Day 12

Strawberry Campground (mile 183.3) to mile 201.1

PCT Miles: 17.8 (28.5km)

Total Miles: 201.1 (321.8km)

I didn’t sleep well again, so I was a bit lazy in the morning (and also it was very cold). I left camp around 7:30 prepared for my day full of snow and ice 🧊.

After a few miles I already had to put my spikes on and I kept them on for at least four hours. In the beginning of the day it was easy to hike on the ice, because everything was kind of refrozen from the night. But as I advanced in the day (today was very sunny, gorgeous!), the ice and snow started to melt and everything became slippery. Hiking on slippery ice is such a mental process!

And it just takes one microsecond of distraction for something to go wrong. That was exactly what happened to me today.

At some point I had removed my spikes because the

snow was gone. After maybe 15-20 minutes, the snow was back on the trail and I decided to put the spikes back on (which is a tedious process because you have to find a place to sit, take off the backpack, etc). And I’m so happy that I did.

The trail was full of snow but it also was fully exposed to the sun. That made all the ice and snow very slushy, very not grippy. I can’t even remember how, but I stepped in a slippery part and in a fraction of a second I was sliding down a “gentle” slope. Gentle because it was not a cliff or anything, but it took me 5-6 seconds to be able to stop the fall. At the cost of my knuckles and one of my hiking poles. Nothing serious happened to me. Later I found out that all my three water bottles had fallen from my backpack during my own fall. What a morning! (you can watch me talking about the accident on the last video of this post.)

After I realized what had just happened I was a bit down (and thirsty). For the rest of the morning I hiked fully focused on the path, taking very cautious step after step. Around 1pm I arrived in this nice picnic area and stopped for lunch and to tape my knuckles. After this break, the snow and ice were really gone,l so no spikes were needed anymore. In fact, it became very sunny and warm and “desertic” again. I don’t think I’m going to see snow again for the next 500 miles. For the next four hours (12 miles) the path was much easier and downhill. I made camp at 6pm.

For the coming 4 days, until I’m in town again, my full water capacity is only 2 liters. Let’s hope that it’s going to be enough 🤞!