PCT day 83 - mile 1839 to mile 1869

Today was mainly walking in snow, trail reached rather disappointing highest PCT point in Oregon. Water issues continued, up to a point where (unless you wanted to melt the snow) people had to rely heavily on water caches.

Day started with a pretty gentle ten mile walk after which the uphill section has started, it was nothing new and even despite the heavy snow for miles ahead from that point it wasn't anything out of ordinary. Weather was really good, it was warm but cloudy which helped with dehydration issues as the water availability was scarce.

I encountered few very fat (presumably pregnant) toads along the way and took a photoshoot of one of them. It was so slow and clumsy that it gave up escaping after 30 seconds and allowed me to take any amount of photos necessary.

There was a lot of day hikers on trail, everyone was getting lost in the snow asking for directions and being generally out of their comfort zone. I noticed that a lot of people is section hiking Oregon's PCT as it is labeled 'the easiest section' but with the snow being 50% above the average this walk in the park suddenly turns into a quite challenging task.

I hiked good some miles today, could have walked a bit further but decided against it as I found really nice looking campsite.. if not for the swarms of the mosquitoes that welcomed me while I was pitching the tent. I decided to stay though, there's no escaping them at the moment, so I tried to embrace it instead. I put bug net on my head, long sleeved shirt and trousers and I was taking my sweet time making dinner while they were swarming me trying to find a place to bite but they couldn't. The only weakpoint were my knees so I just had to make sure I was slapping them off it every now and then.

This whole procedure reminded me of a youtuber called Kitboga, who scams the scammers - calls them and wastes their time often making them mad in the process. That's exactly how I felt today while being swarmed by the mosquitoes, wasting their time as they fruitlessly tried to bite me. Now I have probably over a hundred of them buzzing around the tent, it's actually quite ridiculous just how many of them spawned in this area. Tomorrow I'll keep on walking towards the next resupply point in Shelter Cove Resort, should be there the day after before noon. They have 3 minutes of shower time for 2$!

Toad photoshoot:
That's a different toad, this one was shy:
Mt Thielsen:
Miller Lake:

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