Day 94
Mile 1395 to Burney Falls State Park, 22 miles
Cost: camped, $5

KC and I both slept in until 7 then lazed about and finally left at 8:30am. It was another scorching hot day but with my first views of Mt Shasta. 

I was a little worried about what happened to the rest of this… mountain lion?

The trail was flat but quite uneven and rocky which for me means I’m watching every single step. I flip-flopped with Treeman, Hedgehog and KC for most of the morning. 

My goal was to get to Burney as quick as possible and I was 14 miles away. I got to the highway around 1pm and had been warned that it can be a hard hitch… It took 12 minutes to be picked up by a local called Steve and he took me all the way to the Safeway car park, thank you Steve! I bought 6 days of food to post ahead to Castella and a few snacks for the next 4 days. I then walked to the post office, boxed up my 6 days of food, posted it and picked up 3 parcels (a resupply box, chocolate almonds from Howard & my new ankle brace). I asked the lady at the PO where she recommended to eat, she said the pizza place and offered to give me a lift there as she was just about to close the PO and I gratefully accepted, thank you Melanie! I had all you can eat pizza, salad bar and root beer 🙂

I left the pizza place which was next to the petrol station and as soon as I stuck my thumb out to try and hitch I heard someone call out to me from the petrol station. It was a lovely man called Alejandro who was heading my direction and offered to give me a lift, what a great town! 

1 mile after the highway I came to this most incredible form of trail magic. I was so full that I just looked around, had a game of darts and kept moving, but it was an awesome surprise out in the middle of nowhere!

A charging station – they really have thought of everything!

Hot water showers!

It was 8 miles to Burney Falls State Park (which was not fun after eating 7 slices of pizza!) and on the way I passed this very angry rattlesnake: 

I bushwhacked to get around it without getting too close and the whole time he didn’t stop rattling. When I got back on the trail a few metres ahead of it he raised himself up which was a little cobra-esque and a tad bit scary! 

I got lost at the Burney falls sign, not realising that I needed to walk past the falls in order to get to the campground and eventually got there just after 9pm in the dark. It was a great campground and I was camped with Dundee, Treeman, Hedgehog, Recon, Teflon, KC & Nomad. Thanks KC & Recon for the beers on arrival 🙂