“Just Tryin’ to get away from all the years inside the walls.” -John Prine Ken, as he had promised, left a note to the morning ranger to roust us out of bed and give us a ride down to the P.O. Her name was Jean, I think. She was young, talkative, boisterous, energetic. Energetic especially.…

We made pretty quick work of the sixteen miles to town. What appeared initially to be a simple shortcut on an abandoned jeep road turned out to be quite a bit of thicket crashing and steep slope stumbling. Nevertheless, it did shorten the route. The Sacramento River offered up the reward of some deep green…

Squaw Valley Creek bubbles by not more than ten feet from me. It is a beautiful moderately sized stream that descends to us from plateaus at the base of Mt. Shasta. The path the river has cut leads it over boulders into wide deep pools framed by low granite outcrops. Dylan got in long enough…

Today was a really nice day though I am still inexplicably very tired. Perhaps my head office has notified the rest of the body that the works are shutting down soon. Spent from the endless labor, thought of the coming end must have triggered a premature shutdown. We traded back and forth all day between…

Patrick and Kay, a couple in their 40’s headed south, told us of a place north of Burney they had dubbed the “Horizontal forest.” Fierce winds had felled groves and groves of trees. The blow downs created a dense mish-mash jungle-gym of obstacles. As we were only near Terminal Geyser at the time we sort…

It is something I have never told anyone, except Dyl three days ago. I have gone through most of my life so far believing that I was imbued with some sort of super human qualities. Fortunately, I am not asinine enough to see past the arrogance of such a belief; and, consequently, I have kept…

The Hat Creek Rim, besides being dry hot and dusty, is ground for a nice spell of walking. To the south is Mount Lassen. To the north hulking Mount Shasta. Last night it emerged out of the dusk haze. Its presence is overwhelming. Though I had not read the guide and had little idea what…

There is much to recount but I need rest. So, this may be inadequate. The woman at the Old Station Post office was all fired up to celebrate the places twenty-fifth anniversary. It may well have been her twenty-fifth year working there. She had cake and chocolates and juice all laid out on a tablecloth…

Heeeeyyy everybody!! Its daawwn! Time to play another round of… Waallk tiill you drop!!! Third night in a row for burning of the lamp. Today we did keep to our newly set mileage ceiling. In fact, we weren’t even able to walk the twenty-five we computed yesterday would be necessary every day for the next…

The moon is almost full. It will be our third. My head lamp lights the page for the second night in a row. Be sure this means we are as weary as these summer days are long. Our challenge for the second 1,300 miles has revealed itself today. The bodies are in danger of giving…