Pacific Crest Trail - Day 111 - Sierra Buttes

A pretty hilarious peacock tapestry in our room at the indescribable Sierra City Hotel.

More and more, camping near these small trail adjacent towns is better than staying in them.

After a late breakfast we started up the trail towards the Sierra Buttes. 📈

The PCT up and out of Sierra City towards the Sierra Buttes might be the most scenic stretch of the entire trail, and certainly the most scenic in terms of distance to a trailhead.

New 🌲 growth in the sun.

1200 miles! Or, perhaps more accurately a hundred dozen miles!

A good looking bunch of freshly laundered through hikers.

The trail was rocky and a bit overgrown but the views were better with each step.

Shards.

There is a fire lookout up there somewhere.

Highway 49 follows the North Yuba River down this canyon. It‘s a perfect place to get outside - I’d recommend hiking and camping but the rec stands even if that means putting the top down on the convertible and going for a drive.

There’s that fire lookout 🔥!

Users could be interpreted any number of ways here. I‘ve never considered myself a user of public lands, probably because I don’t look at land or natural resources as something to be consumed, owned, or profited from. That statement probably sounds heretical if you’re an average American in 2025 but those ideas as espoused by Henry George in Progress and Poverty published in 1879 were widely considered as part of the American public discourse for decades. George’s ideas of public ownership and stewardship of non-renewable resources essentially formed the foundation of the public lands we have in America today.

I’d argue that our heavily medicated political representatives are the irresponsible users endangering our public lands.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.

Margaret Mead

Making 4500’ of climbing in an afternoon look good.

Graffiti with a chisel and a serif font.

We brought a Margarita Buzzball to drink at the top.

Hiker for scale.

We camped on the fire lookout with group of PCT hikers we’ve leapfrogged with for the past ~500 miles - definitely one of the most memorable nights of this hike (and life).