Little Foot and I decided it would be smartest to do our hitch in stages. The first leg of our hitch would take us to Sacramento, where we could post up near the interstate and have an easier time finding a ride for the longer second leg to Mt. Shasta up north.
We got our first ride in minutes. Kris, a teacher from Texas on a
cross country road trip for the summer, was driving to San Francisco after
dropping his wife off at the airport. He told us the last thing his wife said
to him was, "don't pick up any hitchhikers!" Whoops. He offered to
get us as far as Sacramento, since it was on his way. We swapped stories for
the whole two hour drive, stories about life on the trail, stories from his
road trip with his wife. We stopped by a burger place called In-N-Out (which is
apparently a big deal in California, and it was a crime against humanity that
I'd never even heard of it) and bought lunch for Kris as a thank you. When he
dropped us off at a gas station near the interstate, he said, "I know this
is how this works, but I feel weird leaving you two on the side of the road
like this."
At In-N-Out, left to right: Kris, Happy Feet, Little Foot
We grabbed some lunch at the rest stop and then geared up for the
longer stretch of road to get us up north. Our first ride, Randy, offered to take us
about 20 minutes up the road to a truck stop where it would be easier to get a
ride. Where Randy dropped us off, it was HOT. We stood outside the truck stop
with our sign for Mt. Shasta, trying to look cheerful and not like gross,
sweaty vagabonds frying under the glaring California sun. To lighten our
spirits, Little Foot and I started singing James Brown and Marvin Gaye songs,
being silly and dancing. People leaving the stop laughed at us and our
enthusiasm, but no rides. After a bit, a semi pulled over, and a seedy looking
guy motioned for us to get in. Little Foot looked at me warily. I shook my
head. Not a chance. I know semi drivers aren't supposed to pick up
hitchhikers, and something about the look of this guy didn't sit right with me.
I waved him on. He scowled at me, but drove off. Not a chance.
We were hot. We were frustrated. We had just passed up our first
and only offer for a ride, and it wouldn't be long till it started to get late.
I called a hail Mary. I threw my hands up and my head back and symbolically incited the help of a higher power.
"Universe!" I yelled. "All we ask is for someone safe,
preferably female, and not driving a truck to get us there!"
Two minutes. That's all it took for us to meet Rita, who was
driving a rental car home to Oregon and could take us the rest of the way. We
sat in the back and chatted with Rita about her job, her daughters, her friends
that are hiking the Appalachian Trail, and finally we dozed off, exhausted from
our day of hitching and happy to be in the safety of Rita's clean, quiet rental
car. Rita roused us when we arrived in Shasta, and dropped us at the diner
where we'd agreed to have our trail angel Joann pick us up. We hugged her goodbye and
she wished us well before driving off.
Little Foot and I couldn't believe it. More than 300 miles of
hitchhiking, and we'd done it in 6 hours. We were exhausted,we were hungry, but we had made it, and in one piece. We ordered fresh squeezed orange juice and pasta dinners to-go while we waited for Joann.
We stayed two nights in Mt Shasta, one with Joann and her husband
and the other with our hiker friend Rocky, who'd just finished her hike for the
summer and arrived at her home in Mt Shasta the morning after we got to town.
We cooked, we showered, I got new shoes, and we waited out the thunderstorms. The next evening, Rocky drove us to the trailhead, and the three of us walked southward for a few miles before we hugged Rocky goodbye and headed on.
Left to right: Happy Feet, Rocky, Little Foot
It felt weird, to walk south. I kept getting confused, thinking I
was headed north and wondering why the sun was where it was. I had to check my
compass pretty frequently to keep my head on straight.
Wait...which way are we supposed to be going?
Little Foot and I guessed that we wouldn’t see any of our friends
for at least a week or so after starting south. We didn’t know any hikers in Castella.
But to our surprise, we started seeing our friends right away, even that first night. Some days
we would see next to nobody at all, familiar faces or not, and we could walk
25-30 miles uninterrupted. Other days, we would bump into someone we knew every
15 minutes or so, and on those days we barely walked 15 miles. We would get
asked a thousand times a day “wait…why are you walking the wrong way?” We
told our southbounding story so many times that we got sick of it and started
making things up. Northbound hikers who didn’t know us often mistook us for
true southbound thru-hikers, coming from Canada (which would mean the two of us
had been averaging anywhere from 25 to 40 miles a day to have made it so far so
quickly). They looked at us as if we were gods.
Little Foot and I had a lot of fun hiking together. We joked that
we were “moonwalking” the trail, and spent a lot of time dancing and singing
while we walked. We’d laugh until we couldn’t breathe about trail gossip and
inside jokes. We told northbounders that we had invented our own religion, and
we were now vehemently worshipping a deity we fondly referred to as Eywah (yes,
like from Avatar). We braved thunderstorms, nearby forest fires, and dry
stretches together. We had real talks about life, the trail, and our hopes and
dreams and all that. We went skinny-dipping and would hike without our shirts
on whenever possible. We did laundry only one time in a month. We called ourselves
goddesses of the trail.
I spent my time in Northern California enjoying absolute freedom.
A primary draw of trail life is its potent freedom, but I felt I had taken it
one step further in the 20 days that I walked south back to Tahoe. Little Foot
and I stopped caring about miles entirely. We walked however long we felt like
walking. We took breaks in beautiful places, and fully embraced the concept of
naptime. We ate well, never skimping on our resupplies or worrying about
weight, and even packing out little bottles of wine on occasion. We didn’t stay
in a single hotel, didn’t eat in more than a couple of restaurants, but mostly
we met wonderfully kind people who opened their homes and their hearts to us.
We especially met some really powerfully strong and loving women, who inspired
us greatly. We spent as much time as possible focusing on appreciation for all
the trail had to offer us.
Verdict? Flip-flopping* was worth it.
1,300 miles? Please. Give us something hard to do.
Stormy skies
I missed alpine lakes, thank you Desolation Wilderness!
Eywah lovin'
Lion King on Hat Creek Rim
Our girl Mt. Shasta, stealing the show in the back
Partying in South Lake Tahoe!
Um...that's chocolate right?
Feeling fancy? It's wine and cheese night!
Butterflies at the swimming hole!
Aloha Lake in Desolation, last day, so beautiful
*"flip-flopping" is a term used in the hiking world to describe a hiker who hikes part of the trail one direction and then "flips" to hike another part the reverse direction
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