Hello out there to those in the "other" world. Naturally I've got a lot of updating to do but I don't think that 4:50 am is the time to do it. YAK and I made a serendipitous visit to a town a day and a half earlier than expected. We're currently in Etna, CA staying at the California Campus Training Group facility of some organization that trains volunteers from around the world to go to Africa and do development work. We haven't quite figured out what the angle is ... could it be like the Peace Corps but without the backing of the US Government? Who knows.

In any case, at this point in the game we're pretty darned sure that we are THE. LAST. two hikers heading northbound who started at the kickoff back in late April. Pretty fun to know that out of 2-300 fellow hikers we are the very tail end caboose of everyone, cleaning up all of their messes and eating all of the berries that they passed by (more on that later). It's lonely too, as we hike day after day after day without seeing anyone, and those before us are so far ahead that the only tracks we follow in the trail are those of bear, elk, mule deer, deer, and birds. And of course the ubiquitous little lizards that we somehow thought we'd left back in the desert. We counted 82 of them in one afternoon. Lots of lizards!

SO, we made it past Interstate 5 and have been hiking around Mount Shasta's west side. Long story short, this update is just to say HEYA and to let you know that "beyond this place there be dragons" - ahem - I mean carnivorous plants. Yep. Insane, I know. The photo above details one of the many pitcher plants that have graced the amazing trail of this Northern California section that we can't seem to get enough of. Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got til it's gone?

Much love from Flying Bobcat, Yak, and Hey Nonny Nonny the Lassen Volcanic Crater Whale