I first hiked the Pacific Crest Trail over the course of 1994 and 1996, then I hiked the whole thing in one go in 2013. During the latter hike I kept this website updated as I progressed up the trail. I still have about 45 hours of video to edit, but in the meantime there is a lot for you to look at here. Over the course of the 168 days I wrote 138,734 words and put 13,644 photos on this website.
Woke up after 7am and got packed up. Saw Corey and Mountain Man walking by but they didn't see me since I was up in the trees.
Went to the spot on the trail where I could get online since I needed to get an updated water report. (pctwater.com) It is basically a spreadsheet that gets updated of which springs/creeks/etc on the trail are flowing and which ones are dry. Back in the 90's you pretty much had to read in the guidebook and look for words like "usually flowing" and "year-round" in front of the water sources. You could end up carrying a lot more water than you needed to
Made the mistake of checking my email and a mountain biker was pissed off at the fact that I mentioned I was documenting all the vandalism they have made to the PCT signs.
At every road crossing and trail junction, there is usually a post with the PCT emblem and an image of a hiker and a horse. There is almost always an image of a mountain bike and one of a motorcycle, those have a red slash through them indicating that they are not allowed on the PCT. So what the mountain bikers do is scratch out the mountain bike or as I saw yesterday, remove the little red slash and then rip the PCT logo off the post. This way they can claim ignorance that they didn't know that bikes were not allowed and/or didn't know they were on the PCT. What a way to make the other 90% of responsible mountain bikers look like a bunch of jerks.
Anyways, I'm so sick of dealing with them over the last seven months that I will just sum it up as picturing coming around a corner and colliding with a mountain bike going 15mph. Guess what is going to happen. There is a reason private ski areas don't allow hikers and mountain bikers on the same trails.
The hike today was a lot of elevation gain. I was pretty much by myself the whole day too. I stopped at Vincent gap, ran into Will and Roadrunner, and later on ran into Purple Haze. Did the 2500 foot climb up to the top of Mount Baden-Powell on a snickers bar and Neil Young album. (Rust Never Sleeps).
It was really, really windy near the top of the mountain. There is also a tree up there believed to be 1500 years old. I descended the mountain through all of the twists and turns. Before Little Jimmy Spring a day hiker named David was in front of me. He asked me questions about the trail. He was an accountant and had a bit of time off for a while so he was spending a lot of time doing hikes.
Ran into Turtle and Willow at the spring...haven't seen them for a few days. I told them about the makeshift drinking party near I-15 that I spent most of the day at.
Stopped at Little Jimmy Camp and made lunch. Saw legend and his niece there. Mountain Man and Corey came by a while later. My panel got the phone charged up to 90% and I took off.
Had a lot more dropping and climbing as the trail intertwined with Highway 2. I reached the Eagle's Rest picnic area and a car stopped in the road and I saw that the people in the car were waving me over to them.
They asked if I was walking up the road and I said yes. They had just seen a bear on the road about a mile up.
At this point the PCT is closed for environmental reasons for four miles. You can walk the road or take a ~15 mile detour. I'm walking the road. Since it was only about an hour to dark and I had enough water to cook with I decided to camp up in the trees above the picnic area.
Made a dinner of rehydrated beef stew and beans. It was alright. Whoo boy, deep words here. Packing up and heading into the trees right now. I swear the spot I am going to camp at is the same one I camped at 17 years ago.