Day 126 (PNT 31)

Day 126 (PNT 31): 18 miles Even though it was a low mileage day, it might’ve been my favorite of the whole trail so far.

I got a late start cause I decided to sleep in to let my foot heal up as much as possible. It felt much better in the morning after being elevated all night while sleeping. The slope also wasn’t severe enough where it caused back pain so it was perfect.

After watching pikas all around my campsite for a few minutes, I started hiking around 9. The trail started to become a little more overgrown on the descent to Ashanola river and would remain a little overgrown and rough the rest of the day. That being said, it was pretty great. Last year a crew cleaned up over 600 trees and I think they just got done clearing 600 more this year, so it could be much worse. And I was expecting it to be much worse. I’m sure I will come to regret saying this.

Really this whole area today was burnt. I can’t imagine how much more beautiful it would be if it was lush pine trees everywhere instead of black firesticks.

But it was still beautiful. The surrounding mountains all day when I was high up were stunning. It may have been the most beautiful day so far. And I didn’t even really get to enjoy sunset. I descended a little bit into some trees off a high meadow to make camp. I ended early because I’m about to start a long descent and I’m not sure if there will be more camping opportunities along it, especially if there are downed trees everywhere or cleaned up on the side of the trail. It would’ve been much more scenic to camp on the high meadow a half mile back, but there were some clouds that made me uneasy late in the day, so I chose safety over a pretty campsite.

Song of the day: good for you-Olivia rodrigo