THAT WAS HARD.

Hi everyone! Alicia here, guest posting to the blog (as you may have guessed from the entry's title).

Arlen and I just finished the section between Old Station and Burney, about 33.8 trail miles, with 0.5 miles road walking to get to the trail head and a detour to the Subway Cave. The Subway Cave is a winding lava tube, but it wasn't possible to take photos since it is underground and quite dark. Here's our daily mileage breakdown.

Day one: 9.5 miles
Day two: 11.5 miles
Day three: 14.3 miles (I really wanted to shower and sleep in a real bed...)

It was a pretty flat section of trail to join in on, but it was still desert-like conditions. By the end of the third day, I developed a strategy of scurrying from shade to shade, but the terrain certainly featured long stretches without trees or bushes to hide on. As a result, I have a stellar burn/tan (even with the intense sunscreen application that I implemented, every 2 hours) and also some very large blisters from trying to push through to the next line of trees.

I did really enjoy the challenge, even though it was difficult, and Arlen tells me that he enjoyed his few "easy days" so it was a great trip for both of us. Plus, getting to see each other for close to five days was a treat that we weren't expecting to be able to pull off, but we're glad we did.

Below, you'll find photos from our 3 day trail trip. Tomorrow morning, I'll drop Arlen off at the trailhead where we finished and he'll continue on for about 2 months while I journey back to Maine.

Enjoy!
- Alicia

Reunited after three months apart!! Arlen might just be excited about the cheeseburger he had previously ordered though... ;)

Clouds are an unusual sight in California, as was the 3 minutes of rain that we were treated to on the first day. It was welcome to this non-hiking gal during the only uphill of this section, though.

Arlen took a bunch of photos of me, I always seem to be pretty far behind him, for some reason!

More desert-y trail.

View from camp on night one. Ain't bad.

I yelled "oh my gosh, these blueberries look delicious!"

Arlen yelled "THOSE AREN'T BLUEBERRIES!' before I ate any. Phew!

I caught up, eventually.

Yes, I did pack in and out a gigantic beer. This is my summer vacation, after all.

It's so nice to be in nature surrounded by... cars? This part of the trail crosses a paved road, we'll let it slide, this time.

Searching for shade to scurry to!

Delightful lake that we stopped by to let the noon - 4 P.M. heat pass. Then on to town!

I met a Ward 3 Lewiston voter while on trail - looking forward to earning Bam Bam's vote in the fall!

We also met another Lewiston resident, earlier in the day, at a water cache. Small world!

A drive up to Mount Shasta provided Arlen with new shoes and this impressive view of the mountain, for which the town is named.

Made it Halfway!

I made it to Old Station, mile 1375, in time to meet Alicia there! Getting that far down the trail was actually easier than I had thought it would be. A couple days after leaving Truckee I realized I needed to slow down a bit or I would get to Old Station over a day early. That is a much better problem to have than the other way, but also a bit surprising. It turns out it wasn't too hard for me to do over 25 miles a day consistently and I was pretty good at going into town for a food resupply and still doing 20 miles of hiking in the same day.

This blog entry is going to be a bit short, I didn't write it before getting to town and I don't have a lot of time, but I figured I should put up something.

The last 150 miles have been relatively uneventful. I did hit the official halfway point for miles. Hopefully, the second half takes a bit less time than the first half. There won't be another section like the Sierras to slow me down so it should be pretty straightforward to get the miles done. 

One of the more interesting parts of the last few days was hiking through Lassen Volcanic National Park. There is quite a bit of geothermal activity there and I decided, since I was in the area, I should take the short side trail down to Terminal Geyser. This isn't an actual geyser, unfortunately, but it is a fumarole. There is a steam vent that a stream runs over making the stream water hot and generating a fairly impressive steam cloud.

Besides some general nice mountain views the last noteworthy event of this section was when I hiked down into the "town" of Belden. This is a small mountain resort that frequently has events take over the whole place. The PCT happens to run directly through the resort so when there are events in town, the event always has some bonus unwashed hikers hanging out around the edges.

When I walked in it was the first day of a weekend long electronic music festival, basically a rave in the woods. I was only there for a few hours but it was a bit shocking seeing all of the people there. I hiked out of there in the mid afternoon and did seven miles uphill to get away from the crowds. When I woke up at 4 A.M. I could hear the music in my tent. From the stories of people that camped closer, the party was going strong until about 7 A.M. It was hard to get a photo of the event, but I tried to capture it a bit with a shot of the beach stage.

Lastly, here is a slightly different video compared to my previous ones. It is a bit longer than my others but I figured it might be interesting. I did notice that I need to become better at talking throughout the whole video. More practice is what I need I guess.

Second Section Complete

I have made it to the town of Truckee, mile 1153.4. I've started trying to drastically up my mileage because my girlfriend, Alicia, is coming out for a few days on the 25th and we plan to meet at Old Station. It seems like a good spot to meet up, there looks to be about 40 easy miles from there to Burney so it is a convenient place for her to do a few days on trail with me. The only downside is Old Station is at mile 1370.9. The result is really trying to hammer out some miles over the two weeks before she gets here.

