September 20
It rained long and hard last night, 11 1/2 hours. At 5 AM I woke up listening to the rain? Trying to decide if I had enough time in my schedule to spend the day in the tent. It was not necessary at 6 AM. The rain stopped. I packed everything up slowly making sure it was still going to hold off everything was soaking wet, I slowed my packing I was on the trail at 8 AM.
It was dark when I got in last night and then my pictures were not great, this morning the lake is covered with solid, and there is 20 feet away. It is not even visible five minutes after taking down my tent, if I completely lift it off the lake, and it is visible again .
Looking off in the other direction, the valley is covered with wispy fog. I will be hiking down there today and back up the other side. Many of the surrounding mountain tops are covered in a fresh dusting of snow.
Halfway down my descent I cross this creek, I have another 2 miles to go to the bottom before I start back uphill.
The trail down is so much overgrown with vegetation. It is covered in water, and as a result, I am completely soaked. I also have to scramble over and around many blow downs.
I cross a small foot bridge and begin my ascent, hoping my body heat will dry me out, and there will be less foliage dropping water on me.
As continue up the trail, I come across these trees I think are really cool. They are growing sideways out of the mountain before reaching up to the sun.
As I reach the top, I’m still wet and cold. I can look back across the valley to where I have come. I also see a beautiful waterfall. As I round a bend I see a wide open valley that I will be going into. More snow covered mountains. I’m not excited about that no and I still have a week left to hike.
As I descend, I come to a very large blow down. There is a Trail leading around the bottom of it. It also looks like a bit of a bushwhack continuing further down. I make a very poor decision. I try to cut off some trail time by following the bushwhack trail I quickly looked at my app to see if I would meet the trail at the bottom. It looked like it would. I continue down, and soon the slope became one I had no business being on. I had to hold onto branches, saplings logs, or anything I could find to keep from sliding uncontrollably down. I finally reached the bottom where the river was, and re-checked my app to see which way to go, it was then I realized I had not given enough time earlier for my location to accurately be placed. The trail did not come down to where I was. In fact, it stayed up on the hillside parallel to the riverbed. I was now in the riverbed full of foliage, and not easy to walk through. I had one choice and that was to ascend the steep slope back up to where I could meet the trail again I had to scramble up, holding onto branches, saplings logs and downed trees. Anything I could find. Eventually I made it back to the Trail. I was lucky I did not get seriously injured or worse.
With my late start and my misadventure, I have been hiking hard trying to make up time. I am not taking any breaks. Did not eat my lunch and I’m not even pausing to take pictures; however, this bridge is cool and I had to take a picture of it. I also got one of the small water cascade coming down the hill side.
I soon arrive at another foot bridge. Crossing miners Creek. I will camp here tonight. It is not where I had intended. I wanted four more miles but I am running out of daylight. The sun never came up and I was not able to dry my gear I have an hour left of sunlight. I will try to dry as much as I can eat my dinner and get set up before dark.
Today’s PCT miles hiked 23.6
Total PCT Miles hiked to date 2545.4
Miles left: 108.2
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