The strain in my shin had subsided a little but was still there when I woke up. It was very cold when I started hiking, so I layered up again. Only after several hours I changed into my shorts and hiking shirt. Today was again a fairly uneventful day. I didn’t meet a single north-bounder and all the encounters with Sobo’s were brief. After lunch I found myself hiking through a burn area which seemed to go on forever. The sun was shining brutally hot and with zero exposure it was a rough hour and a half.
The second half of the afternoon led through swampy forest, with murky ponds and pools here and there. That’s also when the smoke started made its way into the woods again. Not thick, but distinctively noticeable now compared to the clean air we’ve been fortunate to have had for the past couple of days.
Another unwelcome guest that made a reappearance was our good old friend the mosquito. Not in the maddening abundance we’d encountered them in the Sierra’s, but a few annoying ones nonetheless. It’s been quite some time since I’ve had significant bug-bites, and that has been a bliss. Let’s hope that it doesn’t get worse again now. I’ve been told that the cooler weather and smoke have significantly decreased the amount of skeeters in the area, so fingers crossed.
I ran into a south-bounder, I believe he was called Ody, who has been making the Hiker Yearbook for the Appalachian Trail for the past 5 years now. A collection of photo’s, people and stories about the past 5 year classes on the AT. This year he aims to design the first edition of the PCT-yearbook; pretty cool. He was promoting it to all the North-bounders he ran into during his South-bound hike.
I wasn’t really feeling the hiking today. The pain in my shin annoyed me. It didn’t grow worse, but definitely inhibited me from positioning my footsteps in the usual fluid way. To relieve my shin, I put more weight and pressure on different parts of the soles of my feet, making them hurt in other spots too. Tomorrow I will get off at Elk Lake Resort, after 11 miles, to get a hot meal (I can use a little pick-me-up), and to buy another dinner such that I can make it into Bend at the far exit of the trail. That is a total of 60 miles away.
The plan is to hike two days of high twenties such that I can make it into Bend somewhere around noon on Wednesday the fifth.
Does it help you stay up late?
Does it help you concentrate?
Is it true you win when you chew your chin?
Am I ruining your fun?
And you talk the talk alright
Do you walk the walk or catch the train?
You wanted it, you got it
But you don’t want it now
Now it’s getting dark and the sky looks sticky
More like black treacle than tar
Black treacle
Somebody told the stars you’re not coming out tonight
And so they found a place to hide
Black Treacle – Arctic Monkeys
