Pacific Crest Trail

Day 73: Up Onto Hat Creek Rim

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June 29, 2017

Total daily miles: 23.1 miles

Total PCT miles: 987.4 miles

Start: mile 1371.2

End: mile 1394.3

Total elevation gain/loss: 1665.4/2192.3

Today we hiked the infamous Hat Creek Rim. It’s known for being an especially hot and dry segment of the PCT plopped down in the middle of tree-covered mountain passes. We’d been warned to night hike the rim, but we didn’t really set ourselves up well for the timing to night hike and we honestly aren’t huge fans of night hiking to begin with. So daytime hiking it would be.


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Day 72: Snow-Free Lassen

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June 28, 2017

Total daily miles: 23.4 miles

Total PCT miles: 964.3 miles

Start: Warner Valley Campground (mile 1347.8)

End: mile 1371.2

Total elevation gain/loss: 1945.5/3051.2 ft

There’s something magical about waking up in the morning to find myself in a campground. There’s a picnic table to set my bag down on when I crawl out of my tent (picnic tables are the best!), and most importantly, there’s a toilet nearby. No morning cat hole digging for me!! This morning, we had the added suspense of opening the bear locker to see if our food bag was filled with holes from the local rodents. Did we make the correct choice last night? Yes we did, our bags were fully intact!


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Day 71: Into Lassen We Go

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June 27, 2017

Total daily miles: 18.8 miles

Total PCT miles: 940.9 miles

Start: Chester (mile 1328.8)

End: Warner Valley Campground (mile 1347.8)

Total elevation gain/loss: 3167/2573.8 ft

We were up to the smell of cinnamon rolls this morning! Yum! It was a nice treat to start my day with something other than trail food. Staying with Sean and Kari was such a treat — we immediately felt at home and like family.

We headed out to the trail head with Sean at about 6:30, trying to beat the heat and get a jump on our first day back on the trail. I was feeling a little creaky in the joints after six zeros, but the first few miles were a nice, easy reintroduction to the trail. It was largely flat and hidden in the woods, which made for a nice, cool morning of walking. 

My first equestrian sighting on the PCT!


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Days 65-70: Wedding Zeros, Part 2

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June 21-26, 2017

We’ve been off trail for the last several days so that we could attend the wedding of a close friend from law school. It’s our second (and hopefully last) wedding of the PCT, and was a bit tricky to get to given that we were getting off trail in Chester, a small town in Northern California, and heading to the Adirondack mountains in northern New York. Not the most straightforward connection!

We were super lucky to be helped out by Terry. He made the 2.5 hour drive from his home in Carson City to pick us up in Chester and then took us back to his home so that we could wash up and get our stuff together. We enjoyed a day of showers (yay!), lots of laundry (including our sleeping bags and backpacks), plenty of food, and a couple naps.

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Day 64: Halfway to Canada! (Sort Of)

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June 20, 2017

Total daily miles: 18.4 miles

Total PCT miles: 921.9 miles

Start: Robbers Spring (mile 1310.7)

End: Chester (mile 1328.8)

Total elevation gain/loss: 2705.1/3753.3 ft

We woke up at 4:30 again this morning even though we only had about 18 miles to get to town. We knew that there were another few miles of snow and we wanted to get to it while it was still crunchy. The climb up from the spring seemed like a steep way to start our day, but soon we were cruising.


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Day 63: Over the Rivers and Through the Woods

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June 19, 2017

Total daily miles: 20.8 miles

Total PCT miles: 903.8 miles

Start: William’s Cabin site (mile 1290.2)

End: Robbers Spring (mile 1310.7)

Total elevation gain/loss: 5144.4/2637.5 ft

We made it out of camp before Matt this morning. He thought we’d hit the snooze button (we get ready in the dark) and decided to snooze a bit longer himself. We headed out, knowing that he’d catch up quickly (and we were right!).

This morning’s climb featured a bunch of creek crossings. Even the so-called “seasonal creeks” presented a challenge. There’s lots of water out there! There were a couple of crossings that we thought would get us wet, but we managed to find logs to keep our feet dry. Even if the crossings had been wet crossings, they all looked very calm and doable. Of course, my feet still ended up a bit wet on some of the smaller crossings where I just missed jumping across. Go figure.

We had to climb over the huge root structure on this log, but otherwise it was an easy crossing.


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Day 52: Out Kearsarge Pass

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**We just realized that the following post about our exit from the High Sierra was still in our drafts folder and was never posted.  Here’s our blast from the past!  Better late than never, right?**

June 8, 2017

Total miles: 6.4 miles

Start: 0.8 miles down Bullfrog Lake trail (off PCT mile 788.5)

End: Onion Valley Trailhead (off PCT mile 788.5)

Total elevation gain/loss: 1178.1/2612.2 ft

It’s town day! There’s always something a bit different when you’re heading into town. It hit me this morning even though I’m not actually that excited about going into town today. I think it’s the knowledge that you’ll be able to eat to your full later in the day now, so you can run closer to empty as you push toward town.

I dropped the tent and insisted that Michael turn around when I saw this sunrise. He thought I’d seen a bear.

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