- Date: 2023-06-05
- Pct day: 31
- Start: Mile 395
- End: Mile 415
- Distance: 20 Miles
- Ascent: 3000 feet
- Descent: 3000 feet
- Start name: Cooper Canyon Creek
- End name: NA
- Wake up: 06:00
- Start hiking: 07:45
- At camp: 17:55
- In bed: 19:15
- Where I slept: tent
- Shower: no
Key moments
- slept in until about 6 this morning
- Had a slow lazy start to the day
- Today was just hard, you know? Like sure, the PCT is a holiday and stuff, but man, today just felt like everything was a bit hard. I guess I felt fatigued
- had some conversations about bears and Adam and Amelia shared a story of how they saw a bear pop the trunk of a car open in Yosemite Valley while people kind of yelled at it and it just ignores them and rifled through the boot
- we came across a couple of nice spots with picnic tables again
- Saw Trevor on trail - he took a couple of days off to see his family and his dog, sounded like he had a great time
- Got into camp and it seemed like it would be the best spot in the area - alas super windy, I’m hoping my spot in the bushes works. I keep finding fine dust in the tent that is getting blown in. Maybe the wind will die down at night. Definitely time for some ear plugs
Plan from here
- need to do about 20 miles tomorrow to get to Acton the following day. I will probably take a rest there overnight, I’m keen to check out the 49er saloon
- over halfway to Kennedy Meadows!
Animals sighted
- whip snake
- Squirrels
Gear thoughts
- wide sleeping mats are much better
- Thin possum and wool gloves would be a good idea for sleeping gloves
- Once I pitched my tent super tight it didn’t make nearly as much noise - it probably is my favourite piece of gear
- Not sure I’m sold on my Mayfly sandals, my feet end up getting dirty. But they’re better than nothing
- my flicker wide is nice, but I’m not sure if it would be better if I just had the regular flicker, you know?
- I should cut up a sponge to take to clean my cold soak jar
- I wonder if using polycryo will be better than tyvek
Physical condition
- pretty good, my feet seem to be much preferring the new shoes, which could also be that they have laces rather than elastic quick laces
- Left knee sometimes a bit of pain, but probably just a niggle
Thoughts and Observations
Some of the bad things
- sometimes you just had bad days that seem really hard. Today wasn’t exactly anything special in terms of mileage or elevation gain/loss, but it just all seemed hard. I think it’s a fatigue thing.
- One thing that really helped was my friend Dan sent me a playlist from he and Liz’s wedding. The Canapé playlist. Man hearing some music that wasn’t from my regular playlist really was a massive mood lifter and really made a difference
- I got into camp because Amelia shouted out to me from some bushes, this was definitely a better camp than the one ahead, and she also gave me a couple of pieces of candy and a oat bar. She said something like “today was hard, here you go”. That meant so much to me.
- The FarOut app keeps losing the maps - and so does the Gaia app
Quotes of the day
- “at least it’s not windy” — me, moments before a large cloud rolled through and the wind picked up.
#pct #pct2023 #pctclassof2023
