Spending a couple of days with Corona, spilling tea and sharing ideas for our post-trail lives. Exploring Burney Falls at 7am with Corona and Martin, avoiding the tourists but becoming tourists ourselves. Roadwalking with Martin to avoid bushwhacking overgrown trail and also in attempt to preserve my knees (spoiler: it didn’t preserve my knees 😩).
Celebrating day 100 on trail with an instant coffee in the afternoon and a Violet Crumble for dessert. Because day 100! That’s a lot of days!
Knees are starting to ache consistently so I stop for a longer break, tape up both knees, and take ibuprofen. This helps and I spend part of the day feeling so much more like myself.
During the long descent into the town of Shasta, Mount Shasta looks alluring and undeniable. I decide that I will pay a trail angel any amount of money to drive me to the trailhead so I can attempt to summit Mount Shasta as a side quest.
But just a few literal minutes later, my knees suddenly hurt more than ever and thwart my plans. I’m moving painfully slowly on such easy, gently graded, smooth dirt trail. In tears while still hiking into town, I book a physio appointment with Blaze Physio.
To see Blaze and take extra rest, I plan a double zero in Shasta. I meet Markus + Heng while hitching into town, Heng and I bond because she climbed at Hive Winnipeg, and we have lunch with a couple of sweet Frenchies.
I stumble across a proper pull-up bar, max out at six, and inspire 45 to do a set of pull-ups too. I spend a night with Void and The Royals again, and our cabin neighbours give us fresh fruit and chocolates. On my first zero, I see The Odyssey in theatres with a dozen other hikers; on my second zero, I see Toy Story 5 with the theatre to myself.
Reuniting with Whiz + Zapper, I crash on their hotel sofa for two nights and we make use of their tiny kitchen with two homemade dinners. I’m hobbling as we do chores around town but am diligent about my new rehab exercises and icing my knees. We spend an evening around the dinner table planning out mileage to finish California and reach Ashland, Oregon.