Total Miles This Hike: 83.6
PCT Miles Covered: 1782.1
I actually slept pretty decently last night even though I think I sweat out a ton of water dealing with this cold. The dayquil seems to have helped a bit as I feel about 75% better than I did yesterday at this time. I still contemplated staying and taking a zero, but I also felt well enough to at least get some miles in today as overall today didn’t have too many big ascents or decents.
I left Elk Lake around 8:30 and made my way back to the trail. This section was pretty easy grade almost all of the day. It is easy to see why certain sections of Oregon you can make big miles under normal conditions. The normal conditions I am referring to are early to mid August when most thruhikers come through here. Not in mid July with the mosquito phenomenon.
About 3 miles out of camp I saw running water in a stream. Didn’t see any the rest of the day as my water has started to come solely from lakes and ponds. The mosquitos though don’t give you a minute of reprieve whether it is taking a food break, getting water, or going to the bathroom.
About halfway through the day I came upon this old school PCT marker on a tree where the tree has actually grown around the marker. Pretty cool.
As the day progressed, I actually made it farther than I expected and tried to aim towards Stormy Lake as my camping spot for the day. Big mistake. Don’t know why some of these lakes have bigger mosquito populations than others, but this one was near the saturation point. Not exaggerating, thousands of mosquitos had me in their sights, no matter how much deet I had, or covered skin. They would find their way through. I set my tent up as fast as possible, filtered water cooked my food and ate in my tent (only after having killed the 50+ of them that got into it while I had the zipper open for about a minute.
All I could think about while falling asleep was hoping the swarm was less tomorrow morning.
Keep on keeping on
- Patch
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