Trail Day 96: Tentsite (mile 1559.0) to tentsite (1588.1)

29.1 PCT miles

It was another difficult morning of getting up. It had rained last night and the morning was damp and cold.  Combined with the exhaustion from how hard I had been pushing myself, I could not get up. I reset my alarm several times and finally got up after it was light out, something I haven't done in a while.

Early morning layers. 


The first thing I did was fill up on water at a stream. There was a section hiker there named Topo. We exchanged PCT stories while I was filling up and then hiked together for a short while. We eventually split up because we had much different milage goals for the day.

It was a long uphill climb to start the day, but the views were fantastic. The rains had cleared some of the smoke out and you could actually see the surrounding mountains. At the top of the uphill was a saddle, and on the other side it was still smokey.

The PCT.
You can see the surrounding mountains today.
The other side of the saddle.


I stopped near the top for lunch and realized that I wasn't having fun again. I was hiking at a faster speed than I would have liked, worried about getting miles in. I was obsessing about hitting each miles and constantly checking how much distance I had covered. I decided to slow down my pace, remain as calm as possible, and hike in the dark to cover my miles if needed.

Because of this reset, the rest of the day was a much more enjoyable experience. A large chunk of it involved a large downhill section filled with streams and meadows,  followed by an equally long, but incredibly steep uphill section.

Tree eating a trail sign.
View from the trail. 
Headed down and looking back up.


The light was pretty low by the time I crested on the uphill section, but I remained as calm as possible and started on the next downhill section. It got dark but I kept moving. I was aiming for a tentsite after another steep uphill.

Based on the topography of the section I was in, I was pretty committed to that tentsite. The trail itself was fairly wide but the slope it was on was steep and there was no place to set up a tent.  When I finally dragged myself to the tentsite, someone had already set up there. Luckily, there was plenty of flat (ish) space around it for me to set up my tent as well.

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