PCT 50 – out of Tuolumne

Daily Miles: 21
Total Miles: 963

Well, the gang is back together…sort of.  SweetPea got back on the trail today after three days of rest.  Last night we slept at the campsite with MountainMan, Proton, Gazelle, XC, and DreamCatcher.  We are planning to camp together again tonight, even though we left at different times.

We headed out first with Proton just after 6:00.  We like to get an early start and so does Proton, so that works good for us, because we enjoy walking with him.  MountainMan and Gazelle had to wait for the post office to open, DreamCatcher wanted breakfast at the cafe, and XC was hoping to hike with them, so they were all still sleeping in their tents when we left.

The trail today was pretty nice.  There was quite a bit of flat trail with just a short, fairly steep (although switchbacked) up and down.  We had several fords today as well, so most of the afternoon was spent hiking in wet shoes.  SweetPea had gotten a new pair of shoes at Toulomne Meadows, but they don’t look new anymore.

We enjoyed our day hiking with Proton.  We kept a pretty relaxed pace and took several breaks through the day for SweetPea to roll her hip and to stretch.  Her hip was sore mid-morning, which was frustrating after the three days of rest, but it started to feel better as the afternoon wore on.  We’ll just have to keep an eye on things as we go forward.

We got to camp just after 5:00 and set up our hammocks.  The mosquitos in camp are TERRIBLE!!  Proton went right on his tent and we put on our wind pants, wind shirts, and head nets…and even still the mosquitos found the little bit of exposed skin we had.

XC arrived shortly after we did and got a fire going with the hope of clearing with mosquitos with the smoke.  Not sure how well that worked, but it was nice to sit by the fire to warm up a bit.

Proton, XC and Beardoh had some fun in the evening playing with Proton’s aero-bee, which is like a frisbee.  Our camping area is pretty open and flat, so it is pretty ideal for the aero-bee.

It is 7:45pm and we are still waiting for the rest of our gang to make it to camp.  With their late start, they will most likely get to camp pretty late.  We might even see Lid here at camp tonight, which would be really nice.