Trail Magic

Issue #2- October 2026

Eight miles west of the town of Chester, California, the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) crosses Highway 36.

The morning before I crossed the highway, I was feeling very sick with cold-like symptoms. About a mile before reaching the highway, I had laid down in the shade of a giant oak tree near a brown meadow filled with cows.

As I lay there, the cows paraded by, stopping every few steps to look at me.

Cows look into your soul.

They look at you like they know all your dirty secrets, and they are appalled.

I’m not a huge fan of cows.

The rest was needed, but I didn’t want to slow down. After an hour, I pushed ahead toward the highway, through a desolate, hot, and exposed section of trail. The bug I had caught made me feel a hundred times worse, and by the time I reached the highway, I was considering hitching a ride into Chester for the night.

On the other side of the highway, I discovered a picnic table with a few bottles of water sitting in the sun.

They were scorching hot.

This was not going to be refreshing.

I spread out my sheet of Tyvek and laid down again. I drifted off to the sound of cars rushing by on the highway, completely oblivious to my plight, my goals, my thoughts, or my history.

I woke up to the sound of a vehicle pulling over to the side of the road.

It was a large Sprinter camper van.

A nice one.

An older but extremely physically fit gentleman stepped out of the van and noticed me. It seemed like he was looking for someone to be there.

I waved.

He asked if I wanted an ice cream and a Gatorade.

Was this a dream?

He introduced himself as “Sprinter,” a well-known trail angel who travels the entire length of the PCT in his Sprinter van, handing out sodas, ice cream, and sometimes even a beer.

Sprinter had hiked the entire length of the trail back in the 1970s with his brother.

He was not an ultralight backpacker.

His pack, which still hangs in the back of his van, is a bright red, external Sierra Designs-style framed pack.

These packs were heavy. Often weighing as much as five pounds, they were considerably heavier than the packs we use today.

And he carried more than 50 pounds without many resupply options.

Everything was harder.

Everything was heavier.

Yet he succeeded in hiking the entire length of the trail.

I marveled at his accomplishment, and we talked for a few minutes before he rushed off to boost the morale of another thru hiker.

With new energy and encouragement, I pressed on north.

The next section was burned forest, with miles of Silverthorn bushes.

Silverthorn grows when the tree cover is gone. It’s a horribly invasive plant with large silver thorns that scrape and cut your legs as you hike.

I didn’t bring pants for this section, which seemed like a great decision until both my legs were bleeding when I arrived the next day at Drakesbad Ranch in Lassen National Park.

It was still a few days before I would begin the section over the Hat Creek Rim that I detailed in the previous issue.

I didn’t know then that before reaching my next resupply stop, I would have another encounter with trail angel magic—one that would change my attitude and motivation all over again.

And somewhere much farther south, many days earlier, near the Mexican border, is another story about strangers taking care of me after I impaled my leg.

But that story will have to wait.

Back to the silverthorn.

After the many miles of scraped up legs, burned forest, and 103-degree days, I was only a few miles from the Burney Mountain Guest Ranch.

I was low on water, hot, and exhausted when I came around a corner near Fall River Road outside Cassel, California.

Sitting there by the road was a cooler.

Written on it in large Sharpie were two words: “Trail Magic.”

This was in the middle of nowhere.

I mean truly remote.

Magic is an illusion, or the use of special powers to make something impossible happen.

This cooler was no illusion.

It wasn’t a mirage either.

I gingerly opened the lid, expecting to find nothing more than some smelly old sandwich wrappers molding in the scorching-hot interior. Or less likely but still unwelcome and completely irrational, a rattlesnake that had somehow decided to make this cooler his home.

What I found was impossible.

Truly impossible.

Buried in ice was a blast from my past.

A soda that took me on a high-speed train to a specific place and time.

Water skiing on Black Butte Lake.

Every year as a child we would go water skiing, and we always had Orange Shasta soda.

Next to the cooler was an old, rusty, hard-steel chair.

Absolutely luxurious.

I sat there, almost in tears, drinking that Shasta and remembering the old times.

For a few minutes, the miles disappeared.

So did the heat.

So did my blistered feet.

The weight I was carrying was completely gone.

I just sat there.

Someone I had never met had left that cooler in the middle of nowhere.

They didn't know me.

They didn't know what I had been carrying.

They couldn't have known what that orange Shasta would mean to me.

But for a few minutes, I was weightless.

And then I got up and kept walking.

---

© 2026 [Christopher S. Miser / Ultralight Leadership]. All rights reserved.

All original content, writing, commentary, and other materials published in this newsletter are the property of [Christopher S. Miser / Ultralight Leadership] and are protected by applicable copyright laws.

You may share or link to this publication for personal, non-commercial purposes, provided that you clearly credit [Christopher S. Miser / Ultralight Leadership] and include a link to the original article. Short excerpts may be quoted for commentary, criticism, or discussion with proper attribution.

You may not copy, reproduce, republish, distribute, modify, sell, or use substantial portions of this content for commercial purposes without prior written permission. This includes reproducing the content on websites, newsletters, social media, publications, or other platforms.

AI & automated use: The content published here may not be scraped, copied, reproduced, ingested, or used in whole or in substantial part to train, develop, fine-tune, evaluate, or otherwise improve artificial intelligence, machine-learning, or automated content-generation systems without prior written permission. Automated collection, aggregation, or republication of this content is also prohibited.

Permission requests: chris@go-northbound.com