@41.10457,-122.12216
Had planned on one more day hiking these mountains but it is time to take my leave of them.
The smoke cleared a bit this morning, revealing ridges 10-15 miles away, but returned in the afternoon. I was thinking of camping along the McCloud River, but some southbound PCT hikers told me that the latest incursion of smoke is due to a new fire further down the river basin and that they are hurrying through before this section of the PCT gets closed. I should do the same. So I hiked on another 6 miles to another undistinguished camp, just a flat spot by the trail in the forest. No point in hiking to the ridge sites above with views of Mt Shasta because there are no views of Mt Shasta.
The McCloud River – a little too fast and a little too cold for swimming
I’m tired of breathing smoke; I’m tired of smelling smoke, I’m tired of seeing nothing but smoke when I top a ridge at the end of a hard climb. I’m tired of the awful yellow-orange sunlight that filters through the trees, turning green forests to dark satanic mills more suggestive of Blake than of Muir.
This section of the PCT is not particularly lovable. The heat, the bugs (the gnats are atrocious in the oak forests), the dust, the long water carries, the monotony of long stretches of third-growth forests all combine for a difficult and uninspiring hike. It’s time to leave.