Miles hiked: 3.65.
Had a little trouble getting to sleep last night; haven't slept in this sort of deep dark forest for a while with all its falling twigs and pine cones and who knows what else. I also figured there was a 50:50 chance the old cabin was haunted.
Got up and hiking by 5:30 or so, continuing down the canyon with Pacific Wrens and Pacific-slope Flycatchers singing, on down to the bridge over the Yuba River tumbling down over rocks and through notches in the dark bedrock. The early sun shone orange on the Sierra Buttes rising high above the deep canyon where Sierra City sits.
Right when I got to hwy 49 another hiker was frantically waving down the only car to apparently come for a long time, so I got a ride right away.
Down town Sierra City is almost a block long right on the sleepy hwy 49 with no sidewalks or anything but it doesn't matter. I found my way to the Red Moose Inn where I hope my box would be waiting (the owners recently changed and I sent it to the old P.O. Box) and had breakfast and waited for a couple hours until the breakfast rush was over and the understaffed crew could go find my box. I saw several hikers I know or recognize and sat at the counter drinking bitter coffee and talking about who knows what.
Got my box and relocated to front porch of The Country Store and sorted my food and got a milkshake and did some blogging. Eventually headed up to the town visitor center to hide in the shade for the building heat, then when that wasn't doing the trick anymore headed down to the town swimming hole and lounged in the nice cool water while a dipper flew back and forth between rocks. Back up to town and fought my way through a sandwich with a few inches of turkey while sitting on the benches outside the Country Store.
Now in the heat of the afternoon I moved to a local church that lets hikers hang out and camp on their lawn and had a nap then hung out joking with a half dozen or so hikers. White-throated Swifts circled and swooped over town and the locals drove back and forth in pick-ups and jeeps and other off road dune buggy type things.
I was waiting for the day to cool down a bit, but by 5:30 it still seemed pretty warm and I sort of decided that I'd rather do the 3,000+ foot climb out of town early tomorrow morning and when I went to get some more supplies at the store it was still 80 degrees inside with the swamp cooler and I decided it was a good decision to stay the night.
Hung out the rest of the afternoon laughing at nothing in particular and laying around on the church lawn sipping beer and having Fritos and bean dip for dinner and just basically living the dream. There's an older guy living in a motor home next to the church with a piano on the porch under the awning and some drunkish hikers and other town folk playing and singing progressively worse songs into the evening and providing great entertainment for the rest of us laying in rows in our sleeping bags on the lawn looking up at the stars.
Birds:
Pacific-slope Flycatcher
Pacific Wren
Steller's Jay
Western Wood-pewee
Warbling Vireo
Canyon Wren
Northern Flicker
American Robin
Black-headed Grosbeak
White-throated Swift
American Dipper
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