Author: Ironhusk

July 15th
Today’s mileage: 27
My total mileage: 1051
PCT mile: 1230

Long day. My friends are ruthless!
I can’t believe how much the trail has changed now. Hardly any bugs, it’s such a stark contrast to before. Also saw a 1-ft rattlesnake, that didn’t even have a rattle yet.

We later learned that this stretch with the bullet-riddled sign is where our Montreal friend, Switchfoot, was shot at by some rednecks. He stayed behind the tree and called 911. Emergency personnel said it was a legal place to shoot and was probably just accidental, but he felt strongly otherwise, as he said bullets were striking a mere meter away from his location. Sucks. :/

July 14th
PCT mile: 1203
Today’s miles: 8
My miles: 1024

Spent last night in the very little town of Sierra City. Several interesting things happened, including a loud community-wide siren that went off throughout the night. We were told it is used to call medical and fire personnel.

Met Recon at the fish hatchery near Burney. He just finished the Hat Creek Rim…a perfect place for some of the Rockies’ finest!

Cascadia 9s…not cutting it. I started wearing them at KM South. Sad, as my previous Cascadia 8s and 7s each have over 800 miles on them.

Howly, Skyline, Fancyfeet and I climbed out of the Sierra City together. I don’t think I realized just how inebriated the two gentlemen were, hehe. We climbed for about 8 miles and then called it an early evening on a ridge. That night was the best night sky of my entire hike. I was cowboy-camping, but not cold at all for the first time, and mosquitoes were completely absent. I recall seeing the Milky Way oriented up-and-down to me, and then later on in the night, I could see it was 90 degrees from its first position, with the Earth’s rotation.

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EXTRA: Joe Brewer has an excellent video showing the stretch of trail from South Lake Tahoe (Mile 1095) To Drakesbad Ranch (Mile 1354). I highly recommend subscribing to his channel:

A description of the trail for the past couple of weeks:
http://www.pcta.org/discover-the-trail/geography/central-california/

Leaving PDX today to Reno. Intend to be on trail tomorrow (Sunday) at Sierra City and rendezvous with friends. I’ll owe 180 miles either at the end of the season or next year, but I’d rather hike with friends than alone atm.

I’ve put on 10 lbs this past week, yay.
I’m gonna try rockin’ my quilt again. Thanks to Black Diamond for shipping me new trekking pole tips.

Also, the fu manchu is no longer with us. Sad, I know.

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EXTRA: Joe Brewer has an excellent video showing the stretch of trail from Sonora Pass (Mile 1018) To South Lake Tahoe (Mile 1095). I missed this section in the 2015 season and will hike it in a coming year. I highly recommend subscribing to Joe’s channel:

July 2nd

I now weigh 186 lbs, which I probably haven’t weighed since a teenager. :/ I started the trail at 219 lbs (and was 230 in Feb) so this amount of weigh loss is too much unfortunately. I’ve noticed I’m feeling seriously fatigued of late. I also have another pressing medical issue which requires a doc. So I made the decision to get off trail for a week to recoup and reassess.

I had a crazy day of adventures that involved 3 hitches and loads of miles from Kennedy Meadows North to Bridgeport to South Lake Tahoe to Sacramento, at which I made a last minute flight purchase (free with my miles) of the only seat remaining on an 11 pm flight to PDX. I made the flight with seconds to spare. Huge thanks to everyone, especially Straightedge and Kyle.

More in the days ahead. Hope everyone has a great 4th!

 

July 1st
Total mileage: 1017
Today’s mileage: 14

I geared up mentally for another hot, hard ascent but this climb was a pleasant surprise. The grade of the path was nice, smooth and we had cloud cover most of the day. The only concern was that thunder clouds gathered while we were on the 5 mile ridge walk on top and we were the tallest things around. It thundered repeatedly and we moved quickly to get down. We were very lucky to get a hitch to Kennedy Meadows North within a minute of reaching the trailhead. (Ty Lynn!)

Kennedy Meadows North (KM North) was an interesting experience. It’s a dude ranch, where city slickers come out and pay for typically an 8 mile horse ride out into the wilderness, where they are left for a couple of days, and then the cowboys return to pick them up. They rented us bunks in a shared room for $30 each, and said we couldn’t eat dinner before showering. An external building in the back housed their in-house laundromat and showers for the cowboys and passers-bys like ourselves. While we waited for our laundry, one hiker shared his Coors Banquets with the young cowboys killing time in the room. We asked how old he was. His response: “Outside I’m 16, but here I’m 21.”

