Day 103: Our Last Goodnight in California

Date: Sun 7/29

PCT Start Mile: 1657.5

PCT End Mile: 1683.2

PCT Mileage for Day: 25.7

Total PCT Mileage: 1683.2

The Highlights: lots of climbing, burn areas, smoke

Today we climbed… and climbed… and climbed. I felt like we were back in the Sierras without the snow. Over our ~26 mile day we had about 8,275 ft of ascent. This began with a ten mile climb, and then undulated until a three mile climb and then just seemed to gradually climb the remainder of the afternoon/evening. One last sucker punch from CA on our last full day hiking in the Golden State.

*Thick smoke as we hike. Yes, that small orange dot is the sun.*

Pardon my French, I pretty much drug ass all day, very tired from the very beginning. I need a steak when we get to town.

I hate to sound negative, but with the long (sometimes seemingly pointless) climbs, the heat, and the continued milky white haze of smoke engulfing us, northern California was not exactly enduring itself to my heart, on this our last full day of hiking in California.

I don’t want to sound all negative – there were some beautiful fields of wildflowers along the trail today and a little hummingbird even sat down next to me while I filtered water at a spring. No views though, other than the thick milky white haze of smoke from the Redding fire.

Tomorrow morning we will hit the Oregon border and we are beyond excited. We’ve had some great times and great views hiking through California, but we aren’t even a littlesad to be leaving. We’ve been in California since April 18th. It’s beyond time for a new state!

Tonight we camped near Alex Hole Spring along with two other hikers – Slide, a retired fire fighter from northern Virginia, and Just Benjamin, who we had just met at lunch earlier in the day.