Day 56 (ODT 24)

Day 56 (ODT 24): 19 miles

I woke up angry. I had to set up camp on a rocky beach and my stakes weren’t in very good. The wind yanked them out multiple times throughout the night. Between this happening, me fixing them, and it happening again, it kept me up for over 3 hours in the middle of the night.

The combination of many poor campsites, constant wind, and more rain than I expected has really gotten on my nerves on this trail. After the third time of my tent collapsing in the night, I was fuming and determined that I hate this trail (which I don’t think I actually do)

I knew I would be getting wet in the morning so I didn’t mind wading through the river for 50 yards because it was easier then walking on the sides. When I reached the point where I had to “swim” across the main Owyhee River, I was pleased. It looked pretty tame. (I took a short video to record my excitement but didn’t realize my pump up music totally drowned it out. Song is Knock Knock by Angerfist if you ever want to put a head-sized hole in your drywall).

It ended up just being a ford that is probably pretty common for most hikers on the PCT. The water went up to my belly button in the middle of the river. The current wasn’t too bad, but it wasn’t nothing. I had to focus on holding steady, but that’s why you get in the weightroom. That’s some functional strength.

The worst part was actually after I made it across and was trying to dry out my stuff. It started to rain hard. I had it in my head that the sun would be shining and it would dry out quickly. Nothing can work out easily. My things got more wet while sitting there.

When I made it to Three Forks Launch site, I loaded up 7 liters of water. From there it’s 40 miles to the town of Rome and it’s all along the rim of the Owyhee Canyon, and I’d really prefer to not have to drop hundreds of feet down into the canyon to get water. While sitting by the river there and filtering water, the sounds of nature were deafeningly beautiful The rain would continue on and off all day. It was frustrating. It rained about every 2 hours. When I would start to get dry, then it would rain again. And my feet were wet all day. I preemptively put on some athletes foot cream but we’ll see. This is the second time it’s rained/snowed 3 days in a row, not something I expected for a desert trail.

I ended the day a little early cause I wasn’t feeling it, but it was nice to see the sun drop in the sky. For it being a desert, I really haven’t seen spectacular sunrises and sunsets like I expected. Granted I usually miss sunrises, but most of the time the sky is just gray or the sun at least hidden behind clouds which show no color.

For context, after I journaled this, the sun disappeared behind some clouds on the horizon, again, hiding the sunset. Then hours later I saw a storm raging off in the distance so relatively it wasn’t too bad.

Song of the day: IANAHB-lil Wayne