There was a nice saloon on the premises. A local fisherman kindly bought us a round. The three of us were the only youngish people there that night.

June 30th
Total mileage: 1002.8
Today’s mileage: 21

Dorthy Lake Pass. Two fords that required taking shoes and socks off. Yogi’s guide was right. Mosquito hell.

Again, this was the trail:

Early in the morning:

Howly and Fancyfeet reached our campsite goal for the night before me, and it was a good feeling when I rounded a corner and could just make out a roaring fire about a 1/4 mile ahead of me. They had also kindly gotten extra water from the previous source. We all ate vegan chili that I had brought from home. There was a large tent nearby with a couple giggling and making other joyous sounds and we thru-hikers had fun looking at each other like old curmudgeons, marveling beneath our breaths how they could possibly have such cheery dispositions and secretly plotting to undue their tent poles. But we behaved, hehe.

June 29th
Total mileage: 982
Today’s mileage: 20

Well, this was quite a day. Not only did we have some significant vertical feet, but we had a serious rain and thunderstorm in the afternoon. I think this is the fifth time it has rained on us in the High Sierra. Once the rain stopped, the most vicious swarm of mosquitoes arrived. We immediately stopped and struggled to put on face nets. We had an unexpected 800 ft ascent and descent in the final hour of the day. I have never climbed so quickly, and I was a sweaty Betty with all my rain and mosquito gear on. I joked that it was akin to the Hunger Games, and that people were sitting at a console up there somewhere, throwing levers, determined to stop us from reaching mile 1000 tomorrow. Lava must have not been ready.

This is an example of what the trail looks like at times. We kind of wandered aimlessly a bit, looking for cairns and checking our Half-Mile app.

This little half-steps appear occasionally on the John Muir Trail (JMT) portion of the PCT, and I personally find them irritating. They are very shallow in depth. I’d rather have a proper stair or none at all, I think.

Somehow, Fancyfeet, Howly and I got ahead of the others. I think the others had taken a lunch break at a lake that was on a slight offshoot trail. The three of us hiked until nightfall, and then hastily set up in a soggy forest. Howly was already regretting his bivy due to the influx of mosquitoes. He got a fire going again. I pitched my tent as swiftly as I could and then gave myself over to sleep.

June 28th
Total mileage: 962
Today’s mileage: 20

We hit the general store again and then headed out. We were advised to get at least 15 miles north of Tuolumne due to  bear activity. Hikers told us they saw one on the trail only 3 miles ahead but we never saw it. Others were disappointed but I’m completely ok with never seeing one in the wild.

June 27th

Colo, Highwater and Fancyfeet were stuck in the valley yesterday without their shelters or sleeping bags, after having visited Cloud’s Rest. (Really dumb system that the last bus out of the valley is 1:30 pm.) Fortunately, they asked around the hiker campground and one hiker was generous enough to loan them his unused tent and a blanket. The three of them survived and caught a morning shuttle back to the Tuolumne hiker campground.

Everyone was pretty tired from their non-PCT adventures and the day just turned into a social one of everyone sitting around a campfire. I suppose the deal was sealed when Howly unexpectedly returned from the general store with his bear canister full of ice and a 12 pack of Coors, haha. Cobain has a nice $45 mandolin that he provided, and we enjoyed hearing several people play throughout the day. We pooled together some petty cash and soon we were enjoying hot dogs on an open flame.

The general store was priced surprisingly well, and I may have drank 5 of their chocolate protein milks at $1.05 each.

One unrelated note. I discovered that an unnamed hiker who has been hanging out with us the last couple of days is a fugitive of the law. He is supposed to serve a year for three DUIs. Then he said he’s due for his next six months of food stamps. o.O It’ll be interesting to see how that pans out.

June 26th

RebelBiscuit and I took the earliest free 2 hour shuttle down to the bottom of Yosemite Valley (10 am). Immediately ate pizza and missed the very next and last shuttle out of the valley (1:30 pm). Dumb system. We were lucky to make two consecutive hitches back to Tuolumne with Chopsticks and TurnipKing.

Enjoy the dancing antics of Rebel as she tries to secure us a ride, hehe. Ultimately, sadly, these efforts were fruitless, although plenty of people honked or waved.

Highwater, Colo, Fancyfeet and Geisha decided to hike 22 miles down the JMT to see Half-Dome and Cloud’s Rest. (Geisha got lucky with a hitch and made it home before nightfall.) I would like to see both sites someday but really needed a down day. I’ve been feeling depleted and the skin on my left heel has cracked deeply. Need my heel to heal.