Burney Falls

The namesake of the state park that was the trail work base camp I've been in and out of for almost 3 weeks. One of the best waterfalls I've ever seen - they're about 40-50 ft. tall I guess, with water pouring over from the stream above as well as gushing out of the porous volcanic rock that makes up the ground here.

Close-up of the water weeping out of the igneous rock.

Burney falls park also contains a small piece of the Pacific Crest Trail: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_crest_trail

A picture of thru-hikers descending on our camp. Our proximity to the PCT meant that thru-hikers (people attempting to walk the entire trail continuously by backpacking from Mexico to Canada, beginning usually in late April and going into mid-fall) were using the same campsite we were. We also had a guy who had thru-hiked in 2003 as a member of our trail work crew. He did a great job of providing hospitality and local knowledge for the thru-hikers stopping by. I was extremely lucky to have been working on a stretch of the trail at a time when thru-hikers were passing through (hikers who have a realistic chance of doing the whole trail in a season have a narrow warm-weather time window in which to do so). This made the work I was doing have much greater meaning. I was able to give some of them rides to and from town as well, which was cool. I got to hear numerous amazing stories from these people - for example, that the Sierra Nevada range had a heavy snow year, and these hikers had navigated across and backpacked through 400+ miles of snowbound mountain ridges. Much respect. They are all very dedicated and a little bit nuts.

My place. It was nice to have a stationary camp for awhile (but watch out for rattlesnakes, scorpions, and other fun critters). The nearby town of Burney, while small, had everything I needed for conveniences too (much of Northern California... didn't. It's really rural). I got a haircut in town from a preposterously grumpy old female barber, visited a goofy sporting goods store, and in general took in some of the local flavor. This place is so dry and hot in the summer - highs in the high 90s most days and about 10 min. of rain total in the past 3 weeks. We dwelled in the red rock dust, stuck to us by our sweat. I reached new levels of filth, and learned how to be totally okay with it. It was a liberation of sorts - letting go of the preoccupation of needing to wash regularly is the best thing (really, the only thing to do) in that situation.