PCT day 61 - mile 1264 to mile 1292 (Belden)

"One of the biggest problems while hitchhiking is having to talk to people making them feel like they didn't make a mistake picking you up. Even entertain them almost all of which is a great strain if you going all the way and don't plan to sleep in the hotels" Jack Kerouac.

Great day with not so good ending. It was  rather easy in terms of hiking, not that much elevation gain and mostly going downhill to the town of Belden where I could have and potentially should have called it a day. The difference was that I met people I decided to hike out with. First if them was Mooch, an American girl living in Lake Tahoe, who actually hiked with Tom (I walked my first two weeks of PCT with him) I learned from her that his trail name is Cheeks, indeed because of his glorious butt cheeks! She also hiked with Tank Top, met Mama Troll and Courier etc. so we had a lot to talk about. Second person I met in Belden was Cuppa, a British guy from Manchester - very interesting person, he carries a lot of gear and food with him and he gave me few ideas of how to save few bucks for example with buying cans of spam rather than sachets I've been getting so far. He fried his whole dinner including bagel, spam and cheese on the jetboil tonight, that's a proper gourmet hiker kitchen right there.

We had a quick lunch and resupplied a little in Belden, the prices were really high i.e. 11$ for a gas canister (it usually costs 4-5$) and went back on trail to gain some elevation before tomorrow's big climb. The problem is that it's meant to be raining tomorrow in the afternoon which brings the horrors of my past rain and ridge walking experiences back. I can only pray that it won't be as bad as previously.

We also caught up with Alex and Ben two American Asian guys I'm walking alongside in the bubble for the last couple of days. We all sat down after arriving at the csmpsite, had a dinner together and shared stories from the trail - I learned that two people died on the trail this year so far, a Dutch girl having an altitude sickness from which she didn't recover, and a guy slipping from the side of Mount Whitney during the snow storm and deminishing due to his injuries. As terrible as it is, when you take into consideration just how tough this trail can be, especially in bad weather conditions and how many people is hiking this year, this number could have been higher. Fingers crossed there won't be more casualties in the PCT from now on.

At 8:30pm first round of rain begun so everyone fled to their shelters, I unintentionally set up the tent underneath a burned, hollow tree that turned out to be a bat nest! It was amazing seeing tens of them flying out of their shelter at dusk (I think I must have disturbed them a little), everybody looked in awe at this unexpected show. That's the first time I've seen bats on trail and in such big numbers!

It makes a world of difference to hike with others, especially in circumstances like these. It started to rain for good now, but luckily we are all set and ready, it's meant to stop in the morning and that's when we'll make a push for the peak, possibly hitting that long awaited half way point of the Pacific Crest Trail!

From left: Cuppa, Alex, Ben and Mooch