Had overnighted at Parks Creek Summit intending to do Mt Eddy summit in the morning.but it was very hazy and I ditehred about most of the morning not too enthusiastic about the prospects and investigating the alternative overningt out&back to Kangaroo Lake I had planned to whittle off a piece of the Etna to Parks section which would allow me to eliminate a bus component of the loopback.
Looking at the maps, I thought I might turn that out&back into a partial loop, by bicycling down the west side for a ways and taking one of several possible trails climbing up to the trail closer to Kangaroo lake, turning a 3 mile loop that the PCT took around a large valley into a one-way walk. Drove down to locate some of those trails, all three were very faint, not recently used, but there was a dirt road that paarlelled one of those trails, the lowest one, heading to Bull lake, which would eliminate the largest amount of out&back on trail.
So that's what I did, stashed my bike at the bottom of that dirt road, hiked up the road then went cross country along what turned out to be a wonderful series of wet meadows and Darlingtonia bogs (pitcher Plants) except conditions were very dry. Meanwhile a thunderstorm was building up, and by the time I got to Bull lake, I had to find cover from lightning and some fits of rain/small hail. Found a small pine that I could wrap my plastic paint-drop-cloth around for rain protection, crawled underneath that (after removing all the deadwood there was enough room for me on a soft bed of needles. Saw a couple of bicyclists come up the same valley I had and camp on the other side of the lake (this was off-trail and the PCT coincided with another trail in that area.)
Next morning I couldn't find my phone, and wasted an hour looking all over for it, trying to remember where I saw it last, thinking it may ave been at a rest stop I'd taken just before leaving the dirt road, when the phone's battery had died and I was about to put in another, but then got distracted... Gave up trying to remember, and going through my pack and my camp site area, I decided to continue on with the plan, hiked my pack up to the trail at ridgetop, left my pack there, hiked on to above Kangaroo Lake with just camera and bottle of water, took picts, came back to my pack, saw the bunch of bikers resting at the trail there, chatted with them a bit asking if they'd seen a cellphone, then proceeded to check one more time in my backpack, and found it. Yay! Saved me a half day later retracing my steps. Made the long loop around the valley rim back to my car, by midafternoon, enough time to still make it to Etna to verify at the Hiker Hut that I could leave my pack there for my next section, and possibly leave a food-cache at Scott Mt Pass (not that I needed to leave a food cache, but it would be on the way to Etna anyway, so why not? Um, because I'd need to spend more gas retrieving my cache-can, maybe?)
Anyway, did leave a cache, decided to stay at Scott Summit for the night since it was getting late, planned to get to Etna tomorrow morning and maybe to the bike shuttle from Kangaroo Lake same day though that would have me bicycling in hot afternoon down in the valley. Oh well.
{Note, this post was written morning of june 7 just before hitching up to Etna Summit. A bit rushed -should doublecheck this post when get a chance later for factual and technical goofs, distracted because also "visiting" with my the other hiking couple, Petunia & Treehugger (Kim & Ron.) ]
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