9/2/2023
Section: Milepost 1245.3 to 1220.8
Total Trail Miles: 1719/2650
Distance: 25.49 Miles
Moving Time: 11:00
Elevation Gain: 4993 ft
Today was…wet - the whole way through - which dampened our spirits a bit but I guess this is how you truly experience the trail in all its glory. It rained all night, sometimes lightly and others…less so. The tent is still leaking, though not as bad as during hurricane Hillary. Still, I woke up with a small puddle on my side of the tent. The nice thing is that, with these new sleeping bags, most of the fill stays on top so the only thing that really gets wet is the sleeve that the air pad slips into, and the air pad itself, which isn’t really a big deal. I ran out and retrieved the bear canisters so that Amanda and I could enjoy our breakfast in the relative dryness of the Big Agnes. Our campsite mates, who we now knew as Fiver (previously Bean Pole) and Bam (the other guy) , were still fast asleep. We ate our dry breakfast but I did heat up some water, remembering how my dad had once said it was his dream to have to use the vestibules to cover the stove while he heated water, and got caffeinated. As we left in a downpour, Fiver and Bam still hadn’t shown themselves. Getting up in the rain is brutal - it’s so much nicer to just listen to it pound against the rainfly then have to go out into it.
The stage today is massively frustrating - the profile looks like a heartbeat monitor. Just up and down all day, but at the same time moving up in elevation all day. It starts at the extreme east side of the ridge we had traversed the evening before, climbing up past Fowler lake and around Fowler peak. On the east side of Fowler Peak the PCT establishes itself on Lumpkin Ridge, crossing a road with the same name before turning northeast. The path stays on top of the ridge before dipping down into a little saddle at La Porte Road and eventually curling south above the origin of the South Fork of the Feather river at the 11 mile mark. From here, the path gains another ridge - Bunker Hill Ridge - and crosses above a lovely pond with a horrible name - Duck Soup Pond. At Duck Soup Pond, a 1200 foot descent begins and continues over the next 4 miles to mile 18, crossing the north side of Etna and Stafford Mountains in the process. Eventually, the bottom of the bowl is reached near Johnsonville McRae Road and a 1500 foot climb proceeds for 5 miles before, again, dropping to a saddle where the Sloat McRae road and Lavezzola Creek OHV Road share a modest, gravel parking lot, which served as our camping spot.
I think I've said this before but I will say it again - the worst part of hiking in the rain in trail running shoes is your socks. You carry, at most, 3 pairs of socks and most people carry less so, if you walk in the rain for 2-3 days, there’s a high likelihood that you will be putting on wet socks in the morning. That was what I was thinking of as we began our saga on day 109 - my feet were already wet. The unfortunate part is, not only is it cold and unpleasant to walk in wet socks - it is much easier to develop blisters that way which makes things really uncomfortable. We hiked in silence. It was wet, cold and we knew there was a lot of elevation in front of us so… we weren’t very chatty. It wasn’t exactly cold but when you are damp, it’s tough to stay warm. Today was actually one of the coldest days for me on the trail because I was damp most of the time. I’m also really thinning out. I haven’t weighed myself in a while but I would guess I am at or maybe sub 170 which, at 6’3”, is really light for me. No body fat is keeping me warm. I tried to keep my puffy off because, once it gets wet it’s pretty useless and once it’s useless it can’t keep me warm.
Around midday, Fiver passed us, wearing shorts and a wool jacket and seemed to be in good spirits. I guess at 18 or 19, that doesn’t take much. We also passed a girl sitting at the junction of the PCT and a side trail. We asked if she was okay and she smiled and said yes and that she was just waiting for a friend to come back with water. We stopped shortly after for some snacks and Bam passed us with a friend whom he introduced as Happy Feet. We wished them luck and continued on shortly after.
In the early afternoon I looked around and commented to Amanda “I think we are out of the burn!” It had happened so suddenly but, thinking back to what we knew about the Dixie fire, today should have been about the day we left it behind. It had just happened so sneakily, looking at the ground all day and hiking through a soup, we had not really noticed but, all of a sudden, we were again surrounded by lush pine forests. “Yea,” Amanda replied, “we must be out of it now.” Outta the burn and into a cloud - what a transition, can’t say we were too thrilled given the fact that everything was soaked and we still had hours to go.
We came to a clear section of trail and were able to look out a bit. There were probably amazing views out in front and behind us but nothing was really visible, so we kept moving. We passed a tent and called out to check in on the occupant. An older guy came to the flap and said he was fine and that he just didn’t feel like hoofing it through the rain. Shortly after we passed Bam and Happy feet, relaxing out of the rain, under a large tree and then two more tents with hikers who had decided to wait out the rain.
Eventually, the dark came and we approached our end point for the day. A parking lot near a spring. Ironically, despite all the water falling from the sky, it was still a bit tricky to find water, so we wanted to make sure we were camping near it. We almost missed the parking lot and had started hiking when I ran into a sign that said we were at the trailhead, so we turned back around, did a little recon and found Fiver’s tent staked back in a little alcove on the south side of the parking lot. We pitched near him and he started up a conversation through the wall of the tent. Actually, he was talking with himself at first, but then we joined the conversation. I went and got water while Amanda set up the tent. I had promised us both hot chocolate so, when I returned, I heated some water and we had some hot chocolate to warm the soul and to try and stave off the misery. We ate in wonder at the soup of super hydrated air all around us before ducking into our tent, where our sleeping bags lay miraculously dry waiting for us. It was a brutal day but the great thing about brutal days is they make for amazing sleeps.
