PCT 5 – 3rd Gate

Day 5: 15 miles
Total miles: 91

We were happy to wake up warm and dry in the hotel this morning. We slept in a bit and got rolling after 6:30. We packed up our bags, ate breakfast and headed out to the road to hitch back to the trail. The weather was rather cool and cloudy/foggy, but the chance of rain was only around 50%, so we figured we would take a chance and start hiking.

Luckily, we only waited a few minutes before a fellow hiker stopped and picked us up. As we were driving down the mountain towards the trail, the sky cleared up and it turned into a beautiful day. We were all in good spirits to have had a nice time in town and to now be back on the trail with the sun shining on us.

We started hiking around 9:00 and had a good climb at the beginning of the day. The temps stayed cool and we had a nice breeze, so the walking was quite comfortable. There were a lot of hikers on the trail today and all but two were new to us. Even though we know there are tons of hikers on the trail, we usually don’t feel it too much. It seems that we are currently in a bottle neck of hikers who need to get into the next town (Warner Springs) on Monday morning when the post office opens. Since that is our case as well, we had a short hiking day today and will have another short hiking day tomorrow. Hopefully the bottle neck of hikers will spread out quickly after the next town.

At the end of our day, we got to the only water source of the day…a big cache of water which is maintained by someone in the local area. It seemed like a cache which would take a lot of time and money to maintain, so we are very grateful for the effort of those who keep it stocked.

The terrain of the area is pretty dry with bushes and cacti…not ideal hammocking terrain. So we are sleeping on the ground with our tarp up in case it rains. Lid is in his tent right next to us. It is really cooling down in the evening now and it is a bit breezy, so hopefully we will stay warm.

SweetPea’s feet were pretty sore by the end of the day. The blisters have started (perhaps brought on by hiking in wet shoes yesterday). One of her shoes is feeling too tight and uncomfortable, so she is going to try wearing thinner socks tomorrow to see if that helps. If not, we might need to come up with a Shoe Plan B.