Day 85
Sierra City to mile 1221, 26 miles
Cost: Camped, free

It was quite noisy throughout the night with all of the hikers on the church lawn so I wore my earplugs for only the second time on the trail. I slept ok considering I was cowboy camping and scared I would end up with a snake/spider etc inside my sleeping bag!

Most people started getting up around 5:30am but we tried to sleep in for another hour. We were woken to shouts of free coffee from the neighbour next door. We packed our bags and headed over to the free coffee. KC, unaware of my arachnophobia, saw a big black plastic spider on the table we were sat at and thought it would be funny to put it on my lap. I’m sorry for the residents of Sierra City who were woken by screams at 6:30am – I didn’t know it was plastic! We were greeted with coffee, Danishes, fruit and juice, thank you! 

I headed over to the store to use the wifi and download the latest water report… It’s been almost 500 miles since we’ve had to use a water report, I feel like I’ve been spoilt!

KC and I said goodbye to Mr & Mrs Smith who were waiting for the post office to open at 10am so they could pick up their packages. We want to be in Chester by Saturday for Mrs Smith’s birthday which means some big miles this week – I was hoping to get as many miles done as I possibly could today in order to have 26 mile days the rest of the week, rather than 28!

KC and I were picked up by a lovely lady who drove us the 1.5 miles back to the trail and we started the 8 mile ascent just after 8am, loaded with 2l of water. 

We stopped twice for breaks, both times at water sources and bumped into Dundee, Treeman, Hedgehog, Mr Clean and Sinbad each time – remiscent of the desert when everyone would gather around the water sources!

      I rolled my ankle again and ended up on the ground. I put the compression sock back on with the Ace bandage underneath and was able to get up and keep walking. We passed Zigzag and he said that each time I roll it, I’m damaging nerves (and tearing the ligament) which will make it harder to balance on it and easier to roll. He said I should buy a sturdy ankle brace (with plastic rods) as soon as I can – I definitely plan to because it’s just so painful rolling it each time. 

    We arrived where we had planned to camp just before 7:30pm and were both so tired that we decided to cowboy camp. We were surrounded by Lone wolf, Dundee,Treeman, Hedgehog and Sinbad and they’re all camping with rain flys on, is there something they know that we don’t?!