I woke up at 6. Everyone else went to the lodge to eat but I had leftovers from last night – lasagna pizza. It was just as delicious cold as it was hot. After eating, I took care of some chores and packed up.
The others returned and we were out on the trail at 7:45. We had a 1.93 mile hike up a road to the trail. It’s funny, on the AT, you’d never find me doing such long side miles. Long side miles are apparently common on the PCT. Terrain calmed down once we hit the trail. We have a total of 17 miles today including that road walk… or so we thought.
I worried for Jason as he hasn’t been out here to hike with us but he has been a true trooper and I’m just so impressed.
We had more amazing views. Alpine lakes. And we were around tree line all day so we had a lot of long distant views. Not a terrible morning. Ups and downs as expected. We grabbed some water on an alpine lake and debated on jumping in again. We decided against it though the day was a lot hotter than yesterday.
We ate lunch next to a mountain road where some UTVs/ATVs were going by. Lemon pepper tuna on a tortilla. Classic.
We continued our hike and passed by some trail magic. People left some beers! Good magic but I’ve stopped drinking. It worked out perfectly because everyone else in the group got a beer. Down the trail we met the people who left the beer and they offered to take the trash! Super nice people with a sweet pup.
Next we had a brutal climb that just kept going up. So much up and not switchback easy up, straight up. Oof. We thought just over the next pass would be the end of it. Nope. One more pass. But then we had 1.5 miles to camp. The views were still just spectacular.
That 17 miles turned into 18.5. Don’t know how we didn’t do the math right. But we ended at South Chalk Creek.
Dinner was a Thai Curry dehydrated meal. I just can’t ramen bomb anymore. Now I’m in the tent Lab rat is letting me borrow. My first time in a tent while backpacking. This one is really nice.
20 miles tomorrow. Gonna start really really hard. Lots of switchbacks up but over miles… lots of miles of up.
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