Hannibal's Pacific Crest Trail Chronicle

I apologize for the delay in making this post, though it has not been entirely my fault. As I have moved out of the High Sierra and Lake Tahoe tourist zones and into more rural Northeastern-ish California, it has been rather difficult to find functioning, available internet service. For example, in the otherwise exemplary trail town of Sierra City (whose best days were during the mid-nineteenth century Gold Rush) I struck out twice. I first went to the public library, my usual first stop, only to find that its' hours were restricted to two days a week. I was there on neither of those days. Even if I was I would have had to have been fortunate enough to arrive between 12 and 2. Hopefully, the kiddies are doing summer reading elsewhere. My next stop was the General Store, proudly displaying a big red sign: Internet Here. I went in and the following exchange ensued:

Hannibal: You have internet available?
Storekeeper: The internet is down.
Hannibal: (slightly exasperated) Wow, and it was designed to survive nuclear (or nu-ku-lur depending on your political stripes) holocaust. Did something happen?
Storekeeper: It broke. The repairman has to come out from Sacramento. I don't know when...

Sacramento, incidentally, is really not that close to Sierra City. Anyway, the other establishment lacking in these smaller towns are internet coffee shops. Short of knocking on the door of a private residence, which for your sakes I considered doing, I was out of luck. By the way, for those of you who keep up with precious metal commodity prices (no doubt a huge portion of this blog's readership) you won't be too surprised to hear that a lot of the old mines here are reopening. Such was the talk at the breakfast counter at the Red Moose Cafe.

I am now in Chester, the town closest to the midpoint of the trail. I am more than halfway (in miles) finished. As I reassured Julie on the phone this evening, "Halfway in miles, much more than halfway in time." After all, I have to be to avoid the big freeze...both at home when I eventually do return and in the Northern Cascades in the Fall.

Tomorrow, as I head North I go into Lassen Volcanic National Park. Lassen will be the first in a long series of big mountain-volcanoes I walk around or on, on my way to the Canadian border. This is also the end of the Sierra geologically and the beginning of the Cascade Range. All of which explains why I have had the Johnny Cash ditty "Ring of Fire" in my head the past few days.

Until next time...