PCT 78 – Beyond Fitzhugh Gulch

Daily Miles: 26
Total Miles: 1475

Our alarms went off at 5:00am today. It is still a little dark then, so it is hard to get up. We did get to enjoy the bright orange color of the sunrise which was quite nice. We all agreed that we like being up at that time, but we don’t like getting up at that time. At least once we are moving, it doesn’t seem so bad.

We hit the trail at 5:45 and had beautiful views of the mountains, including Mount Shasta, with the lovely pink morning light. Everything was so still and peaceful…definitely one of our favorite times to walk.

We passed multiple hikers camped along the trail in the morning. There weren’t many tent sites, so a few people were just laying on the side of the trail amongst the manzanita bushes.

We had nice water pretty regularly on the trail today, so we didn’t have to carry much during the day. That was really nice since our backs have been hurting lately.

We kept our breaks and lunch pretty short today, since we were trying to do 25 miles. Luckily we had a long gradual downhill for a good chunk of the day. We were able to keep a good pace for a lot of the section.

It continues to be really hot. The days are really warm (SweetPea even got a bit of a heat rash on her legs today) and unfortunately it doesn’t cool off too much at night. The heat (plus the mosquitoes buzzing in our ears) definitely makes it harder to sleep well at night.

We have all been feeling pretty beat lately. Our feet hurt a lot with the rocky trail, Beardoh’s stomach has been bothering him, MountainMan’s migraine which thankful seems to have passed, and other aches and pains. The heat is only adding to the feeling of exhaustion, as it is hottest in the late afternoon when we are getting tired from the miles. We also haven’t had a full zero day in 400 miles, so we have been rethinking our schedule today.

Our next zero day was scheduled for six days from today, but we think we will change that and take a zero day the day after tomorrow. We’ll make our final decision tomorrow, but we’re all leaning towards a zero day sooner rather than later.

We made it to camp around 6:30 and spent time setting up our hammocks and cleaning the dust off our bodies. There are some hikers we have seen lately who appear to be having a “who can be the dirtiest” contest. They don’t clean their bodies or clothes when they’re on the trail. They just clean up in towns, which they don’t do often. Some of these hikers are so caked in dust it is pretty gross.