The view of Lassen from Hat Creek Rim at sunrise.

We awoke to rain falling in to the tent. I rushed outside to throw the rain fly on the tent and then glanced at my watch...4:57am. 3 minutes before we were supposed to get up anyway. That is the great thing about thru-hiking. You always know what you are going to be doing wake up and it's raining guess what you're hiking. It's snowing...start walking. It's almost 100° outside time to go hiking. No decisions to be made. So the rain was our wake up call for the infamous Hat Creek Rim 30 mile waterless section of the PCT that traverses the ridge it is named for that is an exposed section due to past fires and it's volcanic surroundings. Today we had to go back to our desert teachings and carry our weight in water. I only had a 6 liter capacity and Turtle only had 4 which meant we had to start early take a long lunch break and then end late. Many people were night hiking but that did not work out with our schedule as we hiked 28 miles to make it to the starting point and were exhausted to say the least when we arrived.

So we did what you do and started walking under ominous skies. The rain subsided quickly but the black clouds remained. Electrical storms were forecasted for the morning which is not what you want to hear when you are walking a ridge and you are the tallest being on the trail, but what can you do?

The clouds dissipated by mid morning and let the sun shine in. We had to do like everything else that was alive on the rim and retreat to shade that could only be found under a bush. Truth be told this was my favorite part of thr desert long lunch breaks and by long I mean we hid under that bush for 3.5 hours.

After our break we headed on towards the lava fields. We found a fully stocked water cache at mile 17 though I believe we would have been ok without it. By night the clouds were back and the wind picked up to 30+mph. We headed down the rim to do something I have to say I have never done before which was sleep in a lava field.

Lassen was a new world and Volcanoes seem to be the order of the day as Mt Shasta came into view today as well. At over 14,000 feet Shasta is supposed to be in view for the next 300 miles. Pictures of Shasta to come soon.

We made it the entire 30 miles and are now in Burney for the afternoon and then back on the trail. We made time for an all you can eat pizza buffet. I thought Kristi and I would be the stars here but we witnessed a kid eat so much pizza that he passed out on the table. The amazing deat was that when he woke up, he ate more pizza. I think we may have a future thru-hiker on our hands. Now we are off to Mt. Shasta the town. It is almost 100 miles away and we have to be there by Friday to pick up a package. This pizza should do the trick.