Flashback day of the PCT

Day 116

Date: 25.08.2022

CDT Mile: Mile 2'328.3

Miles hiked: 21.6 miles / 34.6 km

Elevations: 5'384 feet ascent (1'642 m Aufstieg) / 3'878 feet descent (Abstieg 1'183 m)

Camping at: 8'717 feet / 2'658.7 m

Everything is wet this morning. It rained again during the night. That and camping next to a river made everything wet, my tent, sleepingbag and some of my clothes are moist too. It is very dark this morning and rather cold. The clouds are still around. We hike out shortly before 7am and the trail starts straight away with a climb. My body not warmed up yet hurts a lot and I have to start super slow. However, it is a moderate, nice climb at first, but then for the last mile it changed to a very steep uphill climb. The weather clears up. I hike on to the next stream, where we decided to have the break. And I wait, and wait and wait. After 30 minutes I take out my gear to let it dry. Soccermum shows up first, about 60 minutes in. And a couple of minutes later also the rest of the group gets here. They have breaked on the top of the first pass, as it took them longer to climb than they thought. We have already climbed more than 2'000 feet by now, which is more than a third of today's total climb already. The group hikes on. Well then, I guess I get my things together and hike on too. About then minutes later I hit the trail too. I catch up with Mouse half an hour later on the uphill for the next saddle and also pass Cheetah and Captain shortly later. We agree to eat lunch in about 3 miles at an apparently beautiful lake and may take a swim too. The trails first goes down to the valley and then starts to climb gently again. It is a beautiful trail though. I run into Soccermum, chatting to 'Chache22', a hiker who has hiked the CDT last year. But this stretch has been closed due to forest fire danger and now he came back to also hike this stretch till Leadore. I head our first, it's only 0.4miles to the lake. The lake is a little off trail, beautiful though, and from trail one doesn't see it. I wait for Soccermum for a swim, but when he didn't turn up after 15 minutes, I hop in the lake myself. Even after 30 minutes Soccermum has not arrived. I assume he must have missed the junction. I eat lunch and dry out my gear (I have washed socks, underwear and hiking shirt in the lake), when finally also the group hikes in. I feel so much better after swimming in the lake and washing my gear. As the group still has to eat lunch and dry out their tents, I hike out to the next lake, which is also supposed to be very beautiful. May Soccermum is waiting there. But as I get there about an hour later, he is not there. He must have gone already. There are black clouds showing up and I can hear big thunders. Best if I wait here for the group. By the time they get here, the thunder disappeared. Luckily only a few drops reached me. We hike on to the next mountain pass (there are many passes and saddles to climb today!), as we get hit by a thunderstorm with little hail. Fast we change into our rain clothes and hike on. It pours down for a few minutes, but then it stopped as fast as it came. We climb our last sadddle for today and eat dinner at 5.30pm. I was ahead again and when the group showed up, I just finished my dinner. Just in time before the next storm rolls in. Again we are super lucky, only a couple of drops reach us but the big storm doesn't hit us. We decided to hike on 2.2 more miles, as there should be some flat-ish ground to set up camp. After that we would have to hike on 2.5 more miles, but Mouse is done and can't be motivated to hike on any further. I would have liked to hike 2 to 5 more miles today, specially also as the sun was coming out again. By now it is clear, that we will not make it to Darby by tomorrow. There are 30 miles left and more than 6'000 feet in climb. No way we are able to hike this in one day. It will already be challenging to hike more than 20 miles again. I hope to get to town early on saturday morning though and hike out the same evening, if no thunder is forecasted (which at the time being is!).

Apart from this, today has been an absolutely amazing day. Beautiful trails through forest, hardly any blowdowns, amazing lakes, a lot of stream's, switchbacks on some of the uphills and most uphills were not super steep: it felt like being back on the PCT. I really enjoy hiking again and being out here. It is simply fantastic (as long as it doesn't rain on us!). I hope all of Montana is like this, then the last 550 miles or so are gonna be a blast!

I am also thinking about the time till left on trail. It becomes clear that I am a faster hiker than the rest of the group. That means I mostly hike alone and then wait for 30 minutes or more for them to can catch up every couple of miles. Also, I wished to hike a couple of more miles each day than what we did in this last section. But let's see, for sure I am not hiking out alone!

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