a search for the "pool"

Day 89 ~ miles 1423.5 - 1445.1

We'd stayed up last night a little later than usual, hanging out with other hikers at the state park, but we still managed to rise early.  It was a super hot day, and swimming was definitely in order.  The guidebook pointed out a "pool" as part of a stream that we would hit around lunchtime, perfect.  When we arrived to the unsuspecting spot with Thor and Ferntoe right behind us, we wandered around in search of this "pool" that we thought would have been pretty obvious.  A diagram pointed us in the right direction, but all we found was basically a mud puddle.  Disappointment soon set in as we all realized that the pool didn't exist.  A shady spot was quickly found, where we all ate together and joked about the "pool".

We hiked on into the afternoon, as storm and rain clouds threatened, and made our way to a campsite listed on our maps.  It turned out that there really wasn't much of a campsite, just a forest service road.  Campsites were really slim due to logging slash covering the forest floor, so we reluctantly setup right by the road with a great view of Mt. Shasta, where Thor and Ferntoe joined, as well as another hiker.  We watched as the sun set and cast a strange shadow from the mysterious mountain: a perfect prism of
darkness, coming from the very top of the mountain.  None of us had ever seen anything like it; we are very intrigued by Mt. Shasta and all of the lore that surrounds it, we hope to learn more about it soon.