PCT 97 – Sisters Wilderness

Daily Miles: 29
Total Miles: 1951

Today was our biggest day so far on the trail. But that was only by accident, because SweetPea missed the junction to our planned campsite.

In the morning, we were all ready to go by 6:30 and headed out together. That is a rarity for us, as lately we have been heading out one by one. SweetPea is usually up first and heads out first to find a good tree for rolling out her hip. Then Beardoh leaves, then MountainMan. Gazelle likes to sleep in and make coffee in the morning, so she is usually the last one out of camp.

The terrain today was really mild. We passed a lot of small lakes and ponds along the trail. The trade off for the lovely lakes was that there were a lot of mosquitos around today. We had to use our DEET at least once today.

SweetPea’s hip was feeling quite sore this morning…definitely the worst it has felt in awhile. So, she took some extra Ibuprofen and Beardoh used his hiking pole to roll the muscles in her legs. We did this several times during the day, and her hip wasn’t quite so sore by the end of the day. Hopefully it will feel better tomorrow.

At 1:00 we took our lunch break, having already hiked 16.5 miles. Our lunch spot was on a nice lake. Gazelle wanted to go for a swim, but it was fairly mucky and shallow, so she settled for just a quick dunk. A ranger came by when we were eating and asked to see our hiking permits. This was the first time so far on the trail that we have been asked to show our permits. Luckily, we all had them pretty handy, so none of us had to dig through our bags.

Shortly after our last break of the day at 5:00, we came upon a former thru hiker who was doing trail magic on the side of the trail. He had beer, strawberries and sushi. A strange combination to be sure, but it was very nice of him.

We got to camp about 7:40 tonight…later than we had planned, but as mentioned above, we didn’t go to our planned campsite. On the bright side, it means we have a few less miles to do another day, since we did extra miles today…but we are really tired! Our campsite has a nice view of a large mountain in the distance which is glowing red from the light of the sunset.