Sunday, September 18, 2011

September 14, 2011

Start: 2303
End: 2319

It was a leisurely morning as 12 Ounce and I sorted through our food, ate breakfast, and made some gear adjustments before getting back to the trail around 11am.

The first miles went smoothly and we talked to a couple weekenders, continued on, and ran into a couple of my coworkers who were in the planning stages of replacing a trail bridge. It's always fun to run into new people and talk to them and see what they are up to, whether they are day hikers, weekenders, section hikers, or other thrus. Some people just get it, while others, well, not so much. The people that "get" why we are thru hiking are usually the most fun to talk to because they have their own stories or dreams of hiking somewhere on the PCT. The people we saw today definitely got it.

The plan for today was to get in 20 miles, but plans have a way of changing unexpectedly. After lunch at Pipeline Lake we set out hiking again and were headed North, when a couple of wrong turns had us near Jug Lake, a couple miles from the PCT. After some GPS locating and looking at the map, we figured out the direction we needed to go and ended up doing a nice alternate route by Jug Lake and Fryingpan Lake before reuniting with the PCT. It was nice to get back to a familiar trail and get going the right direction again.

After a few more miles we neared Fish Lake and started to see a change in the weather. Clouds were rolling in from the west, and for the first time it actually started to feel like Washington. The temperatures have dropped a bit lately and the incoming clouds completed the transition. A couple miles more up the trail it was getting dark so we set up camp near Free Range and another couple for the night. Tomorrow the goal will be to make up some miles we missed out on today.

Sent from the PCT

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