I didn’t plan to make this a granola girl summer, but I’ve done a lot more hiking than ever before. So much so that “I’m going to go walk around and eat peanuts” was an entire description of a plan.
Yesterday’s trail mix justifier was Mt. Eddy. It’s another one of those beautiful sites right here in our backyard that I’m ashamed I haven’t appreciated before now. It’s about an hour and a half north of Redding. Thankfully for my little non-subaru grocery getter, the road to is it nice and paved. It’s probably not a great road for people who don’t like to look straight down off a roadway to tree tops hundreds of feet below them, but if you’re good with that, the drive alone is stunning enough without any hike involved.
The trail from Deadfall Lake trailhead, was NOT hard to locate. Which foreshadowed my adventure when I initially couldn’t find it. There is a lot of babbling brook, falling water, cooling meadows, and serene lake front. Even before the alpine section of the trail, it became my favorite adventure of the summer.
The trail took me 2 and 10 minutes to get to the top. Roughly 2 hours and 9 minutes of that is completely west facing side of the mountain. The view captivates with layer after layer of rugged blue peaks. The backside of Castle Craggs was visible in the distance and all I could think of was the Disney Jungle Cruise joke “the back side of water.”
As noted. I was already impressed.
Then, that very last minute.
Alone and weird, I literally gasped out loud when in the course of about 6 steps, the summit is crested and Mt. Shasta becomes visible smacking you in the face with its prominence and majesty. I knew it was over there the whole hike, but it seemingly appears out of nowhere with a suddenness that made my eyes leak. Granola girls.
I didn’t stay up top long. I had a grocery order to pick up. I stayed long enough to take some pictures. One of a ladybug I decided to call Olive. Allegedly the mountain is named after Olive Eddy. The first woman to summit. It’s not typical for me to get too angry about things like this, and no disrespect to Olive, but c’mon man. I walked up this in 2 hours. You can’t tell me there was no reason for any indigenous woman in the epochs of time to walk up there. Probably laden with children and perhaps a bear carcass. But okay Olive. Credit to you. Luckily the mountain was so beautiful it could be called poop pile and I still would have chosen this as my favorite hike of the year.
I headed down, still very excited about the view.
Things were going great. Until they weren’t.
At a saddle before the summit push, there was a group of 7 ish young men taking pictures with the lake behind them. I can’t tell age, but I’m thinking teens. Clean cut, well-mannered kids that made my boy mom heart smile. They asked me to take their picture. As I did, I noticed things like sheathed large knives, bear spray hanging from their backpacks in the ready position. All things that I didn’t have. I took trail mix and water. We parted and I thought about how I should probably better prepare for things like solo walkabouts.
And that’s when the wheels fell off.
I blame being in my head for the directional fail that happened at that point. I turned left. I should have gone right. When I hike, I listen to music and try not to focus too much on surroundings on the uphill. I don’t like to keep looking up and get discouraged at how much more there is to cover. This is a poor plan. I pressed on in the wrong direction not being sure if the trail was the same. The cell signal was non-existent so I had to rely on other means to know if I was actually lost. I knew that the whole loop was 7.9 miles. Accounting for goofing off walking around, I figured that if I hit nine miles and no Honda, I was certain I was lost.
I was.
The good news is, I’ve put some miles on the Pacific Crest Trail and am now wondering if that can be a goal for me. The bad news is, that 4 miles in the wrong direction was downhill. Which means to correct I had to go 4 miles uphill just to get back to the error point. In total yesterday
If I could have found a way to quit, I would have. I was out of peanuts. I was mad everytime the Garmin watch chirped that I’d gone over my elevation gain goal again. I was listening to nature because somewhere on the trail I lost my earbuds. Granola girls shouldn’t leave electronic waste on the PCT, but there was NO way I was going to walk the 4 miles again to reclaim them. Sorry planet and my grandkids grandkids!
In total I hiked 16 miles of a 7.9 mile hike. 2 hours and 10 minutes to the summit, 5 hours and 10 minutes from the top back to the car. I was tired and hungry and thankful to be back in the car. Maybe not surprisingly, there was an absence of matched sense of urgency from the staff at the McDonalds in WEED. Not making assumptions, but,…Weed.
This will probably be the last hike of the year. Even though I’m trashed today, I’m incredibly thankful I did it. 6 out of 5 stars, even with getting so lost.
Thanks for reading and please let me know if there are other wonders of the local world I’ve missed.
Bifocals and Barbells 