Another long day in the sun. Hat Creek Rim seemed endless. In the distance Mt Shasta stood out from the green sea that was Hat Creek itself. Not that many people on trail today. Boots is back with us for the moment. The two Canadian guys, Doug and Kevin, kept up as well.
Besides the heat it was a really lucky day, since we got double trail magic! The first was by Magic Man, someone who follows hikers up the trail and that I previously encountered in Tehachapi.
The second has got to be some of the best trail magic so far. Two women from Hat Creek had put up awnings and had brought home made meatball subs, coleslaw, fruit, sodas and chips. We sat there for a long time. Cookie and Drive Through left, but were soon replaced by Fizzy, Fat Bitch and Zero. All of us took a swim in the river next to the awnings after.
In the slowly cooling afternoon, we reached Burney, a small, one-street town. Burney had a special kind of hiker accomodation though: a church. Hikers could stay there for free, sleeping in the gymnasium next to the main church building
Still full from the trail magic, we went to Safeway and got snacks there. Outside we sat on the curb, enjoyed a beer and talked about the time Lucky Charm was in a fight club with a friend of hers. It’s these little moments I want to remember.
Frisky got in late in the evening, limping badly. He’d lost the rest of his trail family after an injured ankle forced him to slow down. The others were doing 30 mile days now, so he wasn’t sure if he’d ever catch up. He told me how when they were slackpacking to the halfway point, Tourguide packed out a whole watermelon and pretended like it wasn’t there when other people asked about it. At the halfway point itself he then handed out the pieces to any lucky passer-by.