Legs and Borders

"This guy's trail name is "Truffle Pig", he dug out a cat hole to relive himself and found someone else's business inside" Burger Man Another gloomy morning. It was raining really hard over night and I was happy that I stayed in the shelter. A nearby tree must have fallen at night as there was a loud crashing noise for about 10 seconds then it got quiet again. I made a move as quickly as there was enough light to pack everything up, the plan was to get as close to Damascus as possible, get to town early the following morning and have (almost) day off, or what hikers like to call a "nero" ("zero" as per "zero miles" is an actual day off). It finally stopped raining at midday, the fog slowly lifted and the sun made an appearance. To make things even better there was a trail magic at one of the parking lots.Three people from New York led by "Lunch" who thru hiked AT in 2014, were serving grilled sa...

Yesterday before I fell asleep a cricket decided to spend the night on top of my tents bug net, I really like them so I didn't mind it especially as he seemed to be hunting the mosquitoes in the perimeter. The only downside was it's jackhammer like sound, it's completely different when you hear them from the distance, three feet away it's a powerful sound! I didn't sleep too much until midnight when my guest and all its cousins got quiet, I actually found him in the morning while folding the tent not willing to move on with its life, I even took few pictures in the darkness. I started to walk early trying to get in time for Lucky's friend trail magic ten miles away on the Chinook Pass Trailhead. On the way there I saw a massive herd of elks grazing at the meadow by the trail, it must have been over thirty females and few young males, once they spotted me they started to run away over the hill and I took a very bad quality video of the event. It was the biggest p...

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,...

"Not everything which makes us feel better is good for us. Not everything which hurts may be bad. To regard states of distress in general as something that must be abolished is a supreme idiocy, in general sense, a real disaster in it's consequences, almost as stupid as a will to abolish bad weather." Nietzsche A good, long day I pushed few more miles than originally planned to split the difference to the next resupply point near Crater Lake. Weather was near perfect and the trail was not too steep so everything was flowing well. At around 11am I hit an unexpected trail magic with Roy from Portland, he was following his friend down the trail, and set up his van next to a quiet road PCT was cutting through. I spend fifteen minutes talking to him as he also used to work as a stage hand in theatre, eventually becoming an electrician. I might meet him again as he will be following his other friend in couple of weeks who is doing PCT southbound starting at the Canadian border....

"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 ...

"As of 1st of June there is water here and snow free space for many tents depending on how friendly you are" Ultra. The day didn't worked out quite as planned but it wasn't necessarily a bad thing for once. We woke up early and attempted to chase Ravi and Sunshine who ended up ahead of us yesterday due to myself taking the wrong path and putting me and Owen an hour behind. Problem with the group I'm hiking with at the moment is that our pace and routines are so similar that it's extremely difficult to catch up in this sort of situations. Especially when the people you chase have what I would call a "town day gravity pull". Tomorrow we will reach Lake Tahoe South, me and Owen ended up 8 miles away from it which is perfect because we can be by the Highway by 9am and get a hitch to town arriving there when everything is opened. Now Ravi is meeting his friends there tomorrow and Sunshine has rented a room for the night so they both have extra reasons to ...

"I don't have any whiskey.. but I do have some vodka" Mosquito Jesus. "Hiking PCT is a mini lifetime and quitting after two weeks seems like abandoning it in it's infancy" Classic. We started walking early today, climbed out of our Blair Witch Project campsite (I quite liked it though) and headed towards Hiker Town. Nugget had an idea to perhaps go back to LA that day to watch the concert of the band she liked, so we pushed some serious tempo. After couple of miles we hit the earliest trail magic on PCT so far, Mosquito Jesus was there with his goodies including doughnuts, crossaints, soft drinks, fruits, beers, pickled gherkins and..a bottle of vodka. We got ourselves a can of beer (drinking before 9am.. profit?), ate few doughnuts and because it was still freezing cold we quickly went back on trail. Weather was really bad, cold, cloudy and windy, frost has set on top of the trees overnight and as it got warmer wind was dropping bits of it along our path, i...