Mile 1,597.1 -1,606.0

Wow, last night was freezing cold. Sizzler, Balance, and I camped at around 7,000' next to Statue Lake and the temperature dropped to 38 degrees. That's the coldest it's been since the Sierras and we were not expecting that. It's been warm the last few weeks at night, so we weren't used to it. We have been sleeping on top of our bags.

I woke up just after midnight and had to put on our rainfly just to keep some of our body heat in, and it worked. Our friend Sizzler sent home his sleeping bag and only had a liner so his night was a real cold one. We had on every piece of clothing we could just to stay warm and it was barely enough.

Morning came and it was hard to get out of our bags. We managed to pack up fast and start hiking to keep warm. Just a 9 mile hike to the highway where we will hitch into the town of Etna and spend the night. When we arrived at the highway there was zero traffic. Just a bunch of road construction workers whom we chatted with for awhile. About half an hour later the first car to go by stopped for us. Very exciting, we are going to town. Once in town we got the last room at the one and only motel. Ate lunch, resupplied, and ate dinner. That's what we do. We're hikers. The motel was nice enough to do our laundry too.

We saw lots of hikers we haven't seen in a long time here, so that was fun.

Sunrise over Mt. Shasta.

It only took an hour to warm up this morning. Then it was a comfortable day.

Balance you have hiked 1,600 miles. Hard to believe. That's a long way.

Lipstick Lake.

Sizzler with his trail magic soda heading to the highway for a ride into town.

Y-Knot faking a hitch because there was no traffic. The first car to come by stopped for us. Thank you.