Adrift at sea without water to drink. The poodledog bush was everywhere today, and it was as visually and olfactorily distracting as a High Times convention.
Our bear hang the night before was successful, and our food was not ravaged by bears or vehicles over 7 feet tall. Birds were calling and singing all morning as we broke camp by dawn. Normally I would have enjoyed the birds, but I was too sleepy to figure out what they were and instead they caused me much vexation. We started hiking and I was still so groggy that i very nearly walked right off the trail. I requested a stop two miles in, where smiles and I tag-teamed a cup of instant coffee ticktock gifted us. What a game changer! I nearly instantly id'd the bird that had vexed me all morning (mountain quail) and was off like a rocket. It was a fairly bland walk through a maze of poodledog bush, with the highlights coming in the forms of black-headed grosbeak, cañon wrens, and the ubiquitous forms of spiny lizard. When we arrived at the Mill Creek firehouse for lunch, I confirmed that we had walked beneath the TRTP alignment that my old coworkers worked on. I shot them a brief hello, then sat around with fellow hiker trash.
Redundant acronyms: a severe pet peeve. Spotted next to a 500 kV TRTP tower.
I couldn't stay long, as the proximity to an active linear transmission project made me feel like I was back at work and I got needlessly stressed.
Too much like work! Traumatic memories forced me onward as I saw construction workers breaking rules.
We fired the motors back up and headed west through the Station Fire burn once again. Initially, the trail had been maintained well, but eventually the poodledog bush crept in on the trail with vigor. Sour cream and I were chatting and hiking at a vigorous pace, touching on topics such as scholastic ambitions, general wildlife trivia, and mountaineering. For better or worse, we didn't stop to zip our pant legs back on when the PDB thickened back up. We even blew past where our campsite was supposed to be by 3/10 of a mile. It had been claimed by PDB anyways.
Hillsides were lousy with poodledog bush. A nuisance to hikers but crucial to the landscape following a fire.
Smiles joined back up with us and we pressed on while looking for anywhere decent to set down a ground cloth, but to no avail. Finally we came close to a USFS road, and I popped up to see what the camping situation looked like. Sour cream looked at a spot down below occupied by Turtle and her husband, but it was not big enough for more hikers. Starfox, GW, & Busted were up by the road, and we joined them on an expansive flat spot off the road. I cooked up a nice mushroom and pork stroganoff, and we three dreamed of the KOA.
Sour Cream and Smiles atop the ridge.
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