9/28/2023
Section: Milepost 2170 to 2193.1
Total Trail Miles: 2215.4 Miles
Distance: 25.7 Miles
Moving Time: 09:45 Hrs
Elevation Gain: 3474 ft
This one’s gunna be short - it was just all around shitty. We are over 4 months in and all our fat reserves are gone. This isn’t our first long stretch through the rain but we are hitting a level of fatigue now that isn’t jiving super well with the downpour we now find ourselves in.
We found ourselves in similar conditions this morning as we went to bed in the night before - rain. We got up and didn’t even bother with a window to pack-up in. It’s wouldn’t have really helped anyway. My socks are officially soaked now - no helping it anymore so i got to start the day in damp socks along with Amanda. By the time we got things packed and the trail under foot it was 8:30 am.
The path today heads almost entirely north, which is always nice. It starts by completing the climb we had initially tried to finish the day before, cresting out at near the summit of Big Huckleberry Mountain before descending a thousand feet btween miles 1 and 4. The trail runs along an old lava bed near the low point of the day, eventually crossing NFSR 60 at Crest Horse Camp. Here the path climbs 1500 feet in five miles, weaving between old lava domes and crossing into the Indian Heaven Wilderness on its way over 4000 feet. At 12 miles in the trail passes Basin Lakes to the west and undulates up and down for the next 8 miles passing by Gifford peak and the banks of Blue Lake. The PCT then circumvents East Crater on the west side and passes through a patch of sporadic, small lakes before crossing under the watchful eye of Bird Mountain. The last 3 miles are a descent to Sawtooth Trailhead where the day ends.
We hiked in a cloud all day. Occasionally, we could see across a valley or up onto the upper slopes of a nearby mountain but in the end, the day was just mostly gray. One awesome note though was that, when we passed by Bird Mountain towards the end of the day, there were indeed birbs everywhere!
Like yesterday we hiked into the dark. The rain and the dark are a one-two punch so by the time we reached Sawtooth Trailhead in the midst of an especially dense downpour we decided to call it. The good news is that we had already gathered some water at around sundown so we could stop wherever we decided to. The wide open lot made for plenty of space to set up the tent which I pulled, soaking wet, out of the depths of my backpack and got set-up as quickly as possible. With water, we were able to make a warm meal at least which was nice in the depths of a cold and damp night. Afterwards we cleaned up quickly and got back into our dry sleeping bags which, mercifully, continued to stay dry. Our tent was a semi-dry bastion in a dark and damp world as we slipped into darkness.