Sierra Buttes Fly Colony 7/1

Last time we chatted we talked about the dying town of Sierra City. Actually I talked about our dirty room and the fact there is no restaurant. You can get a burger or sandwhich at the grocery store which has a deli with cooking space the size of a bathroom. The two twenty year old boys cooking the food looked like they might not be washing their hands a lot. FC watched her burger being rolled into a ball by hands that did a bit of everything. She watched as her Oreo milkshake being made by a guy who smoked on his break then sprinkled Oreo crumbs into her shake with his bare hands. The female  cashier preferred talking to the extremely busy deli cooks and taking hits on her bong (maybe just smoking cigs) every chance she could sharing it with the dozen or so PCT hikers out on the old fashioned porch who were baking in the sun and being slowly baked by her. Like I said, there was no restaurant but there was a snowmobile store (closed for the season) that looked prosperous. No need to stop in Sierra City.

Miles that is...

      We climbed 3,200 ft to get out of that town, starting at 6:30am. It was 75 degrees by 7:30 and by 8:30 we were fully exposed to the unmercifull sun. TC pulled out her light weight silver umbrella and FC took her clothes off. So far, she has not been burned. She exposes herself to early morning sun and covers up later. TC after 1,000 miles, finally started wearing shorts. Her old nylon pants ripped apart so she got a fancy stylish pair of Khul pants that have zip off legs. The pants are of a much sturdier material than nylon so they are much hotter. She must wear them as shorts in the heat or she will perish. Her legs are very shapely now as she has lost all her baby fat due to the ungodly amount of walking she is doing. FC has never seen them looking so good. Unfortunately her new pants are hanging a bit loosely and she has too tie them tightly to hold them up. Her butt and thighs have also taken a hit. Anyway she is finally allowing her legs to know the sun. 

Showing some leg. 

Traversing the west side of the Buttes. 

Looking south toward Buttes. With Deer Lake 400 ft. Below. We dropped our packs & went for the cool down. It was in the high 80's. 

       The Sierra Buttes are worth seeing. Very craggy. Very high. Very cool. A few miles from the Buttes FC had her afternoon bowel discharge and she noticed that within 10 seconds her shit was covered with flies, about fifty of them. She thought this odd. That's a lot of flies. Usually 2or 3 wander by and take a peek and stroll. TC and FC were on a windy ridge and were not expecting fly mania but they sat down to eat lunch and were attacked by every fly known and unknown to them. The worst were the horse flies and deer flies. They bite. They have jaws and teeth. When they bite, you pay attention. They like to land on your head and behind your knees. They are not used to being swatted by horses. The most a horse can do is swish it's tail or stamp its foot. This is very ineffectual. The fly knows this and does not move. It gets a bit jostled buts hangs on. On a human when that hand comes down and flattens it the amazing thing is that the fly holds fast. It compresses under your hand like it has springs or something. If it falls to the ground watch it closely because most of the time it flys off. FC, with all the Will power she can muster tries not to kill the bloody thing. She stuns it ( probably dislocating its jaw or knocking out a tooth or two), then flicks it off. She has watched these flies float and hover in the air after being smacked and flicked then fly off. How can this happen? A smack to the body (they don't fly away when the shadow of your hand moves toward them) macerates the mosquito and completely destroys a gnatty tiny black fly but these horse flies and deer flies are made of different materials. They are like super hero characters that live on and on. You can definitely hit one of these guys hard enough to kill them but when you are just stunning them it still seems they should at least pause a moment or play dead instead of biting harder. The flick of the finger after the smack may be a form of resuscitation.They land as softly as butterflies so you don't feel them until they are into your flesh. It feels like you are being stung by a bee or wasp. Usually the bites don't do much for a day but by the second day they harden, swell, and itch so badly you are not sure whether to take a blow torch to them, stab yourself with a knife or scratch your flesh off. Itching inflames the bites and you usually have more than one bite. FC had about 25 behind each knee so if she itched one of them 24 others screamed for attention. That afternoon she had a dizzy spell and felt wobbly on her feet. She didn't know if she was dizzy from heat exhaustion, hunger, or the accumulation of fify knee bites affecting the neurons in her addled brain. She told TC she needed to lie down but in the tent so she could be protected from all bugs. For the first time in 3 months of hiking they set the tent up in the middle of the day so that FC could lay down in peace without struggling with the moral dilemma of not killing.