Today started off slow as the post office does not open until noon and I need to mail some food forward for the Oregon section. I slept in worked on continuing food plans for the next couple of hundred miles and then walked down to the café for another huge breakfast.
Cherry the host of the RV resort, gave me a ride with my boxes to the post office. I’ve got them in the mail and walked back to grab my pack after procrastinating for 30 minutes walked back down the road to where the trail continues back up the mountain side. Today I will only hike 10.1 miles but the first eight is going to be straight up. I have a huge elevation gain today.
I am halfway up today’s climb looking down you can see the RV camp in Valley where I was less than 2 1/2 hours ago
I continue my climb up with expansive views off to my side. This is another section of trail that has been reclaimed by mother nature. You have to pick your way through bushes, following what you believe is a Trail occasionally you find the actual trail
Lookout Spring is about 100 feet below the trail and has this collection pipe bringing a small trickle of water that takes about three minutes to get 1 Liter, but it is water on an otherwise dry section!
Common Beargrass has a fluffy, yellowish white long stemmed flower rising from long thin green leaves. I have not seen it before and then all of a sudden it seems to be all over the place.
There is an ominous thunder ramble off to my west, with the dark clouds and rain in the far distance. I don’t know if it will reach me tonight and if so, if I will have a tent set up before it comes. Yesterday’s forecast called for rain starting about this time continuing through tomorrow, but this morning I did another weather check and it showed cloudy but no precipitation.
As I walk into the canyon where my campsite is located, I stare in awe at all of the rock mountainsides surrounding me and down at the Meadow where the lake where I will be camping is situated.
God has smiled on me again. I got to my campsite location put my tent down, set it up and put everything inside but did not start laying everything out. I went to get water as I was pulling my water bag out of the lake giant raindrops started landing on the surface of the water. I headed the 75 feet back to my tent and got inside just as rain started moderately falling. I boiled water for my dinner, and as it was hydrating laid out my pad, sleeping bag and other stuff. I washed up and got ready to eat, thankfully dry, protected from the rain. God is good.
Now, I just hope I remember to take pictures of the tent site in the morning before I pick everything up
As the rain intensified, lightning started to flash and thunder started to roar. I was in my tent, so I don’t know where the lightning was positioned in the sky, but it seemed very close. The thunder was louder than I have ever heard. I videoed it, however, the sound of the rain drowns out some of the sound of a the thunder. My video did end up with some of yesterdays footage as well, not intended, but its there for some reason.
Today’s PCT miles hiked 10.1
Total PCT Miles hiked to date 1124.4
PCT mile marker 1667.1
(Flipped over 542.8 miles)
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