PCT day 60 - mile 1232 to mile 1264

"I had this pain in my feet, it begun feeling like a wrinkle in my sock, and then it started to burn. It ended up as a wrinkle in my day" Cowboy.

"So I looked at this guys legs and said: wow your blisters have some feet!" Smiley.

Yet another day without any major issues, half of it was spend walking down the mountain into Middle Fork of Feather River, I bet most of the hikers had a blast doing that as the area was nicely shaded with typical to forrest soft trail, no stones, snow or water, a great little stretch.

The second part of the day was a repayment of the debt we took in the morning aka gaining the lost altitude back, in the next ten miles we climbed 3.5k feet - it was still shaded woodland area though so very doable.

I'm seeing more and more people who has quit PCT last year around Lake Tahoe area, after finishing high Sierra Nevada section and are restarting the hike this year. I met the girl called Taffy few days ago and today two guys called Cowboy and Smiley. You can recognize fresh starters quite easily by the amount of positive energy and just how interested and talkative they are! It shows by comparison how grumpy and tired we have become. Either way it's nice to be around smiling and full of energy hikers, it reminds me that first few hundred miles in the desert section when people were cracking jokes and having fun.

I finished listening to "The Call of Cthulhu" by H.P. Lovecraft, as much as I appreciated it's language and atmosphere, the story itself is rather mediocre, the author plays on stereotypes up to a point where you may find his writing quite racist and offensive. I can see why people may like it, I enjoyed the game called Darkest Dungeon which is a love letter to his work, but his writing is not my cup of tea.

Tonight I'm staying few miles away from one of the resupply points called Bucks Lake, I'm camping next to a road leading to it. I gave up after spending half an hour trying to catch a hitchhike into it, the road was really dead, I saw four cars but they didn't want to give a ride to a dirty hiker and so I gave up. I still have about three days worth of food, so the only thing I was hitching for was snacks and town food. Because I did good miles today I will be able to get into the next resupply point called Belden tomorrow, I might even stay for night there as they have an RV Park, or just get a shower, food and get back on trail. I'll leave the decision until then.

It's 7pm now and the hecking lumberjacks are still cutting trees in the area, I hope they are not running the night shifts!

Todays supper variation: Mexican rice, olive oil, SPAM and shredded tortilla:

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