10-9-06
Start: Poppy CG, CA
Destination: Cowboy Ed's cabin off of FR 96, CA
Elevation: 4600 ft.
Miles: 19.7
Weather: Another perfect hiking day
The pit toilets at the campground we stayed at had some big, black, hairy spiders tucked back in their thick tubes of webbing with about 10-15 teeny little baby spiders lined up against the wall where the web was attached to. Going to the bathroom was a task. We had to kind of stay in one spot and be sure not to brush up against the webs and end up with an icky, fuzzy spider in our pants... eek!
The morning hike on the trail was challenging. We had a lot of downed trees to crawl over that were as big around as we were tall. At one point we had to crawl around a tree that had fallen down a vertical slope that dropped down about 100 feet. The dirt was loose, and when I stepped I had to sort of dig a step. Rocks and dirt would fall down into the ravine below, crashing into larger rocks and small pines. It was kind of scary. Mom and I both slid down on our butts until we hit the small, loose ledge of trail.
We were wondering why this section of the trail was so poorly maintained, being that there was a campground right there. We came around a corner and quickly realized why. There were the remains of a forest fire, which we later found out burned in August 2001. It looked as though it was last year. We were able to follow the trail for a little while then lost it. We bushwhacked through tall thorn bushes and around charred stumps and towering, bare, blackened trees. But we came out on Forest Road 96 and took that towards Foresthill, our next town. It was challenging, but pretty fun! The burn was sad to see, so many acres - 10,000-something - in fact, of burned forest.
We trucked on, and about an hour before we were going to end for the day, a truck with a horse trailer on the back pulled up. The man introduced himself as Ed, and said we were welcome to stay in his cabin down the road. Hmmm, four walls, a roof, shelter from critters... sounds good! He gave us directions and off we went. He told us there wasn't much here, and there really isn't. But it's a good shelter for the night. He even said we could eat up the beef brisket sitting in the stove. We chomped down our ramen and tuna, though.
We had some great views today. We climbed the whole first half of the day, and a ways down the road after climbing we came to a valley made up of criss-crossing mountains. The afternoon sunshine made it appear almost hazy, so each mountain looked lighter and lighter the further back it was until the last one faded into the sky. They were covered in trees, too, so they looked healthy and full of life. What an amazing terrain around here. We are fully enjoying the Sierras.
We are tucked in, now, so we are off to sleep.
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