Hot Days Are Here (D-71: 1427.8 - 1458.1, D-72: 1458.1

Hot Days Are Here (D-71: 1427.8 - 1458.1, D-72: 1458.1 - 1489.4)

The whole country is baking from the one headline I read a few days ago. And so are the hikers on the PCT. And unlike the desert, even the wind is not cool. It helps, when it occasionally blows, but only a little. And, now the nights are also not cold. Cooler definitely and quite pleasant, but not cold. No need for a sleeping bag or quilt to cover up. To beat the heat, started the hike yesterday and today at 4 am to get as many miles in as possible before the sun comes out in full force. Luckily big chunks of the trail these two days were under the canopy of trees, and that helps. Today the water sources were much more numerous and spread out, unlike yesterday when there were only a few and pretty much all of them were off-trail, which meant walking some distance to the creek or stream.

Some creeks like this were under bushes & difficult to access

All water sources have cold water, though by the time one filters it, it has warmed up a bit. Another big issue are the mosquitoes and bugs around water sources and at the campsite (even those far away from water) in the evening. Hundreds of them. Very irritating and I get inside the tent as soon as it set up. Tent is a good protection from these pesky things!

Ok... enough complaining. Just smack me in the head if I ever complain about heat when I am at home with access to a fan and some cold water/pop and don't even need to carry a 35 lb bag on my back! 😬🙂

Today crossed two big water sources - McCloud river and Squaw Creek. Collected water and lay down in the cold water to cool down and to clean up in the latter! That was really nice. One of the advantages of hiking in the wilderness 🙂.

McCloud River

Yesterday in the middle of the hot afternoon, I came across a patch of leftover snow - that was like winning a small lottery. Sat on it, collected some cold water from it and washed my face with the cold snow.

Also continued seeing Mt Shasta in the far off distance while hiking.

Encountered a fearless deer at the campsite last night. It came close to the three tents and was not at all perturbed by the people around. Kept all my food and hiking poles inside the tent, just to prevent them from being chewed upon.

My tent on the left and the deer on the right. (link to deer video)

Data:

D-70

D-71:

Comments

In-town & Trail Activities (D-45 @ 903.3 and D-46 4.3 miles plus 906.7 - 924.5)

I am still surprised how busy in-town zero days can be. You think that you have a lot of time to take care of everything that you had planned to do while hiking earlier. Yesterday, in Mammoth Lakes, first I had a large breakfast (very important thru-hiker activity) & then visited 3 different stores to research and buy new shoes & glove liners. Old ones were completely gone. Post that, went to the big grocery store to buy the resupply food till the next stop & as usual, got overwhelmed by the number of the items available, picked up excess items, realized I can't carry all this, put back a lot of stuff and still ended up with extra food to carry. Next stop was the pharmacy to get blister-care bandages, then a decent sized pizza lunch and then back to the room to sort and repack. Speaking of blisters, I have got 2 till now and I had to prick one of them with a needle a few days back and then cover it up. First time, I had to sterilize the needle in a flame and the...

The High (& sometimes scary) Passes of Seirras - Part 1 (D-38 760 - 774.7; D-39 774.7 - 795.5)

The 7 main mountain passes (a pass being the low-point saddle between two mountains that one has to cross to go on the other side of the mountain) that I had to cross were as follows (south to north): 1. Forester Pass (13200 ft / 4023 m) 2. Glen Pass (11957 ft / 3645 m) 3. Pinchot Pass (12127 ft / 3696 m) 4. Mather Pass (12094 ft / 3686 m) 5. Muir Pass (11970 ft / 3648 m) 6. Selden Pass (10913 ft / 3326 m) 7. Silver Pass (10778 ft / 3285 m) All of these passes have some ascent and then a descent and essentially, the descent of one pass leads to the ascent of the next without too much of a flat area in between. Because this was a low snow year (some reports put it as only 43% of the average trail snow which means a bad summer drought for California 🙁), hikers like me are able to enter the Seirras and hike through these passes so early. Of course, this also means that there is still quite a bit of snow left on the passes and around them, which makes them more difficult and...

My gear and my tramily (D-97 @ 2148 - Zero day)

Some of you have asked about what gear I am using. Since today is a Zero day (the last Zero day was on D-57) and there is nothing much to report other than the fact that I shipped the last set of resupply boxes to different places in Washington state and ate substantial amounts of food today, I figured I might as well talk about my gear, and also a bit about the other most essential component on the hike - my "tramily" (trail-family). Tent : 1-person Rainbow Li from Tarptent (bought new). This has worked very well for me and as you know from my earlier posts, Tarptent has given very good customer service too. I haven't had the chance to use the tent in heavy rain or snow (luckily) though and can't comment on it. I use a Tyvek ground sheet (already owned), also from Tarptent. Backpack : Catalyst from ULA (already owned). I started with Zpack Arc Air Robic 60L (bought new) and used it for 700 miles, but it was not comfortable at...

A thru-hike attempt

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