Going from Truckee to Chester has brought me through two intermediate towns, Sierra City and Quincy. It is also brought me through a good chunk of the Dixie fire, a mega fire that hit Northern California last year. I also passed the halfway point on the PCT and now, geologically at least, am in the Cascade range.
Truckee to Sierra City he was fully south of the Dixie fire and was pleasant walking. Water was somewhat abundant and the shade provided by the forest was excellent. This was an extremely short section just two days, and temperatures were cool which made for excellent taking.
Sierra City lies under the Sierra Buttes which, with the clouds, looked like Mount Doom. The clouds were swirling around the top of the mountain, and the black rock looked ominous under the dark clouds. Sierra City itself was pretty cool, a great, extremely tiny town for a short stop.
Between Sierra City and Chester I also kept running into the dad of a fellow hiker, Smuggler, who was slack packing his son and friends for a week. I had first met Smuggler at Mt Laguna near mile 45, then again around mile 1000 by Mammoth Lakes! Getting almost daily trail magic was wonderful, and I really appreciated his generosity in opening up his snacks up to other hikers.
There were some relatively small fire scars between Sierra City and Quincy, but the burn area started in earnest between Quincy and Chester. The burn areas became larger, and there were sections of trail with no plant life at all, not even the smallest shrub or shoot of new growth. Only charred standing dead trees. Those were the most sad parts to walk through.
However, there were some areas with promising signs of new growth, with lots of brush growing up out of the newly cleared soil. The hard part of the burn areas is the lack of shade and the large amounts of dust and ash that make it into all my gear. The fine ash clings to everything it to touches, and my legs were typically black below the knees at the end of the day.
There are a few more days of burn area before we’re finally clear, but I’m looking forward to the Subway Caves in this next stretch, a long lava tube you can walk in.
