Start: 1462.6
Stop: 1487.1
Today’s miles: 24.5
Total PCT miles: 1339.3
I’m glad the views were pretty today, because everything else about it sucked. Maybe that’s dramatic, but it’s the truth. Today was so physically challenging with the extra weight of the bear canister that it had me questioning my ability to hike this trail at all. The straps were digging into my shoulders, my hips hurt, my knees hurt, my neck hurt, not to mention the mosquitoes made a hellish comeback. I know that’s a lot of bitching, but I thought I’d get it out of the way.
I fell asleep last night around 7ish, to be woken up at 8 by another hiker setting up her tent right next to me. She tried being quiet, but there’s really only so much you can do. Then she had her red light on for what felt like forever as she unpacked.. I was grateful it was the red light and not her bright light, but I couldn’t roll away from it because of my hip bothering me. Shortly after it was turned off, I was asleep again.
I started packing at 6am, ignoring my previous watch vibrations.. it was cold and dark, a combo not conducive to getting up, it appeared Margot agreed, because she was just starting to pack when I was. We left by 6:30 and started the climb we didn’t want to do yesterday. It was pretty, with switchbacks in the pines quickly turning to switchbacks around rocky outcroppings and then open mountaintops with expansive views.
Around 9:30, we passed a cooler filled with cold drinks and fresh cherries! Trail magic! I got a sparkling water and sat on the ground with Margot to drink it and eat some cherries before we carried on. It was wonderful to take my pack off.. so, some good stuff did happen today, I’m not oblivious to that.
Up and down and across open mountains we went, never more than 5 minutes apart from each other. We ate around 11:45, not because I was hungry, but because I wanted my pack to be lighter-and eating food does that. It was much of the same for the rest of the day, with the afternoon including swarms of mosquitoes biting behind my ears and buzzing around my head, frequently making me smack myself harder than necessary.
We made it to camp just before 8pm, with some sunlight left. Immediately we dropped packs and put on our rain gear and I put on my bug net-the pests being too much to deal with, even just to set up my tent. It makes sense though, we did pass some patches of snow and some gorgeous wildflowers still in bloom.. so I think the bugs will be here until it’s too cold for them-which-I need to google what temperature that is so I can start praying for it to come sooner rather than later.
We ate our dinners in our tents, both of our morales down but attempting to pep the other one up. Like we know we’re too stubborn to quit, but my god today was just rough. Everything hurts and I feel like I need to sleep for a week straight to recover, and that’s just not possible if I plan on making it to Mexico before my trip to Egypt.
Bleh. Ok, I’m going to go to sleep and pray I wake up with a better attitude. We’ll see how it goes. Goodnight y’all. Sweet dreams.