Day 113: 1900 Miles Down!
Date: Wed 8/8
PCT Start Mile: 1869.6
PCT End Mile: 1900.2
PCT Mileage for Day: 30.6
Total PCT Mileage: 1900.2
The Highlights: hot climbs, beautiful trail, and 1900 miles complete
All that talk about chilly Oregon mornings, and this morning was warm. The whole night was warmer than our previous Oregon nights. This makes it easier to get out of our sleeping bags in the morning, but otherwise is an indication that it will probably be a hot day, and it definitely was.
Overall, today was far more scenic than yesterday. Our morning wound us through both healthy forest and past burn areas, where fushia flowers stood out against the charred trees.
A little over 8.5 miles into our hike, we took a short break at Windigo Pass, where we filled our water bottles at a water cache.
Southern Oregon has had several long waterless stretches, with sources sometimes far from the trail or completely dry, so it’s been very appreciated that there are some reliable water caches maintained along some of these dryer sections.
This particular cache also had some boxes of trail magic with miscellaneous medicines, bug repellant wipes, TP, and other necessities that hikers might need. Almost out of bug spray, I took a couple of the bug repellent wipes.
From Windigo Pass, we had just over 11 miles until we planned to break for lunch. After about 4 miles of gradual uphill, the remainder of the 11 miles were mostly downhill. We stopped for our lunch break at Summit Lake, not far from where a car camper was set up.
While we ate, another hiker came to chat with us. He was from Germany, and had just started the trail in Seiad Valley with plans to hike all the way to Canada, but was experiencing some growing pains with blisters and other aches and pains and having a difficult time getting into a rhythm. He also seemed a little discouraged that, since he had just started and was doing lower mileage, every time he met other hikers it was the first and last time that he saw them since everyone else was doing higher mileage at this point. He was thinking about abandoning the plan to hike to Canada in favor of hitch-hiking around (his “scene”, apparently) and just doing shorter hikes. We tried to give him some advice for his blisters and he gave us some tips for hitchhiking, since this was apparently a skill for him. Nice guy, though as he said, it was probably the first and last time we’d see him.
The afternoon brought a long, hot climb and we ascended past stagnant ponds and into some beautiful rocky terrain that was a nice change of pace from hiking in the trees.
At the end of the day, we hit the 1900 mile mark (!!!), and – feeling this was a sufficient day’s work – set up camp shortly thereafter. I celebrated with my favorite trail meal- bacon mac n’ cheese.
There are some other campers camped down the hill from us and, while we can’t see them, we can certainly hear them. There is no way they are hikers because they are making way too much noise. Hikers would be sleeping by now (8:30pm). Hopefully they will be quiet soon?!? Wishful thinking, maybe. Regardless, I’m sure I’ll find some zzzz’s.
