Day 199

Day 199 (pct 89): 36 miles

We woke up knowing it had to be a big day. We have to cover 90 miles (60 miles there and 30 miles backwards to the nearest road) in 2 days. The terrain didn’t make it easy. We started out with 2,000 foot climb and then a 2,500 foot climb later. It was pretty rocky all day which didn’t feel great especially with my hurt foot. Whenever I would step on one in the perfect part of my foot the sharp pain would be instant and I would let out a yelp like a wounded dog.

I woke up in the middle of the night last night and thought I saw a mouse running around my food bag. I was immediately ready for battle. Ive killed before and I was ready to do it again. But it turned out it was nothing.

Again, today we were told by a sobo how “terrible” the blowdowns were up ahead and again they weren’t bad. At this point I just stopped believing people. But we have been getting good news from sobos about the upcoming fire. They haven’t seen much smoke near the end.

There was a small part today where we were crawling under and climbing over trees. When I was trying to step from one to another I lost my balance and started to fall backwards. In my head I was just going “ohhhh no this is gonna hurt. I’m gonna get skinned up. I’m gonna fall a good 6 feet.” But I put one foot backward and it landed on another tree and I only fell on my butt on the tree. It was much less painful than it should’ve been.

When we got to harts pass (the last access road 30 miles from the border) I dropped off some food to leave for other hikers cause my pack was still heavy and I wouldn’t need it all. While I was doing that Tim Olson drove by after just setting the record for the PCT.

Song of the day: party up-dmx