Day 72, 25.59 miles

Alright so, last night, I thought I was camping on a small spur trail and lookout, but it turns out it was the actual PCT! And little did I know that a bunch of people had hiked about a mile up to see the fireworks from a more prominent point. This meant that after the fireworks were done and I had already retired to my tent, there were multiple groups of people coming down with headlamps, kids, and dogs, each one waking me up again from about 10:00pm-11:30pm! Needless to say it was hard for me to get to sleep, but I did manage to still get around 6 hours and I was on trail at around 7am this morning. Not too bad! 

My phone camera again wasn’t working, but the morning was so pretty! The trail meandered up and down for a few miles, and then we crossed underneath interstate 80 via some creepy tunnels.

It’s ok, we all float down here...

To be honest it’s not the worst day for very few pictures! It is still very pretty, but the scenes are starting to get a little repetitive. Essentially today I climbed up a flowery hill, almost got to the top, descended down the other side through a thicker forest, crossed a little stream, and started heading up a flowery hill again! This happened about 6 times today!

There was a cool Point of Interest today called the Peter Grubb Hut. This is a hut built by the Sierra Club a long time ago in memory of a very active, young 18 year old man who died from heat stroke on a bicycling trip. It’s open to PCT hikers and there was a lot of cool things inside. There was a guitar to play, a full kitchen downstairs, a separate built outhouse, historical pictures and placards, and even a bunch of letter written by Peter Grubb himself.

Peter Grubb Hut

In the winter only the top floor shows!! 

In the hut was also a PCT trail register. Today I found out that Omri, Alright, Feather, Stache and Solo, and the Dogleggers from Washington, as well as a bunch of familiar names I know, are all 5-7 days ahead of me. A few people are only 3 days ahead and I’m excited to see them/pass them soon. 

I hiked alone all day today, at one point, there was only one set of footprints ahead of mine, telling me that there weren’t too many people in my immediate vicinity. I DID run into bith Verde and Magic, two hikers who I met in the Sierra just before I met up with Claire. Happy went into Truckee either last night or today, and Trout must be a few miles behind me at this point. 

Usually, more prints are freshly prominent

See? All pretty much the same thang today..

After a nice long day, I’ve finally made it to camp. I thought it was fairly mosquito free at first. I was able to do ~15 minutes of stretching and yoga, and then make dinner and eat before setting up my tent. The skeeters definitely came out later, and I got a new bite right in the middle of my forehead, as well as about 5 new ones on each leg. There’s a super pretty sunset though!

I have a fairly easy ~16 miles into Sierra City tomorrow where I’m planning on picking up my new sleeping bag, and spending the night in town as there is free camping. You know, I gotta say I’m feeling pretty good! I’m FLYIN’ through Northern California. I got about 500 miles until Oregon and I’ll probably get there in around 3 weeks at this pace! I’m dirty, I’m stinky, I’m itchy, and I’m thoroughly exhausted! But I’m super happy to be out here and I’m so happy with life right now. Canada here I come!!

Thanks for reading!