Day 11: Northfork Creek to Sierra club hut near Donner's pass

20.4 miles/ 112 total

"Juicy" strolls into my campsite about 6pm last night and decides to set up camp. He's dirty and too tan, but is the first honestly attractive person I've seen on the trail. I'm already hunkered down for the night, and am making conversation by peaking my head out of my tent. He comments on the fire pit, and I tell him if there's a fire, I'll probably come out of my tent. Fifteen minutes later I am outside, enjoying the fire and new conversation. He's 24, and a bit of a hotshot, but we laugh and joke with each other, and I find myself enjoying the company. I trade him a piece of chocolate for a fresh flour tortilla, and we both warm up a tortilla over the fire, and comment that it's the best thing in the world. We stay up until almost 8:30, though we both said we wanted to go to sleep early. He's planning on doing 26 miles tomorrow to get to Donner's Pass and the small restaurant there that gives PCT hikers a free beer. Suddenly I'm wondering if I could do 26 miles, too, but I go to bed thinking probably not. He wakes up at 4:30, is out of the campsite by 5. I've been awake for a couple hours (as per usual) because I'm so cold, but my stomach has been churning, so I pull my sleeping bag up over my head, and toss and turn until 7:30. I'm out of camp by 8:14, having had to go to the bathroom a number of times already, and am convinved I have Giardia. I still want to make it to that restaurant today, but I know it would be a hard press.

 

My stomach starts to ease up, and I make 9 miles by noon, feeling strong for the first time on the trail. At a trailhead marker I see a piece of paper with my name on it--it's from Bernadette! She says she missed the campsite, and eneded up camping a few miles north. She apologizes for missing it, and I am sad that I won't be able to say a proper goodbye to her.

 

I stop at a creek to drain some blisters (gross), retape them, and cram some food in my mouth, and am back on trail in 15 minutes. Less than a quarter mile ahead I see two guys sitting on a log. One of them looks dirty and has a beard, and the other is older and clean cut. As I get closer, I recognize the bearded guy as "Milestone", who passed by my campsite last night and said hello. The other guy is "Reno Dave", and Milestone stops me by pointing and saying "look!" I look down toward Dave and see a bear canister filled with PBR and sodas. TRAIL MAGIC!

Well, I MUST partake in my first trail magic, so I grab a PBR and join Milestone on the log. Two beers later, my itinerary shot, I leave with Milestone and thank Reno Dave for the drinks.
We start to make conversation, and soon we're a team. He waits for me at the top of high climbs, and  though I tell him to go ahead, he says the trail magic changed his plans for the day, and he's happy to walk with me. He's funny, and soon we're reassessing our stopping point for the day. He says he knows of a Sierra Club hut about 11 miles ahead, which would put me at 20 miles for the day (!!!), and since I'm feeling good, we make plans to head there. I see some lovely flowers along the trail--5 points for anyone who can correctly identify each plant and tell me what they are!

 

It turns into a long day, a fair amount of uphills and downhills, and 16 miles into my day I'm starting to feel tired. We take a break and Milestone tells me we're about 4 miles away, but the next 2.5 miles are all uphill. Steep uphill. I tell him to go ahead without me, and to make a fire when he gets to the hut. As he walks away, my stomach starts to cramp. Because why wouldn't it? I am making it to that cabin tonight, no matter what. Giardia be damned!

 

 

 

The last two miles end up being the worst. I finally get to the top of the crest, after a decent climb, only to be met with high, cold winds and no tree protection. I usually love crest walks, but this one sucks. I don't even want to take off my pack and get my jacket because I'm afriad I'll get blown off or my jacket will fly away. The trail keeps getting harder. We dip back down to the tree line, only to be met with a bit more snow, and then a mile of large, shale-like rocks covering the trail, shifting underfoot, like 5,000 twisted ankles waiting to happen.
I get to the milemarker Milestone told me the cabin would be at, and I see a large arrow drawn on the trail, point up the side of the mountain. There is no trail up the mountain, so I dig my feet into the leaves and pine cones and start walking up. Finally, I see a stone cabin, and Milestone waiting outside, cutting firewood! WOOT!
It looks really lovely from the outside, but when I walk in, I'm shocked. It is a wreck inside--broken concrete floor, rusted metal bunk beds folded up on the walls without mattresses, a grungy table, and a "kitchen" area with pots and pans and more scat and mouse droppings than I've seen on the entire trail. Umm....
Milestone tells me there is a loft space up the latter that consists of a fairly clean wood floor, and we decide we will be sleeping up there tonight. He gets a fire going, we make hot meals, and joke about our mutual propensity toward hypochondriasis (he also had a Giardia scare, so we laugh about how it's not real until you shit yourself. I cross my fingers and hope for the best). I tell him we'll probably get Hantavirus from all this mouse poop, so not to look up the symptoms until he's donw with the trail, just in case he then starts to feel all of them once he knows what to expect. It's hard not to assume the worst (ie, that you're dying) when you're on the trail, 70 miles from civilization.
We hang his bag with all of our food from the ceiling, hopeful that it will prevent all the mice we've seen from getting into it, set up our stuff upstairs, and share a joint in front of the fire as we stare out at the amazing sunset.  Since the ladder up to the loft is fairly treacherous, we both decide to put a pot up there to serve as an emergency "pee bucket", instead of havign to navigate the ladder and animal menagerie in the dark. We go to sleep laughing and warm, only to be woken up by what sounds like a rock band being played on pots and pans. The creatures making this racket are not mice. Milestone peaks his head down the loft hole and sees nothing. We're both a little freaked out, and now I have to pee. Of course. I choose the pee bucket, because what's a little pee between best trail friends. It's harder than one might think, but eventually it happens, both of us laughing the entire time. I empty the pot out of the window, like a seen from 19th century London, calling "look out below!" And this is how I get my trail name "P.I.B". So now I have a trail name with a story... lol

We try to go back to sleep, whipping our heads to look at each other each time we hear a giant crash. We imagine a troop of animals linking together, trying to reach our food bag, and we laugh and go to sleep, trying not to think about mice and other animals crawling on us in our sleep.
We wake up cold, but neither one of us wants to get up and go. We only have 6 miles to Donner's Pass, so we take our time, sleeping late and getting ready slowly.