Day 94; Sun July 29 2007

(Stud) It was an interesing party someone was having at Paynes Lake last night. Since I heard the name "Karen" shouted over and over again, I'm thinking the party was for someone named Karen. There was a lot of singing that included the theme songs from several 1960's TV shows including Giligans Island, Green Acres and Beverly Hillbillies. There was also a rousing rendition of Friera Jacque. (Forgive me Father for not knowing how to spell this.) I think they may have been changing some of the words to suit the occasion since the songs were getting a big laugh--but we couldn't hear that clearly from the other side of the lake. Dwight was sure they were going to party all night long, but the revalry stopped around 10pm-and Dwight was already asleep by then.

We were on the trail by 6:15, and met Troll and Oblivious packing up about a mile down the trail. They were camped just past what the guilde referre to as the "glatial bowl". I was expecting a really cool granite formation of some sort, but it only seemed to be a big bend in the trail.

The morning sky was particularly beautiful and I took many pics to capture the moment. There semed to be a heavy haze layer and the smell of smoke which we learned later was due to a fire that has been burning for over a month in the town of Happy Camp. It's apparently under control and won't have any impact on our hike.

Dwight, Troll, Oblivious and I hiked together for the 5 miles to the road crossing where we hitched to Enta. Enroute we heard a lot of cowbells in the distance, that coincindentally were attached to a big herd of cows grazing trailside. They took off running as we approached and we continued to hear the sound of cowbells for the next 15 minutes as they fled the area.

The hitch into Etna was 15 mlies, and just before the road crossing someone had left a cooler of soda's, beer and fresh fruit. This has been a good section for trail magic.

We waited about 30 minutes to get a ride--and it was the second car by on a very lightly traveled road that picked us up. It was two guys who had been car camping and they had nearly the entire vehicle--a short bed pick up with extended cab--filled up with car camping equipment. Dwight bungied the packs to the luggage rack--one of those safari looking things--and the guys crammed into the pickup bed and I got into the cab where the driver had carved out a spot for me. The driver was playing a CD of hari chishna (sp?} music--the same song played the entire 15 mile commute..."hari chrishna, hari, hari chrishna; hari chrishna, hari, hari chrishna" was sung over and over again. The driver, a tennis pro named Don, was really getting into it--to the point he was continuously turning it up and by the time we got to Etna was clapping his hands along with the music. Hands are optional when drivng, right?

In Etna, a quaint town a few blocks long, we checked into the Hotel Etna (small, nice, family run place), ate a late breakfast, Dwight did laundry, ate some snacks, ate an early dinner, did our resupply at the grocery store, ate some icecream, brownies and fruit we bought at the grocery store and now are headed to bed...