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.
Today was pretty uneventful. I don't think I even talked to anyone more than 30 seconds...and only one person at that.
Slept in again thus I didn't make it onto the trail until around 7:30. Had a hard time staying motivated. Apparently I was motivated enough to miss the turnoff to the spring though. I had enough water to get to the next spring, Poison Spring, but not enough to make breakfast with.
Fighter jets kept flying over all day today but I could never spot them. Spotted two yesterday but couldn't get my camera ready in time.
Got water at Poison Spring. Normally this isn't that notable of an event (and reading this, I wonder how many of these entries have anything notable in them at all). The reason I mention it is because it is the last entry on the water report.
There is a website, pctwater.com which this guy named Halfmile keeps updated as far as what springs and creeks are flowing and which ones are not. After Poison Spring it is a bit useless to maintain a water report since water is available every few miles.
Found more locations of my 1996 photos, including one where the forest had been on fire due to lighting. Because of all the photo taking it took me about an hour or so longer to get to Chicken Spring Lake than I thought. This lake is significant also in that it is the first natural lake that the PCT comes to, and third overall. It only took 750 miles.
Saw something weird at the lake. They were "day hikers". I think I saw a couple a long time ago, but still Their clothes were clean and it looked like they just walked off the cover of an REI catalog.
I wanted to go swimming in the lake but it was overcast and cold. The Sierras do this. It is sunny all day, then about 2-4 pm it gets cold and overcast, then sunny and hot again.
Ate lunch there and continued on. Had to stop again and take a "solar break" in that my phone was nearly dead and I needed to charge it up. The clouds had been hanging over the lake so I couldn't charge it earlier. Hung out about 20 minutes, ate nearly a box of Cheeze-its, and got about another 20% power into the phone.
Oh yeah, earlier I was able to get cell access and Cora said that the PO said my box was there, so the email I got must have been some sort of fluke. Looks like I will get to Independence late on Saturday, and the PO is closed Sunday...so I may have to slow up a bit. Getting a little concerned about taking unplanned days off (due to PO closures) since I really really really do not want to be fighting the storms in Washington come late September. Hopefully I can make up some time in Northern California and plow through Oregon pretty quick. This is the one downside (well among many) to trying to do the whole trail in one year. You can only mess around so much and then it becomes impossible to finish.
Eventually I reached Rock Creek. I think I saw my first actual non PCT hiking backpacker today. She too had on clean clothes and probably took a shower this morning.