The Original earn your beer ®

of blowdowns. Hikers must clamber over thousands of fallen trees across the full PCT. Some of these obstacles require hard and dangerous climbing on steep slopes, and a few hikers suffer falls and minor injuries. From now on, I’ll appreciate the efforts of volunteers who toil to saw through logs and clear the trail.

Towns like Burney, Dunsmuir, and Etna gave me a chance to catch up on calories. Ravenously hungry, stuffed myself in each of them, but still lost more weight. In Seiad Valley, the Seiad Cafe offers a pancake challenge: eat an 8.7 pound plate of giant flapjacks within two hours and get the $16 meal for free. Many hikers attempt it but few succeed. I opted for a large plate of bacon and eggs instead.

Trail angels make hiking not just possible but enjoyable. My new friend Megan kindly drove me from Red Bluff to my trailhead near Lassen. Burney’s

Word of Life Church opens its doors to hikers to shower, eat and even spend a night. know an old friend in Burney; Sarah and her husband and son graciously took me in. In Callahan, I enjoyed a night at rustic Sugar Creek Ranch, which offers excellent fishing for anglers. In Etna, trail angel Molly drove me to town and even found me a cheap room and bed. Several other friendly drivers picked me up when hitchhiked. Majestic Mount Shasta reminded me of pleasant climbing memories as hiked beside it. Some hikers even left the trail to climb it, though opted instead for new and closer summits, like Buckhorn Mountain, Kings Castle and Eagle Peak in Marble Mountain Wilderness.

I enjoyed meeting other hikers like Arrowhead, Troubadour, Bahama Mama, Turtle, Drama, Shaggy and Robin Hood. But as I neared Oregon, still had no trail name. Other hikers began to notice my affinity for side trips off the main PCT. That sounded like a fun and fitting concept.

So when I reached the register at the California-Oregon border, I signed my new moniker: Detour.

Matt “Detour” Johanson describes his journey on the 2,650-mile PCT in this series. Next time: Forging through Oregon’s Forever Forests