Miles 1197-1200 (3 miles)
Elevation 5,500'
Yeah, I was in a real pissy mood last night, if you couldn't tell. Lol. Ultimately it was the fact that I was still seam sealing my tent at 9 and I needed to do a million other things. Ah well, a small price to pay to insure that the tent won't leak when it's pissing rain. Lol. Plus I was just irritated because it's taken me 1,200 miles to figure out exactly the bare minimum amount of stuff I need to carry in order to be happy, and changes in gear tend to throw a wrench in the whole thing. Ah well I'll get over it. I was pissed when I first had to carry the bear can too. Lol :)
The engineering and design behind the tent is really cool. I wish it had 2 side doors like my Notch does, instead of one front door. Especially with a 2 person tent, it really helps. Plus it makes it a lot easier getting in and out of it, especially if you're in a cluster of trees. A lot of times I'd pitch my Notch in a tiny spot surrounded by brush, but it didn't matter since there were doors on both sides so it was still accessible. This new tent only has one door on the end which is not too efficient. As with all ultra lite gear, there is a learning curve to using it initially.
Anyhow, we left Sierra city today. Stoked! I really wanted to stay, Bill and Margaret are so freaking awesome. But there were also a ton of hikers who came in today so the place was crowded. I wasn't in the mood to be around that many people. I took some pics of the exterior of the Red Moose Inn. It's such a neat establishment.
Leaving Sierra city we had a 2700' climb. We didn't leave til late so we only got about 1/3 of the way up before it got dark. Hence the low mileage today. But we hit the 1200 mile mark!! Whoo hoo!! :D
It's funny how so much has changed since hiking in the desert. I carried 3L of water out of Sierra city because I wasn't sure we were going to get to a water source before making camp. And oh man that sucked, my pack was sooo heavy! But in reality, it's still lighter than what it weighed in the desert. Lol.
Oh! Random thought. I forgot to mention yesterday, but we took a shortcut off the trail and basically walked right into Sierra City. We passed a really awesome campground (like, the kind you drive your car up to). If any of you want to go camping in northern California, I highly recommend it. It's called Wild Plum campground and it's so pretty. All the campsites have a water spigot, bear box, and there are outhouse facilities. The whole campground is located next to a really awesome river, so it's a great place to bring kids. Plus it's nearby a lot of cool places like mining towns, epic mtb trails, hiking/equestrian trails, and there is a grocery store in Sierra city which is about 1 mile away if you forget stuff. I think it is $21 per site.
Another really epic campground accessible by car is the Onion Valley campground. This is the one we passed a while ago (mile 785ish). It is off of hwy 395 about 12 miles up the mountain above the town of Independence. It is also very beautiful and well-maintained. There is a creek and waterfall that run though there. The campground host there is named Michael and he is so amazingly cool. Great guy. I think sites there are $14. This is a great place to stay if you're vacationing around the hwy 395 area. There's also a lot of epic places to go and sights to see and things to do in the area. World class fishing, rock climbing (bouldering), death valley, schatz bakery, all the hwy 395 towns, etc.
So yeah, if you want to go camp but don't want to walk 20 miles/day with a pack on, those two campgrounds are really cool and possibly the prettiest I've seen thus far, as far as car camping goes :)
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