Luckily, the trail has been rather accommodating. There are still sections of snow on the trail but most of it is patchy. The few spots that have had total snow coverage haven't been exceptionally long sections so I have been able to maintain a pretty good pace. Between Sonora Pass and South Lake Tahoe I was able to do a 29 mile day and a 23 mile day. I felt pretty good during those miles, which gave me some hope of actually being able to pull this off. To get to Truckee from Tahoe I did a 20 mile day after 10:30am and then a 30 mile day. I knocked out the last 13 miles to town this morning and will try and get back on trail this afternoon to get in another 7 so I can at least do 20. Food resupplies might be what prevents me from getting all the miles done but if I can get in and out quickly, but it should be okay. The goal of speed in town will probably prevent me from doing more in-depth blog entries but I will try to pre-write them at night on trail (which is how I got this one done).

Doing extra miles has allowed me to finish the second section of my guide! I was able to close the Sierra section and open the Northern California section. While I realize that I am not completely done with snow or the challenges associated moving into the Northern California section feels good. Some of the locals I met in South Lake Tahoe talked about how few thru hikers they had seen that had done the Sierras, most of the ones that they had talked to were hitching further north. It seems like I had almost perfect timing. Most of the roads and access points were available and none of the streams were impassable. Anyone behind me will have an even easier time making it through but they might have a hard time getting to Canada before Washington is covered in snow.

I have also started to see thru hikers that jumped north heading south. The overall level of snow will be lower for them, the streams will also be lower, but the fact that all of their climbs will be on the snowy north face of mountains seems fairly annoying. It seems like it is basically impossible to completely avoid snow this year and the added hassle of jumping all over the place does not seem worth it. I do recognize that I am far more comfortable around snow compared to the average person on this trail though. Some people psych themselves out to such a degree that there is no way they could do it.

Finally, since I finished another section I updated my trip statistics. The following are the stats from Kennedy Meadows South to South Lake Tahoe.

KMS to Tahoe
Days - 32
Miles - 388.5
Zeros taken - 2
Avg mpd w/ 0's - 12.1
Avg mpd w/o 0's - 13.0
Total steps - 1,114,497
Avg steps per day - 34,828
Highest step count for one day - 70,195

Here are the stats for the whole trail so far, Campo to South Lake Tahoe.

Trail Totals
Days - 73
Miles - 1090.7
Zeros - 4
Avg mpd w/ 0's - 14.94
Avg mpd w/o 0's - 15.8
Total steps - 2,700,407
Avg steps per day - 36,991
Highest step count for one day - 70,195


For the next week and a half I'll be trying to push miles but I was wondering if anyone had any requests for videos or just had any questions in general. The most dramatic section of the trail is past me so if anyone has any great ideas let me know. Here is one more snow related video before I run out of snow to record.

The Challenge of Water

I made it to Sonora Pass, mile 1016.9! Over 1000 miles down and many more to go. If the previous section was mainly a challenge of the amount of snow this section was mainly about how much melted snow was in the streams and creeks. Despite streams and creeks being the largest challenge there were still days that were mostly on snow, even if in a "normal" year some of the areas that were completely covered in snow wouldn't even have patches of it. I found a blog written by someone who hiked the same section in late June of 2012 just to see what the terrain would look like in a year so different from this one. It doesn't even look like the same place, despite being earlier in the year than my hike. Here are two photos of Dorothy Lake, a lake at the northern end of Yosemite National Park along the PCT, but from different perspectives.

July 7th, 2017

June 28th, 2012

These normally snow free sections are what separates my hike from a normal PCT hike. The high passes were all snowy for me, but those areas are always snowy. The fact that I did multiple passes without really seeing snow-free ground is different than an average year, but in the end the high passes were probably only slightly more difficult than normal. Most people have some rough snow ascents and some incredibly fun snowy glissades. This last section had some areas that are normally easy walks, up the floors of some canyons and next to some streams. That was not true for this year in any way.

A perfect example is my experience in Kerrick Canyon. This is a steep sided canyon that happens to have a strong stream flowing down it. Instead of a nice stream-side walk this is the trail that we encountered at the floor of the canyon.

It felt like the most dangerous section of trail yet. To avoid more of the steep snow slope going directly into a raging whitewater creek, the group decided to cross the stream over three miles upstream of where the PCT actually crosses. I think this was a good idea since the other shore of the stream was mostly snow free, being on the southerly side of a mountain. The downside was we then had to do a three mile bushwhack down canyon. At least the trail wasn't threatening to throw us all in a river at every step.

Later in the same day there were two deep stream crossings. Luckily neither of these streams were dangerous because the water, while moving quite quickly, was not whitewater, or just upstream of a large waterfall, or about to smash us into a bunch of boulders. These were all good things since everyone in the group had to swim the second one and SquarePants decided to choose a route across the first that allowed him to swim then too.

In the second video you can see that I had inflated my airpad and then strapped it to my backpack. This technique does not ensure that my backpack stays dry but it does mean that it will definitely float and if needed will also keep me afloat. Usually backpacks will float without this added bit of buoyancy but every little bit helps. It is easier to swim with a pack if you can just kind of push the pack across the water instead of trying to carry it. I think the majority of these kind of stream crossings are over. The ford report that I use to see updates on the conditions of streams for fording does not have a single ford listed between Sonora Pass and South Lake Tahoe, which sounds a bit magical.

Hopefully the trail continues to have the amazing views that I have become used to. I think what made the previous sections so beautiful were those hard parts. If the next section is more clear of snow and the streams are at a lower volume there will be a bit less excitement. I will leave everyone with a few more videos and photos. I am trying to make the videos of a slightly better quality, the camera work really needs some improving, but I think that some things just don't come through the photos. What does everyone think? Should I put more effort into the videos or just stick to the photos?