Day 92 ~ miles 1489.6 - 1506.5
Town day! We've been really excited about our stop in the town of Mt. Shasta; we've heard it's a neat place. We were afforded with views of the mountain that is its namesake for much of the day. The trail has cut to the West, so we were able to view Shasta from a different vantage point. Some say you can see a sleeping lady on top, in the contours of the mountain; today was the first we saw of her. A rattler a couple of feet off the trail startled us early this morning; a little adrenaline definitely helps you wake up!
The miles went quickly and by early afternoon we were at the road. We walked a little over 2 miles, eating loads of roadside blackberries along the way, to a small market in the town of Castella. Our plan was to camp in Castella, at the Castle Crags State Park campground, and head to Mt. Shasta in the morning. First, we needed some sustenance: ice cream and soda.
A picnic table sat across the parking lot from the market, and we strolled over to find out which hikers were sitting at it. Quickly, we realized that the people at the table were not thru-hikers, but young drifters. They claimed to be living off the land, which included hiker boxes, and had big knives on their sides. Last night, they'd killed and eaten a rattlesnake; they had put the snakeskin on a tree branch, which they shook in our faces, along with the separated rattle. It was an interesting crew, and whether they intended to be or not, they were quite entertaining.
The Castle Crags campground was our next stop, half a mile.down the road. Us and Thor and Ferntoe had the hiker site all to ourselves. We attended a ran ger presentation on Mt. Shasta, the volcanic mountain,that covered climbing the mountain and the culture and folklor surrounding the pinnacle (if you're bored, Google "Lemurians").
We'll be off to the town of Mt. Shasta tomorrow!
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