I'm finding it very difficult to restart this blog after abruptly "dropping the ball" last October in Lassen.

 Unbelievable that I've yet to insert the missing entries for the hikes I took across the HatCreek Rim and northward to Burney falls in late October, and then in November, the 4-piece out&back day-hikes centering on Jackson Lake , which is how I ended up negotiating the chunk of trail between Hwy 80 at Donner Pass and Hwy 49 at Wild Plum CG (um... except, I'm still trying to properly completer the little 10mile section just north of hwy 80 - I made a go at it with snowshoes just after visiting Rebecca in Davis, but only got to the Castle Ridge before the Sierra Club cabin, so, will be doing that again later this year, probably before doing my skipped Tuolumne to Hwy 50 section..

At the moment though, I'm in the Mt Shasta library.  Someone just said that it looks like we'll have a thunderstorm outside.  I'm somewhat glad to hear that since I've actually committed almost a whole week of delaying resuming my "real" PCT hiking from Burney Falls to the Squaw Valley Trailhead south of McCloud, til after this "weather" passes through. This chance of rain and thunderstorms has been forecast for a week now - but the forecast keeps getting pushed forward in time and backed-off in described intensity.  This has been as frustrating as waiting for a car to pass by an intersection before entering the road, only to find the car going slower than assumed, then finding it slowing down further as it approaches the intersection.  I could have been done with that 4 or 5 day hike by now!

Instead, I've killed some time by scouting out some of the road crossings for my next section long the Trinity Divide, verifying that the snow conditions this "early" in the year are not going to be a problem.  Of course I've continued taking lots of picts during these raod trips, which I then hopelessly attempt to "process" to the point of posting them..

Worse, I've taken some side trips just because I'm in the area, like driving around the mountain (Shasta, that is.)  Took a nice morning hike in the snow to "tree-line" from the Brewer Creek trailhead on the north-east side. Some awesome photos, I'll post some eventually.

I have just back-date-posted some email excerpts as stop-gap accounts of what I've been up to earlier this month.   I still want to fill in with some hand-written notes, when I get a chance.

But now off to Burney Falls to drop off my backpack, then back to McCloud to leave the car and tomorrow bicycle 45 miles back to my pack for a 4-5 day 60 mile PCT walk back to the car.