Westward

Though I can practically see Oregon on the horizon, the PCT takes a long sweep west in this section, and even heads south for a little while, so I’m resigned to several days without any northward progress. Honeybuzz and I hiked about 26 miles today to set ourselves up to reach Interstate 5 at Castella tomorrow.

I ran across my fifth rattlesnake of the trip – and my first since leaving the southern California desert – coiled and rattling in a rock pile alongside the trail this afternoon; kind of weird to find one in an oak forest. We met a german guy named Buttercup yesterday, wearing an obvious Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup T-shirt, who claimed to have flicked a rattler into a creek with his trekking pole to get it away from his tent the night before; another hiker named Doc, who is camped with us tonight in his backpacking hammock, said he also encountered a rattler this week, so they’re definitely around. Bears are supposedly here, too, but I still ain’t seen nary a one on this trip…