PCT day 84 - mile 1869 to mile 1898

Fields of snow and hordes of mosquitoes continued today and another formidable foe joined the battle - a tick.

The path was running next to many lakes, green corridor was rarely interrupted by small burn areas. Just pass midday I've met a group of PCTA's volunteers clearing the trail for us, they had a chainsaw and been cutting trees which have fallen on the trail. A couple I asked if they hiked PCT before said that they were trying to do it this year but then life happened and they had to change their plans.

By the water cache maintained by the local trail angel Devil Fish (he maintains three big caches in the area, this one even had power banks and anti bug deet wipes) I met a pair of science teachers from Ohio, they were section hiking Oregon and Washington. They said that originally their plan was to go from Washington southbound to Oregon but the amount of snow in Washington made them flip the route around.

Oregon is way prettier than I thought, very green and serene but the amount of snow walking which involves sluggish tempo and losing trail every five minutes and swarms of mosquitoes take away from it's charm a little bit. I guess there need to be balance to all things, this is the challenge we get to endure here.

While setting up the tent I spotted and pulled out the first and hopefully last tick of the trail. It was in my leg, it came out with a bit of flesh which is good as it means there's none of it left inside of my body, heh. I spotted two of them on my backpack few days ago after descending from Devil's Peak, it looks like there's a lot of them in the area so I have to up my tick check and protection game.

I'm camping fairly hight tonight, right in between mounds of snow, the view is great though. I've got nine miles left to Shelter Cove Resort tomorrow, I should arrive there before midday. It's bed time, I only brought two mosquitoes inside the tent tonight, yesterday it was about seven, looks like my insect avoidance skills are getting better.

PCTA volunteers at work:

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