August 1
Last nights tent site turned out to be very nice. The slope was not bad. There was no condensation in the morning however, I am leaving camp at 6:45, one of my latest starts in a while. My air mattress unfortunately had a leak at the valve. I have no idea why, it’s the first time I’ve had any problem with it, but I had to wake up every hour and a half to re-inflate my mattress as I hit hard ground. I stayed asleep a little bit longer trying to catch up some of it, but think it was futile.
I said goodbye to my tight and mostly flat tent site and headed back to the Trail.
On some of the open areas, the sun casts my shadow in front of me.
I reached a pass, and on one side, had another view of Mount Rainier now in the distance, and interestingly shaped peaks on the other
I came into the section that had a lot of newer growth trees lower on the hillside, and some old growth standing tall above
This is a giant ant hill standing about 3 feet tall and 2 1/2 feet wide as base it is covered with ants on the top
One of the creeks along the side of the Trail produced this pretty waterfall cascading down the moss covered rock
Today’s Trail had a good mix of both forest and shrubbery
I passed buy a lot of small creeks towards the end of the day.
Today has been an interesting hiking day. I started almost an hour later than normal. I have been battling a tendinitis in my right front shin area and today. The pain is off and on. It felt pretty good in the morning but then I had a long steep downhill and that seems to aggravate it more. I thought a lot about God‘s presence in my trip and enjoyed recalling the many places I’ve seen him show up. With a late start hiking slow when my leg hurt and wanting to make it to camp at a decent time I did not stop and take many pictures today.
I gathered my last water before walking to the camp from a stream fed by this waterfall
Mirror Lake is my chosen campsite for tonight. I set up right by the shore, took a swim, found a small hole at the valve of my air mattress, that I patched and hope will hold tonight. Ate dinner and got in bed. There are a lot of locals around this lake and they are very loud right now. Hopefully they will quiet down soon. It’s 7:30.
Today’s PCT miles hiked 21.0
Total PCT Miles hiked to date 1842.8
PCT mile marker 2385.5
(Flipped over 542.8 miles)
