To PCT mile 931.2 (stats here).
The night was pretty hard. I woke up around 10pm, and spent four hours rolling over, feeling stomach burns and awful overall. It felt like a food poisoning, but I did not retch nor needed to unload myself. Thoughts about eating like an idiot at town crossed my mind many times and I tried to resolve myself to eat more reasonably from now on.
Finally I was able to get sleep and slept all the way until 8am. I took it really slowly, and as a new record, started hiking not until something like 9:15am. I felt lucky that I did not actually get sick, and also wondered how I have been able to stay healthy so far. I eat with dirty fingers all the time, and my clothes go at least two weeks a time without washing, but I have no problems at all.
I did not make any plans for today. I just hiked absent mindendly with a slow pace. I put some music on and went onwards. There were lots of day hikers. At one junction I saw cars on a space that seemed to be a parking lot on right, and then a more proper trail on left. Instinctly I chose to go left without checking the map or anything. This turned out to be my first big navigational error. The actual trail went through the parking lot, and the left turn led to a river trail, that went between the PCT and John Muir Trail that had separated a bit earlier. I noticed the error after 4 miles of hiking. At this point, I did not want to turn back, and as it seemed that the trails went to the same direction, I continued and figured that at some point I could go off trail and catch up with either PCT or JMT. They would join each other later on anyway.
Having an app like Guthooks with GPS is quite an advantage on hiking. Now that I could not see where I am on trail, and the smaller river trail was hard to fathom at times, I was quite lost at times where to go. Both the PCT and JMT were at top of the ridges around the river trail, so it was not feasible to cut and climb to them. I went onwards the river trail for quite a while. Finally, as the trail leaned to west, I decided to climb through a faint trail towards JMT. After one shaky creek crossing and a steep rock climb I was able to join JMT. I felt a relief.
Hiking a small portion of JMT, that was not also part of PCT, felt actually nice. The views were amazing, and some people at Guthooks said that they are actually better than with PCT. I met a group of day hikers that had lost their buddy and I promised to inform their lost friend about their whereabouts if I would stumble on to him. That happened 20 minutes later, but he was already discovered by one guy of their group.
The day felt hard but in the end quite eventful. When joining back to PCT, I leap frogged with a group of 3 guys and a girl, that seemed to be in a hurry. I just let them go, totally disinterested on maintaining speed. I still managed to do over 20 miles. Towards end of the day, I resolved on going over a pass looming ahead. Late in the evening, around 7pm, I reached the pass and discovered the young group having a break by a lake. We started chatting and I learned that they were a group consisting of a Danish, Swiss and two American hikers.
It was nice to end a difficult day with hanging out with fun people. We camped together, and had lots of fun conversations. Steampunk, the Swiss, had a bottle of Captain Morgan and we talked and drank all the way up to 11pm which is my record here on trail.
The night was pretty hard. I woke up around 10pm, and spent four hours rolling over, feeling stomach burns and awful overall. It felt like a food poisoning, but I did not retch nor needed to unload myself. Thoughts about eating like an idiot at town crossed my mind many times and I tried to resolve myself to eat more reasonably from now on.
Finally I was able to get sleep and slept all the way until 8am. I took it really slowly, and as a new record, started hiking not until something like 9:15am. I felt lucky that I did not actually get sick, and also wondered how I have been able to stay healthy so far. I eat with dirty fingers all the time, and my clothes go at least two weeks a time without washing, but I have no problems at all.
I did not make any plans for today. I just hiked absent mindendly with a slow pace. I put some music on and went onwards. There were lots of day hikers. At one junction I saw cars on a space that seemed to be a parking lot on right, and then a more proper trail on left. Instinctly I chose to go left without checking the map or anything. This turned out to be my first big navigational error. The actual trail went through the parking lot, and the left turn led to a river trail, that went between the PCT and John Muir Trail that had separated a bit earlier. I noticed the error after 4 miles of hiking. At this point, I did not want to turn back, and as it seemed that the trails went to the same direction, I continued and figured that at some point I could go off trail and catch up with either PCT or JMT. They would join each other later on anyway.
 |
| Travelling the river trail between two ridges. |
Having an app like Guthooks with GPS is quite an advantage on hiking. Now that I could not see where I am on trail, and the smaller river trail was hard to fathom at times, I was quite lost at times where to go. Both the PCT and JMT were at top of the ridges around the river trail, so it was not feasible to cut and climb to them. I went onwards the river trail for quite a while. Finally, as the trail leaned to west, I decided to climb through a faint trail towards JMT. After one shaky creek crossing and a steep rock climb I was able to join JMT. I felt a relief.
 |
| Nice views from the JMT. |
Hiking a small portion of JMT, that was not also part of PCT, felt actually nice. The views were amazing, and some people at Guthooks said that they are actually better than with PCT. I met a group of day hikers that had lost their buddy and I promised to inform their lost friend about their whereabouts if I would stumble on to him. That happened 20 minutes later, but he was already discovered by one guy of their group.
The day felt hard but in the end quite eventful. When joining back to PCT, I leap frogged with a group of 3 guys and a girl, that seemed to be in a hurry. I just let them go, totally disinterested on maintaining speed. I still managed to do over 20 miles. Towards end of the day, I resolved on going over a pass looming ahead. Late in the evening, around 7pm, I reached the pass and discovered the young group having a break by a lake. We started chatting and I learned that they were a group consisting of a Danish, Swiss and two American hikers.
 |
| It is too late but the company is good. |
It was nice to end a difficult day with hanging out with fun people. We camped together, and had lots of fun conversations. Steampunk, the Swiss, had a bottle of Captain Morgan and we talked and drank all the way up to 11pm which is my record here on trail.
Stay healthy!
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