The Great and Powerful Icebox

Day 30PCT Mile Marker 1351.79 – 1371.48

Miles Hiked 19.69

I was too freaked out about the habituated bear to sleep more than a couple of winks.

So I got going as soon as I didn’t need my headlamp to see.

I clacked my poles and jangled my bear bell and said Hey-Bear a lot until I came up on a little lake. Then I crashed my way around to a log that was sticking out in the water.

I put down all my stuff and walked out on the log to get water from as far out in the lake as I could. The Fresh Stuff. Well, The Fresher Stuff.

I saw movement over there a ways and strained my eyes to see. It was a human, getting out of a tent. Uh Oh. I bet I woke them up. It was still really early.

I felt bad.

So I treated my water and got the hell out of there.

I was a little quieter after that, and got some more water and looked at maps at the next little lake. I walked down the trail, enjoying the morning, and saw movement again. I stopped in the trail, and an adolescent bear came out of the woods and onto the trail about fifty feet from me.

Eye Contact.

I Hey-Bear’d him, and he just kept looking at me. A second bear about the same size came out onto the trail. They both looked at me, all brown and fluffy like they just came out of the dryer. 

I put my poles over my head and clacked them together and yelled super loud like a cowboy, “GOOOOWON-NOW-GIT!!”  

My amazing, super-loud voice echoed over the lake and through the trees.

And Git They Did. Hauling ass down the trail and bailing into the woods.

Do Not Mess With The Great and Powerful Icebox.

I felt all superior for about one and a half minutes, then I went back to wondering how many more were watching me.

The forest was burned, but life was coming back. The grasses were that fresh, lush green that they get when they’re just babies, and the flowers were clean and happy.

Tiny Baby Trees were poking up everywhere amongst their huge dead relatives, and then there was old Mt. Lassen again, peeking over the black and gray forest remnants.

Breathtaking. Every photo better than the last.

Thanks to being freaked out by bears, I’d made my intended miles by 1:30. So I sat by the river for a few hours until the sun quit screaming, and realized that 4.76 miles away was Old Station.

Old Station had a mini-mart.

Mini-marts sell beer and ice cream.

I barreled through the forest, orange butterflies swirling around me, their dots all colored in.

I sat at a table outside the mini-mart eating my ice cream, sipping my beer, and charging my cell phone with my solar charger.  

Man in Escalade: “You hitchhiking?”

Me: “No. Backpacking.”

Man in Escalade: “What’s your name?”

Me: “Icebox.”

Man in Escalade: “Does your husband call you that too?”

Me: “No. That would be weird.”

Man in Escalade: “Yeah.”

And then he was gone.

I was putting my pack on again, a little tipsy and sugary and happy, when George said, “Excuse me, are you hiking the PCT? We’d like to invite you for dinner. We’re having meat and corn and potatoes.”

Well can you believe that? And it’s all stuff I can eat!

So that’s how I got adopted for dinner, met some really great people, and re-realized how good this world really is.