Day 95, the Lords with me

I woke up at the trail head a little apprehensive. I heard the wind blowing most of the night, and as I lay here, I could hear the slight sound of moisture hitting the outside and my tent. I know there is a storm forecast for today in the area of the trail I am going to be on today.  Used my Garmin for a weather forecast, which was better than expected. It shows a 40% chance of precipitation at 4 PM. That is about the time I plan to finish hiking for today. Following that it should clear up and be sunny the next two days before another storm rolls in. I check outside my tent, there was only a very very light dusting of frost/snow, which easily shook off as I packed up and headed out at 6:30 , a little later than I would’ve liked but I needed the time to consider my options.

I headed up the trail in a foggy cloud. Some of the plants had a light dusting of snow on their leaves, but nothing that stuck to the rocks of the dirt. 

Going up to the ridge. I got a picture across the valley at some of the cloud covered mountains. When I got to the top, they were a couple very minor patches of snow that were no challenge. 

Across the saddle, back onto the weather, prone side of the mountain, and again walked in a very short snow flurry. I found the melt pattern on these two snow patches to be interesting. 

The changing geology of the trail fascinates me. We go from different rock, types and vegetation systems multiple times a day. 

The snow flurries are continuing. Some of it is actually starting to stick around the base of some trees. It’s the middle of June people. 

Take a brief stop at this stream for a second breakfast drink before continuing on 

Guess where the trail is… If you said directly under the only place, snow is on the hillside, you would be correct 

Today, not only do I need to contend with snow still on the ground, actual snow falling from the sky, but also a very large number of blow down trees to crawl over under and around. 

  

I’ve come to the top of another saddle, there is a beautiful meadow down below me on the other side below the clouds, I still have a light snow falling on me.

The trail passes by a couple of gorgeous streams before passing right alongside two lakes, the second one about a quarter mile above on a steep uphill. Normally I would stop here and have lunch while enjoying this beauty but it is snowing too hard and I want to press on.

I continue on to an area that is fully covered in snow no visible trail and I have to route find from a Valley up to a Mountains pass; again, I’m wearing my micro spikes pushing forward.

I arrive to a vista overlooking a gorgeous valley fog from today is snow is lifting out of it as it warms. It’s pretty cool to watch.

The same vista has views of both sides of the valley and the mountains in front

Marble valley can be seen down below. This is where I will be camping tonight.

These rocks are called the marbles. There was a whole mountain side of them and others that I walked between on the way to the campsite.

Marble Valley has an old ranger station that is apparently no longer in use as it is boarded up, but it sits in the middle of the camping area.

I went down trail .1 miles to this campground situated up against some of the marble rocks. It is somewhat secluded and very beautiful. The river for my water is just 200 feet away. I was able to set up quickly as it was snowing and get all of my stuff inside to stay dry.  

What a change from yesterday when I started the day with a blah feeling, and not really into the hike today I started with a little bit of apprehension because of the weather and unknown snow conditions ahead, but today probably more than other I felt the Lord with me, it snowed off and on most of the day, I had an area where the trail was not visible and I had to route find and that went well. I made good time and big miles. I’m camping in a beautiful spot. Today was a great day.

Today’s PCT miles hiked 24.1

Total PCT Miles hiked to date 1080.9

PCT mile marker 1625.2

(Flipped over 542.8 miles)