Day 158 (19 June)

1132 to 1151.9 (19.9 Miles) Ridge Forest camp to Castella campground

Another restful night, but painful morning when the alarm rings. Everything hurts, what is going on??? Damn roadwalk! 

But when we are finally up and about we realize it was worth getting up early We are still up on a ridge and the morning light touches all the peaks around us. The atmosphere is indescribable and it just keeps getting better when we pull around a corner and are greeted by the Castle Crags, a breathtaking rock formation. Today should be easy as we are hiking down for most of the time and will reach civilization at the end of the day. But it has happened before that we underestimated the gradient of the trail here in NorCal, so let's hope it will be as easy as we'd hoped.

Which of course it's not. In between the descents we have to climb up quite a bit and the slopes are rather steep and exposed. We only eat our breakfast once we reach the next water source as we didn't get any water last night. Honestly, we are so tired of our food already. I want some real food!

This is why today we really try our best to hike as fast as we can. We want to reach Castella and have enough time to go to the store to get some sandwiches. Or just anything that's not oatmeal, Roni pasta or ramen noodles. We are so done with this kind of "diet"! But here comes a distraction in the form of the most perfect creek to dip into. We sit there for about an hour, washing our feet and relaxing in the sun. Another perfect moment on the PCT. 

Refreshed we are ready to tackle the remaining miles to Castella. Castle Crags State Park is just a beauty.  But our feet are getting really tired now and we are very much looking forward to getting into camp. We decided to stay at the Castella campground tonight as it's the cheapest and easiest option and we want to head out straight away tomorrow without spending too much time in Castella, or Dunsmuir, or Mt Shasta. So hopefully we can do a full re-supply in in the gas station in Castella. We finally reach the junction to the campground at about 5.30pm and quickly make our way down. The campsite is a bit of a disappointment on first sight because there are a lot of mosquitoes and it’s too shady for my taste specially since the sun is still shining. We also don’t have an option to shower because we need tokens for that and don’t have any. We try to order a pizza from Dunsmuir but unfortunately they don’t deliver outside of town. Instead Dario walks to the gas station to get some dinner because we don't have any fuel left to cook dinner (and are looking forward to eating something else for a change). In the meantime I charge all of our electronic devices and set up the tent and everything. He comes back right when I am done and we settle into a cozy night with sandwiches, chips and even a bottle of wine. Now life is good again. We can even sleep in tomorrow as we'll have to go into Dunsmuir to get fuel as they didn't have any at the gas station. And since we're already going into town we might as well have a good breakfast there. With that thought in mind we finally go to bed.