Day 73-Leaving Sierra City

Sierra City at mile 1198 to pond at mile 1216

I ended up spending just under 24 hours in town and did most everything that needed doing (mailing stuff, sewing my pants, having a milk shake, eating a one pound hamburger...the usual hiker stuff).  Portrait's brother, FastLayne (AT '06) joined our ragtag group in town and he'll be hiking with Portrait for some unspecified amount of time.  We left town at 9:30-walking most of the 1.5 miles to the trail. It was a nice pre-hike for our day of hiking.

The trail started with a few miles of up. I've heard a lot about the climb while in town. I think it was supposed to be a big deal.  It was a long one, and it was muggy and still, so I was sweating going up, but it wasn't anywhere near as bad as I had been lead to believe. I am glad we got started on the hike when we did-it sure didn't get any cooler as the day wore on.

A couple miles in we stopped to build the 1200 mile marker. It was more like Portrait built the marker and the rest of us had snack while watching. Caveman sailed by right after it was done and didn't even notice it (in fact he kicked a twig onto it).  We managed to hold back laughter until he was out of ear shot (maybe).  A couple miles later while we were getting water we asked Rattlebee if he'd seen any markers. He said no and that it wasn't special after the 1000 mile marker. I still think it's special.

We hiked a couple miles past the water to a jeep road with a tree at the junction and had lunch in the shade while talking about swimming in Summit Lake a few miles away.  After lunch the trail continued to be mostly up hill, and very hot.  Summit Lake was a great disappointment.  It had grass growing from the center and was a deep brown color.  Not at all what I had hoped for. 


From there we had about four more miles until camp.  I hiked the four miles with Opus.  Portrait and FastLayne got to camp first, but surprisingly there was no campfire going when we arrived (Portrait had packed out marshmallows so a fire seemed logical).  The fire was started a shortly and the marshmallow roasting began.  I think I ate about two dozen marshmallows.  I seemed to get hungrier as I ate, so that was fun.