10/18/2023
Section: Milepost 2395.8 to 2417.2
Total Trail Miles: 2415.1 Miles
Distance: 21.4 Miles
Moving Time: 11:31 Hrs
Elevation Gain: 5594 ft
Amanda had 2 coughing episodes last night. As the super supportive husband I am, I encouraged her to “try not to cough.” That advice was not received well at all, and there was still a little resentment lingering in the air this morning when we woke up. Speaking of getting up, we were able to rise and shine at the early-bird time of 5:40 this morning. At this point we are pretty much waking in the dark and hiking into the dark. It’s really starting to get gloomy on both ends of the day.
In other news - a mouse shit in my cup last night. Yea - just little mouse turds in the base of my cup and one of my supreme fears is Hantavirus so I boiled it for like 5 minutes, and still wasn’t convinced I wasn’t going to drop dead somewhere down the line. Despite the early wake-up, we didn’t quite get moving until 7 this morning, finally able to see where we landed last night. The camp was located on the bank of a tributary stream that feeds the Lemah River and, had we gotten some time in the evening to enjoy it, would have been lovely.
The stage today is a model Sine-Wave stage. It goes up, then down, then up again. That's about it. The day starts with a heavily switchbacked climb of 2200 feet to the eastern shoulder of Escondido Ridge where to sweeps around a small cirque below Escondido Point. The PCT then loses all of the elevation it gained in the first third of the day on a similarly switch-backed descent to Waptus Lake, which it then makes its way along through the end of mile 16, before beginning a 2300 foot climb past Mount Jerry Garcia and Deep lake to the base of Cathedral Rock on the other side of which, the stage comes to a close.
It was a rough start this morning. Maybe one of the rougher ones in the last 155 days. We had been walking for all of 10-15 minutes and were on our way to the first switchback of many, when my leg suddenly felt the first couple pin-pricks. I looked down to see an absolute shit-storm of winged fury bubbling out of a small hole in the ground near my right foot. Without time to even form an explanation I started hi-stepping it and pushed on Amanda's backpack screaming “RUN!!!” She was confused for a second before she started feeling the stings and started sprinting up the trail. The bastards followed us for a solid 100 yards before we came to a rest. Shortly after stopping, Amanda screamed and we started running again. She quickly realized that, somehow, the devil bugs had infiltrated a pocket on her pants and she was literally carrying the terror with her. She quickly extinguished the hornets in her pockets and all became still. “Fuck!” I said, “That was awful!” “You could have said bee’s” Amanda said “I literally thought we were being attacked by a bear!” “I really wasn’t thinking straight in that moment babe!” was all I had to say for myself, hands in the air.
After we had calmed down, we began the climb - roughest start to a climb I have ever experienced, that’s for sure. Through most of the morning we wound up and up and up. In total, it took us 2.5 hours to get up the 2300’ climb to Escondido Ridge. On the way there, we did encounter one Gossamer Gear tent set off to the side of the trail, which was encouraging because we were starting to feel like the only psychos out here! On the one hand, it’s nice to have this whole place to ourselves, on the other, it’s a far cry from the trail family days that we enjoyed in May and June.
We broke out of the treeline around 10 am and hiked on a bit before finding a wonderful promontory to set our packs down and eat lunch on. Neither of us could believe it but, in the sun, we were actually starting to feel a little overheated! From the promontory, we had great views north and east, and way out I could see Mt. Stuart, which is one of the more amazing climbs in the PNW.
From our lunch spot, we traversed along the lower flanks of Escondido point for a while before making a soul crushing descent down to Waptus Lake. From above, the beautiful blue lake stretched out before us. The sky was so clear and blue, it really lifted our spirits. It seemed like Washington was finally with us over the last two days. We were both feeling better and the weather was cooperating nicely.
Three hours of descent finally brought us to our low point of the day on the northwest end of Waptus lake. Pretty much immediately from the bottom, we started a slow climb back up, which became steeper on the north shore of the lake. Waptus lake is 2 miles long and the PCT uses all of that length to make the beginning of the climb up to Cathedral Rock. Eventually, we turned north and continued the pain train under the watchful bulk of Mount Jerry Garcia. Along this section of the trail we encountered signs of pack horses. When I looked at the map though, this made sense as I could see a number of roads running parallel to the trail east of us.
We eventually passed Spinola Meadows and then Deep Lake. The sun set on us as we climbed but we pushed on. Eventually we reached a nice, single tent spot that probably would have had some amazing views if it wasn’t pitch black. We set our things up and ate, before getting into bed. Before I did, though, I made sure that our cups were safely stowed away in a backpack. Not dealing with mouse shit again tomorrow!
