This week I hiked through hundreds of miles of burn scar. The ground itself seemed cursed as we ran into plague after biblical plague. Some real old-testament style shit. Clouds of locusts. Poison oak growing thickly to face height, overhanging the middle of the trail. Evil black caterpillars.

Miles of thorny briars that tore open your legs with a thousand cuts. Thick, writhing swarms of flies. Sulfur-spewing lakes of hot, opaque liquid a hue no water should ever be. And of course, thousands and thousands of charred, downed trees to climb over, their unstable crumbling limbs and sharp broken off branches attempting to trip you at every opportunity.

It felt like hell, or maybe purgatory.

06/28 We leave Quincy a little late after Biscoff finally gets his vegan burrito. We clock 25 miles in the latter half of the day, avoiding the poison oak as best we can. Though we hope for trail magic, there is nothing. I wait at the bottom of the hill with the two cans of soda I bought in Belden, guessing correctly that Biscoff would breeze right through. We share the drinks before starting the punishing climb ahead of us.

06/29 A very difficult day. Out of Belden, the climb is horrendous, steep, full of poison oak, at times a thick jungle of plants, the trail totally disappearing. I get lost in the thickets a couple of times, slipping on mud near a creek. Near the top is a sign demarcating the Sierra-Cascades divide. I enter the Cascade range for the first time in my life, at first it looks mostly the same, but I spot more and more distinctly volcanic rock.

Near the top, we encounter a new bush full of thorns that grows in the burned areas, it is about to become a mainstay for the next 50+ miles. Starting to feel like we are experiencing a form of medieval torture, we try putting on pants, but they only partly protect our legs from getting scratched. We run into hordes of coal-black caterpillars and swarms of locusts on the trail. Biscoff and I end the day exhausted, the one redeeming quality is that we camp at Butt Mountain and the jokes abound.

6/30 A difficult day but there is light at the end of the tunnel. Early on, we hit the halfway point of the trail. Kind of underwhelming, it’s difficult to celebrate in such a hard section. Unfortunately, despite being extra careful Biscoff has contracted poison oak behind his knee. I, much less careful, have somehow came off unscathed. I’m grateful as he washes our pants in a creek to get any remaining residue off. We briefly reunite with Eddie at a road crossing and he tells us he got hit by a sprinkler the past night when camping in a public park in Chester.

We make it to Lassen Volcanic National Park, but not before experiencing 10,000 more scratches to the shin from the sharp bushes everywhere. Eventually when we can’t take it anymore, Biscoff puts on pants and I pop more ibuprofen, unwilling to wear anything but shorts in such hot weather. My shins continue to get destroyed by sharp bushes and logs until we get to Drakesbad Ranch in Lassen, shower, buy some soda, and camp for the night.

7/1 The northern half of Lassen is far less onerous than the southern half. We fly through the flatter, clearer terrain and make it to Old Station by lunch. We go to all 3 gas stations/general stores in search of vegan food and finally find some at the last one. The final miles of the day are on an exposed ridge where we can see Mt. Lassen in one direction and Mt. Shasta the opposite way.

Finally out of the burn scar, we start to appreciate the terrain again. It’s beautiful but we are hesitant to relax just yet, there could still be more ahead.

Mac

Milk&cigarettes

bonus

(we were quadruple checking what poison oak leaves look like because we are paranoid now)