Lots of up and down mountains today. Sometimes when we are up on top of a mountain ridge or saddle, we look across and cannot see how the trail will wind around. Usually it will follow a mtn face out beyond sight and wrap around into the next mountain. Today, that was not the case. We had lunch on top of a ridge and looked across and could see the switchbacks that we would later follow up, but not the bottom or lowest point. It was a long way to the lowest point and a long way back up. The walk had the feeling today of going up and down Mount Washington (our tallest mtn in NH) twice.
Great views, of course, when climbing these mountains. I think that the four of us agree that Washington is probably the prettiest state on the whole on the PCT. The trail is rough in some spots however. Not the climbs or elevation change, which is quite a bit (many describe this area as a mini Sierra) but the trail is in rough shape. Lots and lots of deadfalls today, and tons of overgrown areas….legs got cut up, and the spot that I fell on a few days ago, felt like it was getting whipped over and over by the overgrowth.
Late in the day we passed a couple hikers that we had seen in some of the trail registers – a mother and daughter by the name of the Blairswitch and Trail Bait.
Just the four of us camped together tonight by a river at a pretty good campsite. Four other thru hikers passed by, but they needed to do more miles before stopping and continued on hiking in the dark.
Daily Distance: 25
Trip Distance: 2,531.2
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