To PCT mile 1966.5 (stats here).
The night was cold again. I delayed getting up, and was underway not only 6:30am. Butterfly was just getting up. I started fast as it was still cold. Just after half a mile, there was a big sign for trail magic. I turned from the trail and checked out the place, but the angels were still sleeping in their tents. I was not too sad about this as without any hiking behind you it would be a terrible idea to eat and treat yourself without having burned any calories.
The day was really thin of hikers. I only saw Butterfly and previously unfamiliar female hiker, Dragon. When I needed to take a dump, they both caught up with me. For the first time it happened that I strayed a bit too far away when trying to find a proper place for my deposit. When getting back to my backpack, it took me a while to find it. The surroundings looked the same everywhere, and I had real trouble. Note to myself, do not get that far away from your gear.
In paper, days terrain seemed to be pretty easy. From early on, I played with the idea to get to Sisters in two days, stopping at a Christian Youth Camp on the way for the night before. That would mean doing 72 miles in two days. I delayed of making the actual decision for this after I would have a swim. There were still lots of lakes and the previous day I did not have a swim. Having a swim was a must.
I had a nice swim in a great lake. This made me feel so good that I decided to finish the day at a camp site that was just on a 40 mile marker. After the break, I kept a good pace. The pace was interrupted around 6:30pm when surprisingly the famous trail angel, Coppertone, was found just before a steep climb. He had hiked a mile from a trailhead to provide some trail magic. He was just about to leave, so I was lucky to meet him. He had only met with 6 hikers this day, which kind of confirmed my observation that there were not that many hikers at the section today. I ate two bananas, some cookies and donuts. Because of this, I was not able to drink my prepared coffee chocolate mix that I had prepared for the upcoming final climb.
Having food in my stomach and not the energizing mix, the ascend was hard. At this point I was already determined to do the 40 miles. The location of the next tent sites and water sources strenghtened the decision. I needed to get there. All this meant that I was at my intended tent site not before 11pm. Unluckily, it was already occupied by people, and as it was dark, I did not want to stay there and set up a camp. That would wake people up. I continued to the next one. There was a pond a mile after.
The same happened at the pond, but this time I did not want to continue so I kept looking for a place where I could cowboy camp. Finally I found it. I had done almost 42 miles, but the time was now 11:30pm. This was way too late. I would not have enough sleep to do the remaining 30 miles to the Big Lake Youth Camp in good strength.
The night was cold again. I delayed getting up, and was underway not only 6:30am. Butterfly was just getting up. I started fast as it was still cold. Just after half a mile, there was a big sign for trail magic. I turned from the trail and checked out the place, but the angels were still sleeping in their tents. I was not too sad about this as without any hiking behind you it would be a terrible idea to eat and treat yourself without having burned any calories.
 |
| It was a nice place to camp. |
The day was really thin of hikers. I only saw Butterfly and previously unfamiliar female hiker, Dragon. When I needed to take a dump, they both caught up with me. For the first time it happened that I strayed a bit too far away when trying to find a proper place for my deposit. When getting back to my backpack, it took me a while to find it. The surroundings looked the same everywhere, and I had real trouble. Note to myself, do not get that far away from your gear.
In paper, days terrain seemed to be pretty easy. From early on, I played with the idea to get to Sisters in two days, stopping at a Christian Youth Camp on the way for the night before. That would mean doing 72 miles in two days. I delayed of making the actual decision for this after I would have a swim. There were still lots of lakes and the previous day I did not have a swim. Having a swim was a must.
 |
| It was a great swim in this lake! |
I had a nice swim in a great lake. This made me feel so good that I decided to finish the day at a camp site that was just on a 40 mile marker. After the break, I kept a good pace. The pace was interrupted around 6:30pm when surprisingly the famous trail angel, Coppertone, was found just before a steep climb. He had hiked a mile from a trailhead to provide some trail magic. He was just about to leave, so I was lucky to meet him. He had only met with 6 hikers this day, which kind of confirmed my observation that there were not that many hikers at the section today. I ate two bananas, some cookies and donuts. Because of this, I was not able to drink my prepared coffee chocolate mix that I had prepared for the upcoming final climb.
 |
| ... and some more lakes. For drinking purposes, not as good as creeks that obviously have colder water. |
Having food in my stomach and not the energizing mix, the ascend was hard. At this point I was already determined to do the 40 miles. The location of the next tent sites and water sources strenghtened the decision. I needed to get there. All this meant that I was at my intended tent site not before 11pm. Unluckily, it was already occupied by people, and as it was dark, I did not want to stay there and set up a camp. That would wake people up. I continued to the next one. There was a pond a mile after.
The same happened at the pond, but this time I did not want to continue so I kept looking for a place where I could cowboy camp. Finally I found it. I had done almost 42 miles, but the time was now 11:30pm. This was way too late. I would not have enough sleep to do the remaining 30 miles to the Big Lake Youth Camp in good strength.
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