We had come up on Tinkle’s birthday, which started eventfully with a bear sighting! I learned a lot about bears over the course of the trail, coming from an area that doesn’t really see them outside of zoos. I knew there were grizzlies and black bears, but not blonde black bears or brown black bears. You’d think the names and colors would line up a bit better, but I don’t make the rules. We were entering Lassen Volcanic National Park, an area of the PCT where you need a bear canister to store food if you plan to camp there. I could see why. We hadn’t even reached the park boundary before we spotted a mother black bear and a cub, both blonde. We were keeping our distance and watching them interact, the mom nudging and nuzzling the cub along.

Leaving the bears, we ran into Piglet and Alex. From a distance, we saw a plume of what looked like smoke rising from the forest. We were debating whether to try and call the forest service, but realized it was probably coming from the terminal geyser, a steam vent at the boundary of the park. Luckily we had no service, so their call to 911 didn’t go through. Lassen Volcanic National Park is known for its geologic activity, especially Mount Lassen, a volcano that erupted in 1917. The Terminal Geyser was really cool, not actually a geyser, but a very productive steam vent. The next volcanic wonder was a boiling lake. It was a sage green, with steam rising from the surface and giving off a smell of sulfur. Near the edges, pits of mud bubbled with glooping sounds. After the general monotony of NorCal, this was such a fun day, discovering new and different things the earth can do. It felt like a field trip in the midst of the adventure. Double awesome!

 

In the park was Drakesbad Ranch, where many, many groups of children and teens were amassing. I availed myself of the pit toilet, using the men’s, as the women’s had a mom and kid having obvious difficulty. I got a couple weird looks, but that pit filled with poop was pretty much the same as any other pit filled with poop I’d seen before that. Tinkle and I continued until we took lunch at 16 miles for the day. Thunderclouds and lightning were threatening ahead, so we took a little longer to see what direction they were going. It looked like it was directly over where the trail led. We eventually had to leave, but as we went through the area that looked like where the storm had been, it was all past. We were super lucky, because some heavy rains had definitely fallen very recently. We walked through a burn area for a couple hours and then a pine forest until we reached our destination near a stream. We set up tents and I prepared my surprise for Tinkle’s birthday. I’d been carrying a muffin, candles, and sparklers for miles and miles. We had picked up wine boxes for the occasion as well. I came out of my tent, singing “Happy Birthday” in German and carrying the mangled muffin, abused by its time in my food bag and the candles I’d tried to arrange among the crumbling mess. She ate the muffin, we drank the wine, and sat by the stream, waving our sparklers. We celebrated her birthday and making a 28 mile day without wanting to cut off our feet.

The next morning, I wasn’t feeling the same soreness I had after our last 28 mile day. We made good time to Subway Cave, a lava tube that looked like the gateway to Hell. I had never even heard of a lava tube, so this was pretty cool. Since Lassen, there were no obvious signs we were still in an area with active or even past volcanic activity.  It was interesting to see that beneath the surface, the rock was clearly volcanic in nature. The opening to the tube was very cold and so, so dark. Tinkle wouldn’t go through with me, so I started going through on my own, with headlamp and phone flashlight. Neither seemed to penetrate the oppressive darkness and I felt like I was lost. The floor of the tube was very uneven and rough. I turned around and went back to Tinkle. We found the water spigot and the opposite end of Subway Cave. We decided to go back through the cave to get closer to trail. Together, it seemed much shorter and much less intimidating. To highlight our cowardice, a man and his toddler walked through the cave in the opposite direction, and the toddler seemed to be doing just fine.

We left the cave and started on the Hat Creek Rim, a semi-flat section of trail that I thought we’d breeze through. The day got hotter and hotter and the sun beat down overhead. There was no tree cover for miles and I started to get a headache. We reached the next water source, which was 400 vertical feet down from the trail, accessible by a steep path strewn with boulders. My mood was not improved by this development. Water collected, I climbed out of the canyon and we ate lunch. Two miles later, we found trail magic! If there was ever a day I appreciated it more, I don’t know. There was soda and water in coolers, cookies, oranges, bananas, and hummus, of all things. There was still six more miles until the next water source, so we had to scoot. The rest of that afternoon was also not enjoyable. I popped some ibuprofen and got some signal, so I called a friend to distract me. By the end of the call, the ibuprofen (or Vitamin I, as hikers call it) had kicked in. The trail brought me closer to the actual rim and I got some beautiful views of Mount Shasta in the distance. To make the day amazing, when we got to the water cache, a trail angel and thru-hiker alum named Coppertone was there, offering us root beer floats and cookies! This was the first time I’d seen him, but he was trail famous. He took a small RV and stopped at places along the trail, keeping with the “bubble” of hikers, setting up a circle of camp chairs, and taking his dirt bike in and out of town to restock on root beer, cream soda, ice cream, and cookies for hikers. A true angel, bringing root beer floats to the reeking masses of hiker trash.