Sierra City to Wades Lake

Got on the trail pretty early and had a big climb right off the bat. It was gradual and so not too bad. Interesting being out of the high Sierras. Mountains are not nearly as high and in the Sierras the snow is almost gone on anything below 9000 feet. Yet here, there is still a lot of snow clear down to 6500 feet on north faces, and in the woods where there isn't much sun.

The first 13 miles today flew by. Hiked past the Sierra Buttes 

And most of the trail was green with some really cool mossy pine trees.

Ate lunch on top of a mountain and it was warm and wonderful. And then...the snow patches began to pop up again. No problem. At first. Then we came to a sketchy area where the trail was buried under snow and we had to scramble down some rocks and glissade down a snow field to get back down to where we thought the trail was . And once we got in to the forest, the trail was gone again and there was 3-4 feet of snow covering the forest floor, so we had to use our gps to find our way down. Still managed to do 21 miles today, but I'm not going to lie...I'm over the snow thing!! The previous four years, snow has not been an issue out here. This was an El Niño year, meaning more moisture. It definitely makes the trail more challenging!! 

Trail? 

Got to a trail crossing at the end of the day and we were really tired. And after almost a whole day of not seeing another person, on a random trail crossing , we met a cool young couple, Matt and Yvonne...and they had a map!! We followed them down a snowy trail to Wades Lake, which was quiet and pretty and we camped down there just a little off the PCT. Good to get out of the snow!!!