Mile 1342.2 to 1351.8 – 9.6 miles total hiked on PCT

As I mentioned in the prior day’s comments, I would only be going about 10 miles this day. I will stop at Wagner Valley campground to avoid having to carry a bear canister through Lassen national Park. 20+ miles in one day just was not possible for me.

So I got up and headed north. Unfortunately, the green trees surrounding Feather River gave away to a burn zone fairly quickly.

Sadly, a good deal of the hike this day was through dead, burned out forests.

There were a couple spots where the trail kind of diverged in multiple directions with use/social trails and the real trail going in opposite directions.

Not for the first time this year, I found myself putting down some branches to try to divert people onto the right path (once I figured out where the right path was). I try to help where I can.

I passed a lake called Boiling Springs Lake. Lassen is a park with all kinds of volcanic features, but-quite frankly-I didn’t really see a lot of activity out of this lake. Yeah it’s obviously not a good place to swim or get water from, but it never seemed like there was any bubbling or activity around the lake.

Not sure if I’ll see anything else volcanically active on my way out of the park the next day.

I started to see cabins and other buildings related to the Drakesbad Guest Ranch between the burned trees. Sadly, that meant that Wagner Valley wasn’t spared from the fires.

There were some live trees here and there, but the burn zone was still pretty widespread in the valley.

Once I got to the campground, it was nice to see that there were some live trees. But the campsite I had reserved turned out to be in a burned area with most of the trees cut down. I should have chosen one of the other available campsites, but I didn’t really have a lot of time or information.

So, not much shade and somewhat bleak looking. I also for the life of me couldn’t find where they expect a tent to be put up. There wasn’t a lot of level ground and what was there was kind of covered with debris and rocks.

You wouldn’t think I’d need to do this in a real campground, but I made do with what I had. As the sun started moving through the sky, there was some shade, but I had to chase it most of the afternoon.

One PCT northbound through hiker seen on the trail (the same one as the previous day). Passed about a half dozen day hikers when I approached Wagner Valley.