A foggy, dreary, and damp morning, I started hiking a little after 8. The trail continued through the forest, and for the morning, there weren’t any views of note.
I planned for a break at a forest service road about seven miles from where I started. As I got near the road, signs on the ground pointed to trail magic at the road.
When I got there, I found Ron and Dennis, who were set up to give quite a lot of trail magic. At the end of their run and out of most of what they originally had, they still had sodas, cookies, and cantaloupe, as well as chairs to sit on, and trash bags.
A mile or two after leaving the trail magic, I reached a minor milestone on the trail: 400 miles left to Canada.
In terms of views, today was a bit of a disappointment; the clouds were low enough to obscure most of the interesting scenery, and walking through a soggy forest isn’t the most fun way to spend the day.
I stopped for a break at a small creek next to a campsite around 3:20. My plan originally was to cook dinner there, but I had only gone 16.4 miles at that point, and I knew that if I stopped long enough to cook dinner, I would be unlikely to go further, because of the time, but also because of the dreary weather. Instead, I filtered water and carried it on ahead, which made for an unhappy water carry. It was the best choice, though.
While I was waiting for my water to filter, I put on my rain jacket, and found a surprise: the missing key to our Seneca Motel room in Chester, CA. I’ve been unknowingly carrying the key for the last 930 miles, and it’ll be another 30 before I get to Packwood! Oops, indeed. (This was probably the first time I put my rain jacket on since Chester, but I still have no idea how the key got in its pocket; I thought I gave it to the couple that was sharing the room with Quoi and I.)
Not long after leaving the creek, the trail became overgrown with plants, which served to soak my pants, socks, and shoes, making for an annoying and uncomfortable hike.
I stopped at a campsite next to a pond, a short side-trail off of the PCT, which was also quite overgrown, making it doubly irritating because my pants had almost gone from soaked to “merely” wet by the time I got there.
I quickly set up my tent in the light rain, and cooked dinner from inside my tent. It was fairly cold out, but being inside the tent kept it warm enough to not be too uncomfortable. With the cool temperatures outside, humidity from the air, me, and my dinner quickly coated the roof of my tent.
Tired from hiking (and the mental drain of charging through wet overgrown plants), I went to sleep early. Hopefully tomorrow will turn out better.