Day 63, 16.99 miles

I woke up today with my sleeping bag soaked since I slept on the sand next to the lake. It wasn’t that big a deal as I knew it would happen, and I was able to dry my bag out in the sun before leaving. There were only a few mosquitos out at around 7am, and I was hopefully that the lake would remain pretty skeeter free. That hope got crushed into a million pieces about 20 minutes later... 

The wind had completely died down overnight, and we got swarmed! The mosquitos were the worst I’ve seen yet. Breaking records everyday! Wheezer and Picnic got out of there ASAP, and I just got back in my tent while my bag dried out. The lake was very pretty in the morning, it almost looked like a different place without any wind on it! 

It looks a lot smaller with no wind chop

All that yellow on the sand is pollen that all blew onshore yesterday

The one “good” thing about get swarmed by mosquitos is that when you start hiking and only see a few occasionally, it feels great! Until you have to stop again... My solution: Don’t stop! I took a late start today, hiked at a slower pace than usual, and stopped for about 10 minutes on a semi-mosquito free ridge to eat lunch. Other than that I only stopped to collect and drink water and take pictures! Even the lunch ridge had a few, but wer’e talking 10-20 instead of hundreds...

The beginning of the day held a 1500 ft climb over just three miles, which is pretty steep! The rest of the day was again either all up or all down. In just 17 miles I went up over 4,300 ft and down over 35,000 ft! Although for some reason, I didn’t really mind it compared to the last few days. My body is definitely pretty strong, I can’t wait for the trail to flatten out a bit so I can start crushing the huge mile days! 

I hiked alone all day today, aside from passing 20 Prime, Wheezer, and Picnic, I only saw maybe 4 or 5 other hikers briefly all day!! I think I might be in between bubbles and I love it! I met a hiker named Magic today and I hiked/talked with him for about 20 minutes towards the end of my day. He told me that last night he was sleeping in his tent, his barefoot was touching the fabric at the end of the tent, and he got three mosquito bites on his big toe from getting bit through the tent fabric! 

So, I haven’t used earphones to listen to music or podcasts since Lone Pine almost 250 miles ago. Partly because my earphones suck, but mainly because everything has been so beautiful, I’ve just wanted to take in all my surroundings and listen to all the animals and things happening around me. Today there were a few monotonous ups and downs, and since I was hiking solo, I used the new earphones Claire gave me and it was great! 

View after climb 1

SUPER green!! Pretty ferns

Lakes for days

Rivers for days

Here, the trail was a stream for about 30 feet!

My tree!!

Water snake

(While reading this, Claire just went “No...”, and scrolled down fast! Haha)

Wilma “Wilmer” Lake

The trail was very pretty today. I really like all the granite mixed with grass and dirt. I can definitely tell that we’re getting out of the high country, and slowly transitioning back into just normal forests and rivers. The temperatures have been nice and warm! I’m wishing I had my shorts and T-shirt to hike in, although I would keep my long sleeve set just for the skeeters. Maybe when I ditch this bear can I’ll try carrying both sets for awhile.

Not sure if I told you guys, but I sent Claire back home with the stove as cooking proper meals is very time consuming, and with this warm weather I’ve decided to go back to cold-soaking my meals. I really really enjoy this method a lot. Today for instance, when I stopped for lunch, I started coldsoaking some cheesy rice and broccoli with some dehydrated refried beans mixed in there. About 6 hours later when I got to camp for the night, I had a great meal ready to go!

Yum!!

No standing outside to cook while getting swarmed by these mosquitos! Just got to camp, set up my tent, ate inside and then put my bear can out for the night! Since it’s not as cold out and I normally stop by ~ 6-7 so I can do my blog, having a super hot meal isn’t as important, and if I have my soaking jar on the outside of my pack in the afternoon, the food is usually a bit warm anyway! 

One thing I DO miss is my extended stretching and yoga that I was doing everyday when I would arrive at camp. Now more than ever my body needs to stay stretched and limber. I’m still able to stretch a bit inside the tent, but there are a few things I can’t do in this confined space. “Why don’t you just stretch outside?” See all previous mosquito rants... As I type this it’s 7:00pm and there’s about 40 of them on my tent, waiting for me to go outside and brush my teeth!! 

Although all I want to do is bust out some 30 mile days and get up to Oregon as soon as possible, I’m going a bit slow on purpose. For one thing it wouldn’t be a great idea to go too hard after taking 5 days off trail. That would wreck my body! And the other reason is I’m supposed to meet Ron and Cheryl at Sonora Pass Thursday at around noon. If I went 20 miles yesterday and today, I would’ve arrived there Wednesday night. This way I only have to do ~18 tomorrow and 10 the next day! 

Thanks for reading!!

Post Script:

Alright, sorry in advance. I know you guys are sick of my mosquito ranting, but I had to update this blog post for that reason alone. This is THE craziest mosquito-infested place I’ve EVER witnessed. Just earlier in this post I said that Benson Lake had the most mosquitos yet on trail. That record just got shattered... Tenfold! 

I geared up with gloves, long sleeve, puffy, socks, hat, underwear, and pants, with my headnet cinched down so tight around my neck it was hard to swallow.. I got out of my tent as quickly as I could, grabbing my bear can and toothcare gear. This took me about ~6 seconds. When I came back, after my chores, I jumped in as quickly as I could, taking ~4 seconds. In this 10 seconds of having my tent fly open, there were not 3, not 5, not even 10, but 28 mosquitos that had entered the body of my tent!! What the heck?!? 

While I was collecting water near the river, there was a comical amount of mosquitos swarming me and hanging out on my body. It quickly got to the point where swatting did nothing. A palm smack placed anywhere on the body would kill at least 4-5 of the monsters, and 4-5 more would immediately land on the hand and try and bite. 

I realized that I had to brush my teeth inside of my mosquito headnet, as I tried to just lift the net but they would fly into my nose and mouth if I lifted the net for just a second. I tried to cinch it around my wrist while brushing, but 3 mosquitos snuck in and I now have two new bites on the forehead and two on the neck! Ahhhhhh!!! Although I though I was completely covered, I got two new bites on my lower back between my pant line and shirt bottom. That must be only 1/2 an inch of exposed skin and only when I bend over! What is going on?!? 

Right now, as I’m lying in my tent with 28 mosquito bodies lying around me because I don’t dare to open my tent to remove them, there are at LEAST 200 mosquitos in sight, on or flying around my tent.. TWO HUNDRED!! I feel itchy just being in here! This is insane.. I wonder how many people quit this trail solely due to mosquitos! I’m definitely not ditching my long sleeve gear any time soon... 

Just thought I should let you guys know :)

-Thanks for reading