Day 61: Evolution Creek & Constant Wet Feet

Date: Sun 6/17

PCT Start Mile: 845.4

PCT End Mile: 864.2

PCT Mileage for Day: 18.8

Total PCT Mileage: 864.2

The Highlights: a no pass day, lots of rivers, several bridges

Today we “slept in”, meaning my alarm was set for 5am. It was cold out and I was tired… I did not want to get out of my sleeping bag. I dozed for another 15 minutes before starting to get ready.

*Reaching that point where your socks stand on their own.*

We hiked out of camp at 6am. The morning was cold and we all hiked in layers for much later into the morning than usual. Typically we’ve warmed up enough in the first hour that we start shedding layers. Not today, as we hiked downhill and through the shade, anxiously waiting for the sun to hit the trail.

Around five miles into the hike we approached the junction for Evolution Creek, a high current river crossing along the PCT. While we had deftly avoided wet feet all morning through a combination of rock hopping, log crossing, and jumping, there would be no avoiding wet feet at this river crossing. An alternate trail leads upriver a bit to a section with a bit less current and, watching three other hikers head down the alternate trail ahead of us, we took this path as well.

The alternate actually involved two crossings. The first, a deep but narrow channel with three thin slick logs over the water. Luckily we all made it without slipping into the icy waters. Unluckily, we were all so fixated on watching each other cross, we didn’t take any photos.

A bit up the trail, we hit the Evolution Creek crossing. The alternate had led us to a wide but slower flowing part of the creek and we plowed through the icy water as quickly as we could, the water coming up to about mid-thigh at its deepest. Emerging from the crossing, we hiked fast to warm our legs and feet up again. I blame the cold water for us forgetting to take any pictures at this second crossing.

*Instead of Evolution Creek pics, here’s a pretty rainbow.*

The rest of the morning was a net descent, with some short uphill sections climbing us up more things to hike down. That’s how it goes out here.

We hiked along and over several wide, rapid rivers all morning, including Evolution Creek, the San Joaquin River, and Piute Creek, among others, some with nice bridges over them.

We took our lunch break at the bottom of the long descent, just shy of 13 miles into our day, now at 7,894 ft elevation. Typical for the Sierras, lunch began with us laying our tents, sleeping bag (me), and socks and shoes in the sun to dry. The side of my sleeping bag had collected more condensation than usual last night and I wanted to make sure it was nice and dry for tonight.

After lunch we had a 6.4 mile ascent to our planned camp area for the night. This started out okay but eventually turned into very long, rocky switchbacks that seemed to go on forever.

Thankfully Shawn had hiked ahead, so Squishy and I were free to slog our way through this at a snail’s pace without feeling bad for holding him up. Overall, we are so happy to be out here hiking and every day we have the most incredible scenery, but once in awhile you hit a very monotonous section that you just can’t wait to be done with. This was that section.

*This was not the boring monotonous part…*

Eventually the switchbacks came to a halt and the trail entered forest, a welcome change. The rest of the hike was more diverse, passing through forest, meadow, and eventually by beautiful lakes.

We set up camp on a bluff above one of the lakes. A gorgeous spot. We’ll likely have some condensation on our tent in the morning, but hopefully it won’t be too bad since we are a bit above the lake.

A breeze also helped to keep any potential blood suckers away from the site, a huge bonus, and we could eat our dinners in peace, free of mosquito swarms, the downside of having water everywhere.