Distance hiked today: 18.2 miles / 29.3 km.
Despite the tree cover in Northern California, it's been super hot. I underestimated how much water I needed and ran out. As soon as your bottle is empty all you can think about is how thirsty you are, even though if you still had water you probably wouldn't be that thirsty. Luckily I came across an unmarked spring to fill up earlier than expected.
I reached Sierra City, a short hitch 1.5 miles down the road. This "city" has a whopping population of 84 people, a couple hotels, a general store, a restaurant and campground all down the same street. I picked up my resupply box which I'd mailed to the general store since I knew the post office would be closed already on a Saturday.
Unfortunately the power was out for the whole town, so the restaurant was closed and it was hard to charge my battery bank which I eventually plugged into the store's generator. The store also closed early, so there wasn't much to do but sit on the porch.
I was planning on hiking out later, but could see storm clouds gathering on the mountain which I'd be camping on, and decided to wait it out. The later it got, the less practical it became to hike more today, and in the meantime another hiker I was chatting with noticed a poster for a concert tonight - "Music at the Mine", where there's a small amphitheater in the forest next to a historical mine site just down the road. It sounded chill, so abandoning the idea of hiking out, we hitched back to the trail where we set up camp, and walked down to the concert.
It was great. The storm ended up blowing by and the sun shone again, and the power came back on for the evening. The opening band was called "Dust In My Coffee", with an acoustic guitarist, violinist, and hamonicist, pumping out energetic small-town folk songs about the Sierra mountains, the town's we'd passed through on trail, and a "lizard in a spring".
Total trail mileage: 1195.4 miles / 1923.4 km
