Day 78 (7 August)

Miles 1191.5 to 1195.4. Milton Creek Camp to Sierra City

The alarm clock was supposed to ring at 6am but when we wake up it‘s 6.45am. Oops, don‘t know what happened there!

We hurriedly pack up and leave camp around 7.15am. We make good time and reach the road from where you can hitch to Sierra City at 8.45am. We wait for 10 minutes but no car passes us so we decide to roadwalk the 1.5 miles to town instead. After about 0.7 miles a car stops next to us and offers us a ride into town, which we gladly accept.

Sierra City is a neat little town, everything there is is spread out to the left and right of the main road. We are dropped off at the General Store where there are already a handful other hikers around, people we haven‘t met yet. In the store we find our 3 packages that we shipped here, containing food, toiletries etc. We order some breakfast and then make ourselves comfortable out on the porch sorting through our packages. We had also tried to sell our bear canisters which are no longer required by law in this area and now receive a text from someone who‘s interested in buying one. We successfully sell one of them for 50$ and take it to the post office for shipping, along with another package in which we crammed all the stuff from our packages that we don‘t need yet and bounce ahead to Crater Lake in Oregon. We should be there in about 5-6 weeks.

There is a public shower in town which we hit next to shower and do laundry. It‘s so hot and the clean clothes we hang up outside are quickly dry. We are actually planning to leave Sierra City later today but then we suddenly are told that there is a new fire closure up ahead from Belden, our next town stop, to Chester. This is the section where also the midpoint of the PCT is in. Which sucks! We really wanted to reach it... I call our friend Speedy who is already further ahead and ask him what he thinks we should do. He says we shouldn‘t worry, we should easily be able to hike until Belden. But I am worried that the fire might expand in our direction and we won‘t know about it due to the lack of cell reception out there. We also consult the PCTA website (www.pcta.org) where they write that they will update their page later today. So we decide to wait for more information, and stay in Sierra City.

It‘s possible to camp next to the church for a small donation. So we end up there together with Sweatheart, Flamin Hot and the other hikers we met today. We’re only a small bunch, we feel like we are the last hikers out here (which is kind of true). It‘s a nice evening, we share stories, red wine and beers together and realize that we will just have to take it the way it comes at us. The midpoint marker is a huge milestone for every PCT thruhiker, but it is only a wooden marker. The Northern Terminus in Canada is more important to reach, so let‘s focus on that instead. ;-)