Castle Crags - Seven Lakes Ridge 8/14/10 22 miles

Woke up ready to go after a refreshing evening. We packed up and headed back down to the store for some breakfast burritos and to make some final calls. We headed out about 9am for the walk up the road to get back on the trail. Finally got to the trail at about 10:30am. It was already hot and we had a 4,000 foot climb ahead of us. We took our first break at a beautiful creek in a little canyon ,. We got to the climb and it was entirely in the sun. We climbed for what seemed like forever. We got to a spring that had some nice shade and we were so happy to drink some cold water. We met Palamino, a SOBO section hiker and shared some great conversation while we ate lunch. We headed back out and got some great views of the Castle Crags and Mt. Shasta as we walked the ridge. We sat up camp at about 7:30pm, just in time for sunset. The tent site was quite rocky and slanted, but was worth the great views after the hard climb. -CM