Day 78; Mon July 13 2007

(Stud) We hiked until nearly dark last night--and took the first flat spot we could find. There was bear scat in the area, but the desire to stop for the night outweighed the possibility that we might get a bear visit--and luckily we had a "bear-free" night.

It was an uneventful day, and another day where we had no human contact until we got near Beldon, where we ran into a section hiker from Las Vegas named Death Valley Bob. He's been biting off small sections of the PCT for 10 years and said he'll probably still be working at completing it for the next 10 years to come.

We went through an interesting mix of environs today--kind of like yesterday, but in reverse. Pine and cedar woods gave way to an open area of mostly low manzanita and other dense shrubbery with sweeping view of the next section we'll be hiking in. In many places the shrubbery was so thick it had grown together to totally obscure the trail. This worked out pretty well for me because my mosquito bite covered legs got a free scratching.

Beyond the manzanita was more pine and cedar, then the addition of hardwoods (live oak, black oak, dogwood, big leaf maple) as we descended on 36 switchbacks to Beldon and the Little Feather River. Poison oak as well. I may be just one big scratching machine.

The 15 mile stretch we were doing today ended at a railroad track with a stopped train blocking our route into Beldon. Our guide book said to either go over the stopped trains or wait for them to move--so we quickly went up and over the connection between two cars--which was a little unnerving to me.

We reached Beldon around 1pm--and the entire town seems to be in one building--which looks like it was part of the set of a old west movie. Nothing (saloon and restaurant) was open and apparently there is no fixed schedule there.

Some very nice trail angels that live nearby and open up their home to hikers--Brenda and Laurie Braaten--came and picked us up at the trailhead. (We called them from a pay phone as instructed in Yogi's book). They had also picked up our mail at the post office: a food drop from my mom, a new hiking skirt from my sister Cathie to replace my favorite Kelty skirt that shreaded back in the desert section (even though Cathie had done a great repair job on the old skirt, she found a new one on EBay), and a very generous "goodie box" from our friends Cindy and Dan Tufford. Between the box sent from my mom and Cindy, we were able to combine the next two legs (so we won't be getting off the trail at Chester) PLUS we will be sending enough food on to resupply a future leg. Thanks so much to all!!

Our maps for the next section didn't arrive, but the post lady is going to make a special trip into the PO in the AM to open up for hikers--so we hope to find that the package was possibly missplaced and wil be found in the morning.