Finally got myself out of my bag about 6:30 after the sun lit up the squat manzanitas surrounding me and the pine branches I was sleeping under, pleased that I had selected my location so well the night before. With just two miles to my cache at the Scott Road Summit, and no granola bars left, I just packed up after finishing off most of my water, fbut occasiguring I'd have breakfast at my cache, and hoping to make the remaining, I estimated 10 miles to Kangaroo Lake, by mid-afternoon today.
Slowed mainly be some enticing Bear Grass photoops, I passed 3 camper vehicles at the campground, crossed the highway and set down my pack near where I hid my cache on road 40N08 that paralleled the trail, found it and proceeded to have my breakfast, then swapped contents of the can with some garbage and dirty socks, filled my empty liter bottle and drank the rest of the water in the Apple-juice container that I cached. Moving on, looked back to a view that included the road just as a truck with a horse-trailer drove by, took the picture then waved back to their wave. They may have been a trail maintenence crew. I'd been seeing lots of recent hoof prints etc. and evidence of recent trail work - cleared tree falls and re-worked trail through fields of furniture-sized boulders, often, in this area, a mix of reddinsh and whitish and blackish rocks, which I understand to be various types of mafic and ultramafic rocks.
Wish I had a better knowledge of the amazingly diverse geology and geography of this area. [Maybe when I'm done catching up this blog I'll take some more time in this library to browse the geology section here. Jeffrey Schaffer's guide to the PCT through Wilderness Press does give significant mention to the geological features encountered along the trail in his detailed account of the trail, which I have been making a point of reading before I hike those sections and tear out the relevant sections and bring them along and sometimes refer to them during my breaks, but still I find myself puzzling over the actual particulars in front of me.]
Much of the trail today was wooded and thus fairly viewless - the views of ridge-tops filtered through trees, except when the trail passed through more recent clear-cuts or along serpentine and ultramafic slopes or outcrops. The tip of Mt Shasta would appear to the east, and to the west whole distinct mountain ranges of differing morphologies and rock types. I guessed them to be the Trinities and the Marble Mts, but none of them are named or within the range of the narrow PCT-corridor maps that I had with me, and even now not clear or also not named on the DeLorme NorCar Atlas & Gazetteer Road map book that is my in-car reference. (I was thinking of this as I drove back later this evening, looking at the "ridge-tops" from the valley floor that I could not correlate with what I was seeing as I was hiking, probably because from the valley all I could see as lower arms and shoulders of out of sight mountains, and conversely, from the crest-line, the lower shoulders were obscured by trees or insignificant, and the actual range that I was in, presumably the Scott Mountains, could not be "seen" or recognized from within its component ridges and valleys.
In general, from what I know of the geological history of the area, I could easily imagine how these "mountain ranges" could be accreted island arcs, smashed up against the growing greater-Klamath Range as the Farallon Plate collided with the North American Plate, viewed now after some additional alteration by erosion, some polishing, and vegetative cover. But I'm a little surprised how vague the geographic info available to me online now (after an admittedly cursory search.) I'm beginning to think that the photo's I've been taking could serve that additional purpose, providing images of ranges as viewed from the PCT, with compass direction, angles, etc. noted. Lots more work ahead for me, I guess.
In addition to these landscape-scale experiences when I was looking "up", I would also suddenly, as I grunted along viewing the trail in front of me to place my boot next, a creeklet that, when I looked around, would form a fen either up or down-trail, blooming with Shooting Stars, Cobra Lilies, ...others whose names I fail to retain or recall... which would cause me to drop my pack and spend several minutes photographing. Other times, it would be an ultramafic rock garden that I encountered, that likewise would cause me to drop my pack. Often though, it would be just a single outstanding specimen of onion, calochortus, daisy, narrow-leafed mules ear, that would cause me to drop to my knees, pack still on, then, still on my knees, oterh enticing subjects would be revealed to me, and I'd find myself crawling around, rolling around, too engrossed in the photography to releive myself of my extra burden or be deterred by sharp rocks digging into my shins, or mosquitos & flies flying into my eyes & ears.
I began to see it would be late afternoon before I made it to Kangaroo Lake. I had hoped to have time to take a swim in the lake, as I had done with some other CNPSers a few years back on an outing where we visited the lake after taking the Fen trail at the lake. It looked like I would just be refilling my gallon jugs with water there, before rushing off to my other "cleanup tasks", fetching my cashes, that might be about it this day, I'd probably overnight at the Carter Meadows pass after retrieving that cache.
So I did finally get to the ridgetop overlooking Kangaroo Lake. it was 5pm. starting "down" what I presumed to be the top end of the Fen trail, I was a little surprised to have it lead me up to a small knoll. But greeting me there at a higher saddle was an "interpretive sign" that was clearly one of a series that I would encounter on my way down the Fen trail. This one pointed out the ultramafic rock outcrop I was looking at. I also recognized the saddle as the one a group of us CNPSers ad reached a few years back, at that time with much of the trail and area covered in snow, at that time much later in the season. This time, no snow in sight. Instead, one of those amazing rock garden displays that caused me to drop my pack, and roll around among the wildflowers like a bumblebee. I also climbed the little outcrop, getting a nice view of the lake, and of a newly started wildfire, it looked like, to the northeast.
Frankly, I hate careless campfire campers! This was not some lightning caused event! It's been a completely cloudless four days. It had been hazy/smokey from fires on day two and three of this hike, and had only finally cleared up a bit today. The haze of the last two days was from a small fire near Weed, and from another larger fire in Oregon, according to fellow PCT hiker "Iceax" who I met yesterday on the trail, who had heard that from a ranger.
I finally started down the trail, now about 6:30 getting to my ar by about 7pm. Got my water jugs refilled, drove on down through the Scott Valley that I had last bicycled through fie days ago. There was a biker with full saddlebags pushing his bike up the one significant up-hill section between Kangaroo Lake and Etna. I felt good that I had managed (with a lighter load) pedal up that stretch, knowing that there was a much longer downhill on the other side.
Drove up Scott summit, retrieved my cache, back down and on to Callahan (stores were closed) and up Carter Meadows summit, retrieved that cache. It was 8:30. I had left the cache near the little heliport at the parking area on the south side of the road. I knew there was a dirt road going up the north side because I had crossed that road on the trail. I headed part way up that, to the first turnout, and overnighted there.
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