Day 89

19 Miles

Our bus was scheduled to pick us up at 8:20, and we were at the stop by 8:10. It was right on time, and the driver already knew about the arrangement for dropping us at the trailhead. A smooth start. Once we got to the trailhead, we ate a snack because we hadn’t eaten breakfast and it was already 10am. The tricky part about today’s hiking is the bear can requirement that Lassen NP has in place. If we use backcountry campsites, we have to have a bear can. You can hike all the way through the park in one day. Or, you can use the bear boxes at a developed campground within the park. We chose the last option. We weren’t going to hike all the way through today because that would be a 34 mile day. If we hiked to the last campsite before the park boundary it would only be a 15 and we’d have a lot of time to kill at camp. And we’d still have to do the whole park tomorrow. Instead, we did 19 to the Warner Valley campground. As we were scouting an unoccupied spot, Sunny came up to us and offered to share their spot. Hikers helping hikers. A few hikers were already set up there: 700, Scenic Route, and another (I forget his name). We scraped out a flat spot near the road, but put large tree branches next to the tent for a barricade of sorts. Cooked dinner, chatted with Houdini and Stampede, stashed our food in the bear box, then went to bed.