Day 94 27.7 miles!

This morning I could really feel the smoke in the air. It’s a little nerve-wracking, but it seems like everything is still pretty safe and I feel extra confident that I’m hiking in a group. I woke up today safely instead of last night with an encroaching fire right? That’s already a plus! Haha

Today I realized that I have less than 1000 miles left to go on the whole trail! I actually passed that point two days ago, but I didn’t really think about it until now. On top of all this, I had some really really great news today.. I checked if I had service about a mile after leaving camp, and I was able to refresh the PCTA’s fire closure information page:

The PCT is open again!!

Wow, how crazy is that huh? The evening before we were about to do the alternate and the trail opens back up!! This feels great and just solidifies the idea that I made the right choice by not skipping, and now, I don’t even have to do an alternate!!

This made for some good energy in the morning, and I flew ahead of Jelly and Verde, barreling towards the border. There was some pieces of ash blowing by me in the morning breeze, which was a little disconcerting. I still planned on waiting at the border until the other two caught up before proceeding.

HUGE fungus

Sun rays in the smoke

The morning was beautiful although hazy. It was actually quite a cool, temperate morning! A little less than a mile from the border, the trail passed by and old abandoned cabin. It is currently being restored and is actually pretty neat inside. I signed the register and ate a clif bar on the porch, taking a nice 10 minute break.

The Donomore Cabin

Soon, it was time to hit the trail again! I started up a pretty steep climb, chuckling to myself that of course California has to give me one more super steep hill to climb before letting me fully escape out of its grasps! I love California but DANG it’s been a very long walk! With some of my favorite reggae blasting in my earphone pushing me up the hill, I came around the corner and saw it!

Sweet sweet Oregon!!!

Can you tell how exhausted I am? Haha

Finally!! Getting back to Oregon! One state down, two more to go! I must admit I was way more excited for this benchmark than the midway point of the PCT. Oregon is only 450 miles and Washington is only 520, I’m coming into the home stretch baby!! So stoked! I set out my sleeping pad in some shade and ate my first snack on trail on the Oregon side. About half an hour later Jelly and Verde also made it to the border.

The boys!!

——-Edit——-

Alright people, I have some cool stats I’ve discovered from crunching a few numbers and wanted to share them with you! So, from Tuolumne (Yosemite) Mile 942, to Callahan’s (Oregon) Mile 1717, it’s 775 miles. I hiked that stretch with no zeros, in 31 days... That comes out to EXACTLY 25 miles a day! That’s including townstops, which means I hiked over 25 most days and then a 15 here or there to resupply/spend a night in town. In order to do the whole trail in 150 days I need to average 17.67 miles a day, and I just blew that out of the water for Northern California!! I’m excited to see what I can do in Oregon!!

——-Edit End——-

We all felt rejuvenated and excited having finally done it! We continued out fast pace way up the hill and then the trail flattened out a bit and we just rolled up and down for a while. Verde wanted to push a 30, but since we cut 6 miles out of our original plan by not having to do the extra miles on the fire alternate, I was not quite as ambitious. I still hiked until around 7:30pm, but found a nice campsite in the trees near a water source. 27.7 miles is good enough for me! 

So smokey!

Jelly decided to stop at the same campsite and Verde pushed on about 5 more miles to the top of the big climb. It seemed apparent that the fire danger was minimal and that the trail was safe, so the three of us decided it was ok to split. Tomorrow we will get to Callahan’s Lodge, mike 1717, where I will meet my mom and take my first zero in 775 miles!!!

Thanks for reading!