PCT day 64 – One thousand miles!
It was a nice and warm camp last night but I did not want to get up. I ached all over. As I was reluctantly packing up my stuff Growler reminded me that we reach 1000 miles today! Oh the excitement!
I gagged at my own smell this morning. I really don't smell pleasant. Nor do any of my things.
We discussed the possibility of going to Kennedy Meadows north today. Not on our plan but the lure of a burger and a soda is too much. We would need to do a 21 mile day. All we had to do was average 2 miles an hour. We've got this.
It was a beautiful but, of course, bug infested morning. Every step you took seemed to disturb hundreds of them. After a couple a creek crossings we got to 1000 miles. There was nothing there so I built a marker! It was a bit of an anticlimax because it was in a dark damp bit of forest - perfect for mosquitoes! One thousand miles is a really long way to walk, I'm not sure The Procalimers realised this when they said they would walk that far! I can't believe I've walked this far, and I'm still 330 miles off being half way!!
We had 3500ft of up (elevation) today and 3500ft of down (delevation – this should be a word). We were both struggling because of yesterday's efforts and the heat. So so hot. Not a cloud in the sky...
We stopped at every other water source to keep hydrated and prepared for the 10 mile waterless stretch to Senora pass. The up was long and relentless. Longest ever switchbacks.
We got to a 'PTC' sign. You had one job!!!
We sat down at the top and rested a while looking back on where we had just come from.
From there the wind was intense. Luckily it was blowing us into the mountain. After a bit of easy ridge walking we got to the other side of the mountain and descended into snow fields. Big patches of snow we had to cross.
We then ascended again back into the wind. We hadn't seen anyone all day until a man came the other way, said he saw Stummy about 10 mins ago and she was going to try for Kennedy Meadows.
We had a long descent the other side and had to walk through around 20 snow fields. We got to the road at 6:30pm and got a hitch without even trying. A guy had just dropped off Costco and Suds back to the trail and was on his way back to the campground so we just walked straight off the trail and into the guys truck. Perfect!
We saw the excitable young women who I ran into in Tuolumne – they got lost, even though some other PCT hikers gave them their maps, and they found themselves going over random mountains. Some people picked them up and brought them to Kennedy Meadows. It is seriously concerning that there are people like this out there. They are a danger to themselves and other people and they give other hikers a bad name.
We got spaghetti and meatballs for dinner - proper homemade food! I even cleared my plate for the first time since being in America! I must be getting the hunger!
They don't really do camping here but they are really accommodating to hikers and we were allowed to pitch our tents amongst some trees. They normally charge for cabins but they were fully booked anyway. They didn't charge us to camp which was nice.
We hung out at the store for a while mentally preparing what to buy after breakfast tomorrow! And after an ice cream and a soda it was time for bed.
