PCT: Day 115

I got up this morning after my best sleep in several days. I used to sleep better on trail than in town, but that hasn’t been the case lately. The General and I go to breakfast before I pack up and hitch to trail. The hitch out of town is infinitely faster than the hitch in. Maybe 6 cars pass before someone stops for me. I get picked up by a couple, Mobile Support and Mosey. Mosey is hiking the trail and Mobile Support is helping her along the way. They’re headed to the same place I am, Echo Lake, and before I know it I’m on trail around 10:15am.

The hike skirts along Echo Lake for a couple miles before starting to climb in earnest. The trail has been blasted into the side of the hill and is nothing but rocks that force slow going. I eventually get to the top before descending to Aloha Lake. It’s one of the largest lakes I’ve seen yet and is backdropped by a snow decorated granite hill. The views are amazing as I walk along the lake. It would be a perfect lunch spot if not for the building dark clouds at the northern end. I push on knowing I have a pass to climb in the next few miles and want to get over it before the clouds turn into a storm. The trail luckily turns east where the clouds are less concerning. I decide to stop for a quick lunch before climbing up to the pass.

I push through the climb, constantly surveying the clouds which seem to be getting darker as I go. The views on the way up show countless alpine lakes below me surrounded by snow studded mountains. This has been some of my favorite scenery in the trail so far which is saying a lot. You may notice some of my photos seem hazy. I’d like to say this is from the clouds but I don’t think it is. There is a forest fire, I think it’s the Electra fire, which started recently, but quite a ways southwest of where I’m at. I’m not in any danger from it, but the bigger views are hazy and there’s a light smell of smoke in the air.

I get to the top of the pass with no rain and quickly descend to try to keep it that way. The trail down passes lake after lake after lake, but the clouds seem to be hanging over them so I continue on. The last 5 miles or so passes through lush forests with the only real drawback that there are mosquitoes everywhere. I get to a campsite around 6:30 and fight off mosquitoes while I setup camp, cook, and eat. I managed to get 21 miles in despite the late start and am feeling good physically with no real aches or pains.

Bonus material: I know most of these posts read like a public diary, but today you get to hear about a science experiment I got to do but really didn’t want to do. If you ever wanted to know the maximum speed of a mosquito in the Desolation Wilderness this is for you. While walking through the wet wooded sections of trail approaching camp I was doing my best to not get devoured. I realized that if I walked fast enough they couldn’t land on me, but anytime I even slowed a bit to walk up a steep hill or over a down tree or over a stream they would start to land on me. Blue Lizard will tell you I spend too much time looking at my Garmin (I don’t by the way) so I pretty much knew how fast I was going. The magic number is 3mph. Unfortunately I can’t cant walk that fast up steep hills and got semi-murdered at one point when I had to drop my pack to dig out the mosquito repellent which of course was in the very bottom. Anyways, you now have scientific proof that Desolation Wilderness mosquitoes top out at 3mph. You can thank me later for this gem of information.