PCT Day 11

Start: 1661.5

Stop: 1671.7

Today’s miles: 10.2

Total PCT miles: 85.1

Today was.. weird. It was beautiful and challenging and so dang slow. I don’t really know what took me so long.

I was up and on my way before 7am. The trail was pretty and switchbacked around the big “hill” the bear last night came barreling down (I had no issues over night and slept really well). Less than a mile maybe into my morning, I got trapped in shrub overgrowth hell. Every single step was a branch or twig scraping my legs. I attempted to take my pack off to get out my rain pants to help shield them, but no luck-not enough space!

By the time I came out of that mess, I had a broken trekking pole and my legs were on fire and actively bleeding from all my new cuts. Neato! It probably only looks worse because of the cuts I already commandeered during my snowcapades were easily sliced right back open. Even as I sit here in camp they are burning!

The trail was lazily strolling and switchbacking between mountaintops. It was beyond gorgeous!
I got to a water source and filtered what I needed, then washed down my legs as best I could. Just in case I ran into anyone, I didn’t want it to look like a fresh massacre, although it kinda was.. and I haven’t seen a soul out here. So sad.

At 11am, I had only gone a little over four miles. This just didn’t seem right, because when I wasn’t stuck in that brush, I felt like I was moving at a decent clip. I guess not. I did take a lot of pictures and loved the scenery. Mountains on top of mountains, it felt like I was able to see the blue ridge mountains on one side, and mountains from Mars on the other.

When I crossed over to the backside of rattlesnake mountain, I hit some snow.. enough to make me put on my microspikes. It wasn’t deep and it wasn’t too terrible, but I was slightly sloped into a valley and I just wanted to be cautious. The snow stopped long enough for me to think I was done with it, so I took off my microspikes, only to put them back on less than a mile later.

Once I crossed over this perfect little ridge, that I walked to on switchbacks and calm trail, I was smacked with steep snow. I couldn’t tell where the trail went, because the snow had started melting only on one side, and I couldn’t see over the ledge. It also went straight up to a peak. I chose to walk up the shrubs and rocks on the closest side to me, to see if at the top I could make it around the snow all together, basically by bushwhacking, and you guessed it, cutting my legs.

When I got to the mostly top though, I realized even if I could, the grade was so steep with shale rock I’d probably get hurt trying to get down. So, I came back down the shrubs the same way I got up there, but from this vantage point I could see where to go “over” the snow and safely into a tree well, instead of a drop off. I started off attempting to walk down to that point, but right above where I needed to be, I slipped and slid a little. When I got to a sitting position still on the snow, I stayed put for a few minutes trying to decide my next move. If I tried to stand, all of this could break away and whatever is under here could be worse on my body.

Very shakily, I let myself slip down to the next tree well. I went FLYING! It was so dang fast, and my pack got hooked on a branch sticking out close to the tree well, so my pack was half way up my back.. otherwise, I was ok! Nothing got jammed and nothing hurt (more than normal). I did have to unhook myself to get out of my pack to get up though. From there, I bushwhacked by holding on to branches and rocks and avoided the snow down the embankment until I reached the trail, that I could now see, in all of its glory.

I was able to take the microspikes back off, and walked around a bowl of a valley, with an alpine lake in the middle. Whatever I did, I knew for certain I did not want to slip in there! I got water from a snowmelt waterfall, sat and ate lunch. When I was up and moving again, big, dark storm clouds were rolling in. Uh oh. That does not look good.

I got to an unmarked road crossing and made a split second decision to follow the road instead of the trail. There wasn’t anymore snow, but the trail looked to be going up along the ridge line of an area from a previous fire, and I didn’t want to be up any higher if lightening was coming.
This ended up being a wonderful choice in so many ways! When the rain came, my umbrella had plenty of room to not smack against any trees or limbs. AND, speaking of limbs, my legs got a break from all the shrubs rubbing up against me on that overgrown trail. I was ecstatic!

My one issue, well besides the whole rattlesnake the rattled all wound up and hissed at me (and almost caused me to jump off the side of the dang road off the mountain when I screamed, jumped, and ran), I didn’t realize I had to pre download the maps of each section on my app to have the topo on it. I’m kinda going blind with these roads. I don’t know if they’ll go higher in elevation than the trail, therefore maybe having snow, and some of them don’t even show me the entire road, so I have no clue if it’ll actually take me where I want to go! Looks like I know what I need to do the second I get service.

When the road met with the trail, the rain had just eased up. Up ahead, I could see that the trail goes up through another burn area. The comments on the app say that there’s 2 miles of “horrible blow downs” before the next campsite area. The clouds are still angry. My pole is broken. I said screw it and put my tent up at the little spot right here by this crossing.

The bottom part of my pole is broken, I sat awhile trying to finagle it, to no use. BUT, my tent did still set up with the broken pole out at the absolute highest it would go! It’s short and it’s a little sketchy on how well it’ll set up and stay in this wind and rain, but this campsite is spacious and flat, so here felt safer than attempting it later, after 2 miles of blowdowns and a thunderstorm in a burn area.

I just keep falling short of my goals everyday. But that’s ok. Tomorrow is a new day, and I’ve been good about having a couple extra meals in my pack in case this happened again. I do know I’m ready to be at Callahan’s Lodge in Oregon in a few days. Let’s hope the next few go much smoother! If my tent doesn’t do well tonight in this storm, I’m at a junction that I can take a forest service road back down to Seiad Valley. But I think I’ll only do that if I think I won’t be able to safely pitch my tent tomorrow night. Ok, time to attempt to get out of my “semi-safe haven” to cook dinner when there’s a break in the rain. I’m actually hungry tonight!