June 13, 2016

Sure that we would miss the Castella post office's limited hours, we set out with the intention of finishing the 27 miles into town before the general store closed at 9:00pm - an easy day all things considered. We took our first water break at 9:00am and had already covered more than 9 miles.

I was feeling good and decided there that I would try to make it to the post office before they closed. I took Loopy's crampons and added them to the collection of items I was mailing. Some unused things headed home and some things bouncing ahead to South Lake Tahoe.

Off to the races it was. The trail was beautiful and I continued making great time. I was slowed a bit by a 4000 ft descent 6 miles in. Partly taking it slow for my knees' sake and partly because I got stuck talking with a nobo hiker for almost 15 minutes. He had some useful Intel about the upcoming trail but mostly a lot of filler. I ran into a trail crew a bit beyond that and thanked them for the work they were doing - no longer would we have to fight through overgrown prickly plants.

After the descent the trail continued mostly flat until the last two mile side trail into town. It was now a question of whether my feet would hold up to the pounding I was forcing on them and allow me to keep the pace.

I made it to the head of the 2.2 mile side trail at 2:00pm with one hour until the post office itself closed. It was the final sprint and I arrived at 2:45pm with just enough time to send the packages with the help of Cody, the young man working there. My pack weight had dropped almost 5 pounds and the long haul had been worth it. Time for a victory soda.

I came around the corner of the gas station/general store to see trekking poles sitting on the table. As I came around the bush blocking it from view I saw Rickets and Loopy sitting there. I was quite confused; it felt like I had been really hauling and yet here they were less than 15 minutes after me. Were my feet and legs killing me for nothing?

Apparently there has been a different side trail that that turned miles earlier to connect to a road that brought that headed straight into town. I had done an additional 4 miles to take the publicized side trail down the park campground and into town. Ah well - the extra weight had been shipped on and that's what mattered.

The rest of the afternoon was spent catching up with loved ones, snacking outside the store, and planning resupplies for the next leg on to Burney. Once that was all taken care of we headed back up to the park campground to spend the night.

There were 4 other thru hikers hanging out at the designated PCT site, all headed north. Two of them had built a fire to keep the bugs away and to cook a frozen pizza. We had brought up a couple beers and joined them hanging out. Loopy and Rickets drifted off to make more calls and I stayed to chat and enjoy the fire, something we hadn't seen too many of in forest-fire-ridden California. It was around 10:00pm when we all turned in for the night.