we decided to raise it. Thanks so much for reading.

Take Care,

Luke