Our rest day in Mt. Shasta expanded to solid 2.5 day break. Why? Many reasons. On the one hand side you have a lot of chores to take care of when you are in town and secondly we were also surprisingly sore from the last stretch. Haven’t been so stiff and sore on the entire trail so far. But also no clue where it came from. Maybe the last weeks of slower pace and less miles actually gnawed on my fitness level… 😳
So what did we do? Besides the normal chores of buying food and sorting that out for the next stretch…
… we also just hung out a bit. There was a nice park behind the post office where we chilled quite a bit. And since Mt Shasta is a full on hippie town no one really took notice of people laying around in the park. We were probably still rather on the touristy side with our hiker outfits compared to the community around us 😂🙊.
I also tried to find an alternative to my orthotics. And I found something promising. After cutting and adjusting them I do hope that they will do the same job until I find an orthotic to get me new ones…
A very sad part was to say good bye to two of my favourite pieces of gear… 😔
My Icebreaker t-shirt with the 7 summits (the best design ever made) and my grey long sleeve were way over their time of duty now. I prolonged the usage as much as I could – but now I had to face reality. They just did not do what they were originally designed for. My grey long sleeve had served me several years now. It was hard to leave them behind. It is strange but similar to the shoes you create a strong bond to your gear. It keep you warm, dry or whatever it is designed for and also serves in many other functions in the trail. They just become very important and a part of the story. That’s why it’s hard to leave them behind when they have given everything in their power to help you get so far… R.I.P. Thank you for being such loyal companions!
What else? Right, the thing with the water. On the second day we had to find these signed everywhere in town. What a luck! But at least we were not drinking from the streams at the moment. I hadn’t filtered my water in the last two weeks apart from a couple situations… 😳
Kaylee’s and my ice axes have been lost in the US Postal Service since two weeks so we had to buy new ones! That of course sucks! Luckily the gear shop in town was so kind to sell us a couple old rental one for 35$. Still sucks since we had only used the axes for a week or so…
And then it was time to head out again. Morning chores and back on the trail per hitch hike. We got a ride in two cars at the same time. And then something beautiful happened. Guess what? We are back in the mountains. After the last two weeks mainly in the forest we came out of the trees to be in the middle of my favourite scenery – the rough and scrubby alpine terrain! I could not stop smiling! Again – here it is. The realisation how much I love the mountains. #ilovemountains
We climbed for over 4,000ft to find these epic views over Mt Shasta and the valleys. I guess not much I have to say though…
And then one of the most epic camp spots on the trail for us! We all decided to cowboy camp tonight. Can’t wait for the stars…
