Left my pleasant camp at Milton Creek and followed its gorge down to the Yuba River with its cool crystalline water slipping over rocks polished from innumerable spring floods.
There’s no question that the waters of the Sierra are clearer than those of the Rockies. Even at summer’s low tide they flow with a clarity that startles me every time I look into a deep pool and see nothing but clean scoured rock, elemental, whole and untroubled. You could lose yourself in these pools, spending all day trying to grasp their depths, looking for a message that may or may not exist.
Instead, ever practical, I take a picture that does not capture their true essence but serves as a reminder of a moment when I glimpsed a new understanding and walk on. 
I come to the road – highway 49 – and pull out my trusty PCT bandanna, the one that says “HIKER TO TOWN” in bold block letters, hoping it will save me a road walk into town.
But there are no cars for it to charm. I turn and trudge down the road, passing the outlying residences of the greater Sierra City metropolitan area and enter the town proper, population 255. The boom times ended here well over a hundred years ago and have not returned, not even in the form of a California real estate bubble. What people do here beside grow pot and serve each other beer I can’t imagine.
I stop at the Red Moose Cafe and find a gaggle of hikers, mostly Swiss, finishing their breakfasts. The young women have ordered too much food but refuse to leave the table without finishing every bite. Whether they remain out of sensible Swiss frugality or dread of the hot shadeless climb that awaits them I cannot tell. But they do finish the food.
I’m advised to camp at the churchyard- it is free, has shade, a picnic table and nearby public restrooms and showers at the Sierra City visitor center.
Sierra City has apparently neglected to learn fear of strangers and instead provides them with welcome and comfort. This used to be the norm in so many American cities, where town parks once served as resting places for travelers.
Now we have been trained to fear and despise those who wander, regarding them as vectors of some dread unnamed disease.
I’m not surprised to see that the church is of the Methodist persuasion. Many Methodist churches have served a sanctuaries for those whom our government wishes to persecute. Although my Methodist upbringing didn’t take, I have always respected and admired those who take its precepts to heart.
Jandal appears as I finish setting up my tarp. Apparently he is alternating between hiking 30 miles one day and 5 the next when he finds a setting he likes. He’ll never make it to Canada this way but doesn’t care nor should he.
Hiking is not a job, or at least it shouldn’t be. Its an opportunity to live your life as though it matters, to stop and savor moments of grace and beauty and awe when they present themselves.
There are only so many of those moments in our lives. We pass them by at our peril.