PCT: Day 120

I got up this morning, checked out of my hotel, and walked the half mile into Graeagle to hitch back to trail. It didn’t take long as the 1st truck that came by picked me up. He was driving past the trailhead and dropped me off on the way.

The first couple miles climbed to get back to the PCT, but unlike when we exited here a month ago, there was no snow to navigate and almost no water either. Once back on the PCT I wound through forests for most of the day. My feet and legs felt good but it was hot. If I had shade or a breeze it was bearable, but a number of the climbs had neither, leading to more sweating than I did in the 700 miles of desert. It was the worst from about 11am-5pm. I took an extended lunch around 1pm, but still walked through a lot of the heat of the day.

Sometime around 5pm the heat began to break, and I took advantage of it, walking until 8pm. The last 4 miles or so passed through the burn scar from the 2020 Bear Fire. The trail started along the bulldozed fire line initially before diving into the burn itself. I finally found a campsite not surrounded by dead trees after passing the 30 mile mark and setup quickly for an early bedtime. There’s more burn to walk through tomorrow along with a big climb so I’m planning an early start (5am) to get ahead of the heat.

Best laid plans… as I was about to fall asleep I heard a large animal wandering around near my tent. It eventually came within a few feet of my tent at which point I yelled and made a lot of noise. It ran off making a lot of noise as it barreled through the brush leaving no doubt in my mind it was a bear. It came back a couple more times with the same result and eventually stayed away. I fell asleep and woke up a couple hours later to the sounds of something large again wandering around. The footsteps were different this time, likely deer, but after the bear I was on edge and gave them a good yelling at too. I eventually fell back asleep around 4 and slept till 6.