PCT 13 – Deep Creek

Daily Miles: 26
Total Miles: 318

We got up after a comfortable night of sleep and got on the trail around 6:45. The temperature was quite nice and we had some gentle uphill trail to start the day.

We kept a pretty steady pace most of the day. In multiple spots, it seemed like the trail was starting to slide down the sandy slope of the mountain. This slowed things a bit and bothered our feet as they slipped in our shoes on the angle.

SweetPea’s second day in her new shoes didn’t go so well. The top of her left foot was hurting from the pressure of the shoe laces. The Altras make a very thin tongue on their shoes and this causes problems with the laces. She ended up folding her hanky and putting it between the top of her foot and the tongue of the shoe for extra padding. That helped quite a bit and the shoes didn’t end up being too big of a deal.

We started the day in the green conifer forest, but as the day progressed, the mountains became browner and drier and more desert-like. Most of the day had s nice breeze, but later in the afternoon it was quite hot.

In the early afternoon, we came up Deep Creek hot springs. It is a popular local (clothing optional) natural hot springs. Beardoh decided he would go in because he had just encountered poison oak and wanted to clean himself off. There has been sporadic poison oak along the trail today that Beardoh has brushed up against. Hopefully no rash comes of it.

Shortly after getting back on the trail, we encountered our first rattlesnake of the trail. He rattled for quite a long time before finally slithering across the trail and down into some shrubs. We were starting to wonder if we would see a rattlesnake at all out here. We’ve seen plenty of other snakes so far, but it was neat for SweetPea to finally experience their rattling alarm.

After hiking almost 21 miles, we decided that we would walk later into the evening to get in more miles. While we were both tired, our bodies felt good and we decided to push on. We are trying to position ourselves well for a 28 mile uphill stretch without any water sources that is coming up in about 25 miles.

Shortly after deciding to keep walking, we came across Coppertone, who was at a road crossing doing trail magic. He gave us both pecan pie with ice cream. It tasted so good and it gave us the boost to go the final miles. Shortly after walking away from the trail magic, it started to sprinkle and we saw a double rainbow.

We got to camp around 7:30 and are hanging off trees right next to each other. Hopefully we won’t keep bumping into each other during the night. We decided to put up one tarp over the both us. It will probably work for light rain, but things could get wet if it rains very much.