Last night’s campsite was one of the quietest places I’ve ever experienced. There was no sound at all. At 5:30am that all changed when the constant hum of thousands of bees awoke me. We moved a little slower than yesterday morning, but I was out of camp hiking at 6:33am, first out for the second day in a row. The trail was gentle all morning and I covered 4.5 miles in an hour and fifteen minutes, then another 4.0 miles in an hour. At 9:15am I took a break at nine miles into the day and made a couple calls on the cell phone and ate a morning snack. Drew arrived and we talked for a few minutes before continuing on to the water source another mile and a half. We dropped our packs at a trail junction, then took a side trail almost a mile to get water.
When we returned to the PCT Happy and Bad Moon had caught up and were talking to two southbounders who had skipped the Sierras and flip-flopped from Canada. Drew and I had an early lunch while trail talk continued. The four of us resumed hiking just a few minutes apart and began a 4 mile climb to Butt Mountain. Near the summit we took another long break where Happy and Bad Moon ate their lunch.
Around 2pm we began a long 7 mile descent to the next water source. Drew and I rolled into a campsite next to Soldier Creek at 3:50pm and were done with today’s hike. Bad Moon and Happy came in 20 minutes later, then Phantom and Whoop Ass another 30 minutes later. Everyone set up camp and lounged for awhile and used the creek to clean gobs of volcanic dust off our feet and legs. Yesterday we passed a small sign that said, “Welcome to the Cascades” and the reverse side for southbounders said, “Welcome to the Sierras”.
Much of today’s hike was on volcanic lava flows and the rock outcrops are now volcanic lava instead of the granite outcrops we saw farther south. Tonight we had leisure dinners and I watched my fella hikers shovel in twice the food I ate…their hiker hunger has been a constant while I got a break while off trail. By 7:45pm everyone was in their tent for the night…in anticipation of an early morning hike and hitch into Chester, CA for resupply, food, laundry, etc. Today’s weather: sunny, low 55, high 75. Today’s mileage: 21.2; cumulative 920.1.
