Day 71
Published:
Today was quite the day and it’s quite late at night so I’ll have to be brief. We woke up at 6 and I ate my leftover deli sandwich and a fistful of leftover cookie dough for breakfast before climbing into the back of a very nice man’s pickup headed back to trail.
The 1,500’ climb out of Quincy was gradual and very enjoyable, two things which cannot be said about the subsequent 4,500’ descent to Belden. This long stretch was through an exposed, hot, and dusty burn scar. The banged up knee that I thought had healed swelled back up and gave me some trouble. There were some nice elements: we were rapidly approaching the beautiful North Fork of the Feather River, and I had my second nonliquid poop of the day, whose consistency and lack of foul smell I hadn’t achieved since early June.
When we reached the bottom, we realized some sort of event was going on in Belden: there were hundreds of cars lining the dirt road which forms the trail and people everywhere. As we approached the building that comprises the “town” of Belden, I realized that it was a musical festival and I spotted our friends laying on some rugs under an awning.
We were quickly brought beers, sodas, fruit, and drugs by several festival goers who invited us to stay the night with them. We were like celebrities. Since it was well over ninety degrees and the climb out of Belden was a gargantuan 5,500’ over thirteen miles, we did linger for four hours. We lingered like celebrities: eating free food, soaking in the river on other people’s floats, and dancing in front of quite the audience on our way out.
The night hike out of Belden, beginning at 6:15, was pretty brutal. The trail was steep, rocky, and on a west-facing slope, so I was drenched in sweat. We ended up walking nine miles, and unfortunately several hikers who left much earlier than us beat us to the few sites around there, so we ended up cowboy camping on the bridge at Mile 1297.3. Fun times.
