Day 104

Mile 1912.5 to mile 1948.2

PCT Miles: 35.7 (57.1km)

Total Miles: 1948.2 (3117.1km)

Smoke-wise the day started much better than it ended yesterday. If you were persistent, you could even spot a blue sky!

An old friend (or horde of friends) that have slowly showing up are the mosquitoes. To be honest I expected it to be worse (knock knock knock ✊🪵), but even a few mosquitoes are enough to ruin a day. In the morning I hiked mostly covered with my rain gear and mosquito net. Gladly it hasn’t been warm in the past days.

Around lunchtime I crossed paths with a southbounder and he told me that I had a fun surprise ahead. Usually that means one thing: trail magic!

And indeed, instead of energy bars, I had hot dogs, chips and iced tea for lunch! The trail angels, Ducky’s Mom and Ducky’s Dad, started trail angeling when their son (Ducky, of course) finished his PCT and urged them to become trail angels (they live relatively close to the PCT). Ducky’s Mom and Ducky’s Dad have been doing this now every year since 2016!

Once again I couldn’t stay as much as I wanted and needed to keep going after 40 minutes. Even though I had hiked already 13 miles (21km) in the morning I still had another 23 miles (37km) to hike!

The afternoon was very uneventful, but mostly not pleasant. Smoke, mosquitoes and burned areas took turns into making me company. I kept a good pace and since it wasn’t hot today I didn’t need to filter and drink so much water.

I’m having intense weeks with a lot of 30+ miles days and although my legs feel great, my feet are starting to hurt a little. I hope everything stays in place for a bit more, since my next planned zero is in about eight days.