So much for a number of prehike entries, pictures and my more or less daily journal posts.
Today is June 28. Hike started June 13, first trail day June 14.
I’m still dealing with the gratuitous nature of it all. Fixing the missing sql code did not require deleting the blog entries. That just seems petty.
They nuked a lot of uploaded pictures files as well.
/sigh.
I’ll try to do an omnibus recovery update and get back to posting again.
A long day. Woke up at 4:30. On the trail by 5:45.
A lot of blow downs. A lot of poison oak. Took a bypass. Still walked about 30 miles which was too many. But I got a shower. Clean laundry. Fresh whole wheat tortillas from the hiker box.
Sunrise and a picture of my hiker pole that got eaten
It was a day.
Today we passed only two and Far Out gave us 5.2 trail miles today for our zero.
Etna was great. I’m tired. 9:06 and hiker midnight for me. Tonight I have five days of food, new hiking poles and we did quite the ridge line bypass for some bad snow.
You would think it was only 21 miles. But. We hit really heavy snow with a winter storm blowing in so half a mile short we turned around.
Of the six NOBOs on the trail at that point, all turned around. We made it pretty much out of the snow and then camped. Went to bed early and slept through rain all night.
By 4:00 am the rain was over. By 5:28 am we were on the trail back towards Fish Lake. 21,000 steps later we were having breakfast. Nine NOBOs, all realizing the snow was too heavy.
We have been focused on Crater Lake. But the trail is impassable before and after Crater Lake so we missed the crucial factor—the snow on the trail at other locations.
That said, the basalt bolder fields were impressive on the way to Fish Lake. Until the snow the trail was great, blow downs regardless.
A year ago it was a low snow year. 115 degrees. This year it is a high snow year and the temperatures have dropped into the 30s each day.
24 miles. 21 miles. 24 miles. Today it was 21,000 steps or so and lots of elevation. Would have been less but we got off trail on the way back, found our way to the road and then caught a ride into town from a CBD dealer.
Great breakfast. Caught a shuttle (Steph again! By a miracle). My missing Spot GPS turned up at a road crossing and I have it back.
All in all a great day so far. Laundry and a shower next. Then we adjust our hike.
About 3,900 feet of vertical, started before 5:00 am. About 18 miles. At Marble Creek tent site now.
But we left before 5:00 to beat the heat. Got to this campsite eleven hours later. My legs are bloody. I snapped a hiking pole in a snow field.
Fixed mashed potatoes, bacon bits. Butter and four types of cheese (from cheese sticks). Electrolytes for dessert.
Met some Russians, Anna and Andre who are software engineers working from home as they hike. Delightful people.
Another day with no internet or cell service
About 3,900 feet of vertical, started before 5:00 am. About 18 miles. At Marble Creek tent site now.
But we left before 5:00 to beat the heat. Got to this campsite eleven hours later. My legs are bloody. I snapped a hiking pole in a snow field.
Fixed mashed potatoes, bacon bits. Butter and four types of cheese (from cheese sticks). Electrolytes for dessert.
Met some Russians, Anna and Andre who are software engineers working from home as they hike. Delightful people.
Another day with no internet or cell service
We planned on a rest day today. Most people call those a “zero” where you hike “zero” miles.
We did fourteen and a half.
We met Bill Roberts, a trail maintainer from Saied Valley who built a number of the bridges on this section of trail.
Shared our campsite with Bearly Alive (her trail name comes from being bluff charged by a bear).
The weather was forecast to have a high around 50-60. so far the warmest on the trail has been in the 50s. It reached 90 at some places.
The good is that this means the ice is melting faster and we have plenty of water. The bad is that is really hot. As we gain elevation we will cool off more.
Yesterday we did almost thirty miles. Averaged with today we are still at our average of around 20-22 miles a day.
Win is such a strong hiker I’ve joked her tail mane should be “the machine.” All I’ve done recently is keep spotting rat snakes on the trail.
That has been fun.
This section of the trail was in the worst shape of the PCT so far. Lots of blown down trees and overgrown trail, and it was a steady climb of about two thousand feet of elevation.
Made me glad we had water. And that explains why the trail guys are putting in so much work. The hikers are arriving.
Yesterday on trail we met only two section hikers. Today we passed a number of Thru-Hikers and missed others we had been told about.
The trail is suddenly not so empty.
Tonight we are sleeping in a pretty forest glade with a stream yin the background. Tomorrow should be an early but perfect day.
A long day. Woke up at 4:30. On the trail by 5:45.
A lot of blow downs. A lot of poison oak. Took a bypass. Still walked about 30 miles which was too many. But I got a shower. Clean laundry. Fresh whole wheat tortillas from the hiker box.
Sunrise and a picture of my hiker pole that got eaten
It was a day.
You would think it was only 21 miles. But. We hit really heavy snow with a winter storm blowing in so half a mile short we turned around. That led to us doing 24.5 miles on day 3 and then 12 to Fish Camp Lake on day four.
Of the six NOBOs on the trail at that point, all turned around. We made it pretty much out of the snow and then camped. Went to bed early and slept through rain all night.
By 4:00 am the rain was over. By 5:28 am we were on the trail back towards Fish Lake. 21,000 steps later on Day four (and after getting lost in the right direction and some bushwhacking) we were having breakfast. Nine NOBOs, all realizing the snow was too heavy.
We have been focused on Crater Lake. But the trail is impassable before and after Crater Lake so we missed the crucial factor—snow on the trail at other locations.
That said, the basalt bolder fields were impressive on the way to Fish Lake. Until the snow the trail was great, blow downs regardless.
A year ago it was a low snow year. It was 115 degrees in June. This year it is a high snow year and the temperatures have dropped into the 30s each day.
24 miles. 21 miles. 24 miles. Today it was 21,000 steps or so. Would have been less but we got off trail on the way back, found our way to the road and then caught a ride into town from a CBD dealer.
Great breakfast. Caught a shuttle (Steph again! By a miracle). My missing Spot GPS unit turned up at a road crossing and I have it back.
All in all a great day so far. Laundry and a shower next. Then we adjust our hike.
I also talked to the “trail Angel” who had been giving us condition updates and telling us it was fine. Turns out they knew it wasn’t fine but “my job is to give hikers encouragement, not information.”
So SOBO (south bound) it is. Especially since parts of the trail north of here are impassible and the Forest Service was canceling permits and returning fees.
[note. In the time since the system swallowed this post and I’ve attempted to restore it, we’ve hiked South a lot. As of July 2 we are on the trail just north of Burney Falls, California right now.]
Currently we have completed 358 miles with an average day (including our NEROs) of about 19.99 miles a day.
