Legs and Borders

"We envy only those whom we feel ourselves to be like, we envy only members of our reference group. There are few successes more unendurable than those of our equals"  Alain de Botton. Very straight forward day. We woke up at 7am had a breakfast at Swede's house after that he dropped us off at the Bridge of the Gods where we said our goodbyes. The walk through the bridge was great, people were waving at us from the cars it felt like we really accomplished something special even though it's still quite a way to go. It was mainly uphill from that point, bridge is the lowest point on the entire PCT so it couldn't be any different. Day was hot and humid, I ended up pushing 25 miles and setting up the camp by a disused road in the forrest. Tank Top with Fomo and Lucky ended up pushing few additional miles, I'll try to catch them up tomorrow.

Today we came down to Cascade Locks, the last stop and finish line for the state of Oregon. Once we will pass through Bridge of the Gods we will be in Washington and the last 500 miles of PCT will begin. Today myself, Tank Top, Fomo and Lucky took an alternative PCT route from our campsite leading through Eagle Creek and it's many amazing waterfalls, most notably Tunnel Falls which had the trail running behind it through a tunnel carved in the solid rock, it was spectacular. There was many day hikers walking six miles each way on a very steep and exposed cliff edge to see it. We reached Cascade Locks around 3pm where Swede, Tank Tops friend took us to this house for the night. We did our usual chores, resupplied and then our host and his wife prepared us a delicious dinner with rice, fresh vegetables, grilled chicken and venison from the deer he has hunted. There was triple chocolate ice cream for desert, then we went down to the garden to chill out before heading to bed. We ate so...

"We do not belong to those who only get their thought from books, or at the prompting of books, it is our custom to think in the open air, walking, leaping, climbing, or dancing on lonesome mountains by preference, or close to the sea, where even the paths become thoughtful." Nietzsche. I got awaken by a mixture of barking and howling from a bunch of coyotes, night in the cabin was quite cold but enjoyable. I got out of it few minutes past five and half a mile later just few hundred feet before the border, California gave me best goodbye present I could ask for, I saw a cougar, a mountain lion!  I never really comprehended just how big that cat is, it was a size of a cheetah, it appeared twenty metres in front of me on the trail and kept on walking in front of me for about thirty metres until it just vanished into the forrest. The cat wasn't in any hurry either it was surely aware of me and just slowly walking away. When it disappeared I got scared that it might suddenly ...

Last night in California, I'm staying tonight only one mile away from the border with Oregon, I was tempted to push forward and cross it today but on my way stood the Donomore Cabin with its glorious three walled toilet, carpet, pillows and a lot of character. I could not say no to a night spent in such an interesting place plus the weather seems to be moody it rained in the evening and thunders were rolling in the horizon all the afternoon. There was a lot of ascending to be done today, I went up nearly 8000 feet in a thirty mile stretch. My goal was to split the mile difference for tomorrow and possibly hike into the first city in Oregon: Ashland in the afternoon stay the night and, wait for it.. have a ZERO the day after! There would be couple of reasons to have a day off, first one being that I didn't have one since I started hiking! Second to celebrate finishing California section of the trail which covers nearly 65% of the PCT. Finally that I could partake in 4th of July ...