PCT: Day 117

I didn’t exactly get the best sleep last night. I woke up around 2:30am noticing a fairly strong smell of smoke. I know there are a couple active fires in CA, but they aren’t near me. I had cell service so quickly searched for any new fires. There weren’t any. I then looked outside to see if I could see the flicker of a fire. I couldn’t. The wind had picked up so it must have been blowing in smoke from one of the other fires. Convinced I wasn’t going to get cooked in my tent, I went back to sleep.

I took my time getting up since I was only 8.5 miles from free beer, but the place serving it, Donner Ski Ranch, didn’t open until 11. I got there around 10am with Crusty Loaf and took advantage of their outdoor charging station while we waited. There were about 10 of us there when it opened and we all got our free 40oz Mickeys malt liquor. Most of us also got lunch and I ate with Crusty Loaf, Hank Hill, and Geesus. You may be wondering if consuming 40oz of beer in the middle of a day of hiking is a good idea. It wasn’t as bad as I might have imagined, but those first couple hills in the afternoon sun were more unpleasant than usual.

After a few miles the trail went under I-80 through two culverts. The first one had a little water in it, but not enough to get your feet wet. The second, however was almost up to my knees. It was full of uneven rocks so I didn’t bother switching to sandals and plowed through with my shoes on. I wear trail runners which dry quickly and rarely blister me so I wasn’t concerned with being wet. The rest of the hike was a repeat of climbing a hill, descending the other side to water and mosquitoes, and then climbing the next hill.

I found out that Camino and Mando were within a day of me and tried to get some extra miles in to hopefully catch up. I ended up at 25 miles without seeing them and called it a day.