End: 1382
I forgot to mention yesterday that I saw my first bear of the trip! It was just a small bleached hair black bear, but pretty cool to see. It ignored us completely as it was breaking apart a downed log that must have been full to tasty grubs and bugs.
Today we hiked from Drakesbad to a place called Subway Cave. The hike during the day was pretty flat and we passed by some enticing lakes, but there were also a lot of mosquitos. Most of the time when hiking the mosquitos aren't too bad, but when you stop, they find you quickly. Today they were feasting on us as we walked, so I had to don my rain pants for some relief. The hot, rainforest feel of the rain pants on bare, sweaty legs, although miserable, was preferable to the biting mozzies.
After we got past the lakes, the mosquitos mostly disappeared and we were able to hike the rest of the day unmolested.
The end of our hiking day came when we got to the Subway Cave trail junction. The cave itself was located 0.4 miles from the PCT, and also happened to be the last reliable water we would see for 29.6 miles. We camped near the trail junction and walked down to the parking lot, where we got water, and went into the cave.
The cave was actually a lava tube, kind of like the Ape Caves near Mt St Helens. This one wasn't as long, but it was wide and had a couple chambers off the main channel formed by the different ways the lava flowed. Although it is really close to the trail and took only an hour total to walk there, walk through the cave, fill our water, and make it back to our campsite, it is something that most PCT hikers probably just blow by without stopping to check out. It seems they are all in some great hurry to get done, and get back to work? Who knows. HYOH
Sent from the PCT
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