Day 19: Leaving Sierra City!

14 miles
June 23

Finally. Finally we are starting Kacie's section hike. After waiting around for the post office to open and sending out our next resupply box to Belden., we are out of this  once quaint, now tiresome town!
Our goal is to do the first 90 miles in 5 days, since that's all the food we've packed.

We get a ride up to the trailhead from the creepy Red Moose guy. A necessary evil, but I hate to feel indebted to him, regardless.
And then begins the switchbacks. It's already close to 11am, and we are roasting. We have 5 miles to climb, most of it unprotected from the sun.
Red Moose dude told us to look out for rattlers, and sure enough, on our third switch back, we hear a rattle and freeze. Kacie sees it first, pointing directly in front of us about 20 feet, to a rattle snake about 3 feet long, directly on the trail. It slowly starts to creep off, and we snap some pictures for proof (Kacie getting closer than I wanted to).

A bit of excitement and then off we trudge up the hill. A couple hours in we come to a crest and mistakenly think we're done with the climb. Ha. Double ha.
We take selfies and admire the view from the top, pointing out buildings below in Sierra City.
And then we just keep climbing. Around 3pm we come to our first water (the other sources we had expected to fill up at were dry), and decide to take lunch. Our German friend REI joins us after a few minutes, and then another hiker, Ninja Tank, joins the party a few minutes after that.

Twelves miles in and we're doing pretty well, until I step off a rock on a downhill portion and feel something small pop in my calf, behind my knee. Suddenly it hurts to fully extend my right leg, and I can't put very much weight on it. Shit.
We trudge along for another 2 miles, Kacie cruising ahead, me limping behind. We decide to set up camp after only going 14 miles, which is less than we planned, but still decent for the day.
Kacie offers to walk the quarter mile off trail to get water for us while I get a fire and dinner going. I'm starting to wonder where she is, when I see her coming up the path, visibly unhappy. Turns out she went the wrong direction for water (it was deceiving), and ended up having to bushwhack her way to a stream and then trudge a mile uphill back to the campsite. We are both in rough shape. I hope things get better soon.
We eat dinner and drink hot chocolate, both feeling slightly less low after hot food, and go to sleep hoping for a better day. Sigh.