Legs and Borders

Great day, Washington finally opened itself up, green tunnel has ended, we should have more landscapes to see from now on. It was also a very hot day, I must have drank about 10 litres of water, luckily there was a lot of snow melting around so the crisp, cold water was flowing abundantly. Trail should be getting easier as we walk towards the snow covered areas. I've seen many south going hikers or Sobo's today, it looks like we finally got a proper overlap which is also a good sign, for once they will push those feet into the snow for us making an easier traverses, for second it can't be that bad anymore moving forward since they managed to get through. Walking on the ridge from Old Snowy Mountain towards White Pass was absolutely spectacular, it really reminded me of traversing Sierra Nevada two months ago, I took way too many pictures of this area.  I should be descending into White Pass, Krakel Barrel resupply point tomorrow morning, I'm camping around 8 miles away ...

I walked today way longer than expected, not quite sure why as the path was quite steep. I managed to catch up with Tank Top, Fomo and Lucky in the afternoon thanks to a trail magic they stopped at. I joined them there for a bit to have a soda, some crisps and an apple it was one of those unexpected treats that helped me push few extra miles in the afternoon. We decided to camp by the Bear Lake, mosquitoes are back with full force in the area, everyone set up their tent real quick and hid inside from the swarms of angry insects. We are only 20 miles away from the Road 23 which has a shuttle running (from today actually) three times per day back and forth to the Trout Lake, the aim is to get on the second shuttle at 11:30am but if we won't manage to be there in time we can try calling trail angels to arrange an extra pick up. Patchy snow is back, nothing serious yet though, bu its just a matter of time before we will be walking long distances on snow covered trail. I can't wait,...

"Well at least now you will have a story to tell" Rob. It looks like PCT always has something in store for me. The day started very ordinarily, I woke up and rolled my entire household into the backpack while being accompanied by an orchestra of mosquitoes I could barely see in the morning light. I started walking and didn't see anyone until 3pm, it was just myself, mozzies, lakes of various shapes and water quality and an occasional chipmunk parkouring through the blowdown trees. I was kind of juggling my water around all morning, I found a lake filled the bottles in but then there was a snowmelt stream (a better water) so I would empty the bottles and get that water instead. I've done it a couple of times until during my lunchtime break at 1pm I suddenly realized that I am drinking out of my unfiltered water bottle, I've managed to drink half of it before even realising it, my clean water bottle was gone! I must have left it by one of the streams miles away, the...

Today I went down to Shelter Cove Resort to resupply and get a shower (2$ for 3 minutes! haha). I woke up to a quite spectacular sunrise, the sun was bouncing of surrounding snow with a reddish hue, giving the landscape a warm and calm atmosphere. The descent to the valley was quite difficult for the first couple of miles as the footprints in the snow has largely melted in the sun yesterday, so I spent a lot of time watching GPS app and scratching my head but eventually the trail returned to it's good old dusty self and I could pick up the tempo again. Few miles before the resort I have encountered black bear number six, this one following most of it's predecessors commenced escaping procedure at my first glance, but at least I managed to see his whole posture before it dissapeared into the woods. It also coincided with the mosquito levels dropping down to acceptable levels (I saw the last bear just before the 'mosquito hell' at Fish Lake Resort) it looks like bears are...

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 t...

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 P...