Grizz, SameSame and I hiked out around 0630, excited to get the first couple of miles in. It wouldn’t be long before I saw the guys waiting at the post that marked a very significant milestone of this trip; the Half-Way point of the PCT!
Smack-dead in the middle of the trail that connects the Mexican and the Canadian border through the West-Coast States.
One thousand, three hundred and twenty five miles.
Even though it’s been over 80 days since I hiked out at Campo, I can still recall the day like it was yesterday. And now we made halfway through the adventure. Wow! Real exciting!
We took some time to take in the experience, write in the PCT-register and take a couple of photo’s. As we were all pretty excited to get into Chester, we didn’t linger too long; the highly anticipated breakfast awaited! I snapped a few more pictures before pursuing Grizz and SameSame towards town.
Not long away from the half-way post I felt some emotions stir up;
The past couple of days have been rough, and for me the Half-way point had been a significant point in time and space. I was looking forward to reaching it for a long time. Today I felt relief to have passed it. It feels like the official countdown has now begun, since with every step, I now will have less miles to hike than I already did.
And that’s an encouraging thought.
Upon arriving at the road I figured the others must have already gotten a hitch, because I was alone. Fortunately this was described as a place where it’d be easy to get a hitch into town from. And it indeed turned out to be so. Within 15 minutes I got in a car and was dropped off in front of the breakfast-cafe. Grizz and SameSame had just ordered and (as always) hungry, I happily joined them. It was a true feast of eggs with cheese, onions and hash-browns, and a full stack of pancakes for desert. Yum!
The rest of the day was a bit hectic. I got laundry done, took a shower at the pay-shower, picked up my new (and superlight!) air-mattress at the post-office, and then went into a diner to upload some of my previous entries. Unfortunately the WiFi was of poor quality, and so I got only half the job done. Later I joined Grizz and SameSame in their Motel-room to have a second attempt, but the WiFi there was just as mediocre. Eventually I found a place to upload the majority of my photo’s but it was a hassle to get it done. Contributing to mental distress, II found out that my phone was running low on internal memory, inhibiting me to take new photo’s. In order to retrieve full usage of camera, I needed to upload photo’s to the cloud. For this I (again) needed strong WiFi. Which I didn’t have. So now I had to resort to ditching a bunch of redundant apps off my phone, and hopefully this will last me long enough until I get to a place with solid WiFi. Continuing with my list of chores, I hopped into the grocery store to get my resupply done, grabbed my gear from Grizz and SameSames motel-room and made way for Lutheran Church. There, in their backyard PCT-hikers are allowed to camp in the backyard; pretty cool. I set up shop and tomorrow I will hike out with Grizz and SameSame to bang out the next 80 or so miles towards Burney. Because of the hectic nature of the afternoon unfortunately I didn’t take many photo’s of Chester. Maybe tomorrow morning I’ll shoot some pictures of the town.
Oh, it’s safe to say I knew it,
Yeah I knew it all along.
Asking the same questions,
Singing the same songs.
I’ve been gone for a while,
Been traveling alone,
Searching for a new life
When I already had my own.
So I walk back home,
On every road…
On every road
We cross alone
We’re thinking of those we left back home
So follow the lines
And I’ll be your guide
‘Cause we’re the lucky ones
On Every Road
Every Road – The Maine
