#pctnobo

Pacific Crest Trail Day 45: There are a few ways into Mammoth Lakes from the PCT - Mammoth Pass, Red’s Meadow, Devils Postpile, or Agnew Meadows. The last three options typically offer a bus up to Mammoth, but this bus won’t start running (this year) for another two days which means that I will either have to walk the road or get a hitch (which will only be possible with a Red’s Meadow employee because the road is closed for the next two days as well). I consider hiking 2.5 mi / 4 km over Mammoth Pass, but this will require a 1 mi / 1.6 km road walk on the other side and will then mean that I have to come back in to the PCT this same way (I would rather do more miles now to help out Future Mac). . I end up hiking to Red’s Meadow and have a rather frustrating morning filled with icy downhills and a freezing lake crossing. It’s not that the trail this morning was more difficult than the trail south of here, but rather that my expectation for the 19.73 mi / 31.75 km to Red’s Meadow was that it would be an easy and snow-free hike (where I got this idea, I have no idea). When expectations don’t match reality is when things get frustrating for me (best to just not have expectations of what’s to come). . From Red’s I begin the long hike up the road (there’s a trail option too but there’s a chance of a ride if I walk the road) out to Mammoth. After half an hour of walking, I catch a ride from a Red’s employee heading home for the day. We are stopped halfway up the road by forest service crews who are cutting down trees in preparation for the road’s opening to the public in two days. Stopped in the middle of the road, we watch as the crew fells a huge tree right in front of us. We spend the next forty minutes watching them chainsaw it in half and push it off the road (and down a large hill) with a bulldozer. . Once I make it to Mammoth I check into a hotel where I get myself two nights - tomorrow is going to be a zero day (my justification is that the last section was hugely challenging and that if I zero tomorrow, the bus will be running the next day to take me back). . Day: PCT 887.5 to Mammoth Lakes via Red’s Meadow Day's distance: 19.73 mi / 31.75 km #Sierra #PCT

Pacific Crest Trail Day 44: Two more passes, Selden and Silver, stand between me and Red's Meadow (access point for Mammoth Lakes), and today I'm aiming to make it over both (from what I remember, they aren't as challenging as what I've just done the past two days). . Selden Pass has the least snow on the approach of any pass thus far and at the top I run into Dash (@jondashkyle) who I haven’t seen since before Forester Pass. I feel like Selden Pass is also the point in the trail where the PCT jade starts to make an appearance. It's a beautiful view in both directions, but compared to the views of the passes south of here, it's certainly the least exciting. . North of Selden, I cross Bear Creek and find Dash with Psyched (whom I haven’t seen since Kennedy Meadows) at another (smaller) river crossings. We continue past the turn-off for Vermillion Valley Resort (where I stopped in 2013) and continue toward Silver Pass. On the way up we hit a waterfall that floods and crosses the trail and I'm the only one of us who decides that crossing this is a good idea this late in the day. . Leaving my friends behind, I continue up to Silver Pass just in time for sunset and some of the longest glissades of the entire trail. It's under 20 mi / 32 km to Red's Meadow tomorrow. Hopefully, there's not much snow between here and there. . Day: PCT 854.5 to PCT 887.5 via Seldon Pass and Silver Pass Day's distance: 33.52 mi / 53.95 km Day's elevation gain: 7,864 ft / 2,397 m #Sierra #PCT

Trail magic along the PCT from Dennis (Forklift). Dennis has ice cold Gateraid everyday for hikers during the NOBO migration at the Bouquet Canyon Road crossing. #pct #pcttrailangels #pcttrailmagic #pctnobo #pctnobo2019 (at Bouquet Canyon, California) https://www.instagram.com/p/BygGRyanXRE/?igshid=15boz4ba53x18

Just dropped off the Mountains and Mayhem Crew (Techno Gazelle and Downsize) at the Bouquet Canyon North Bound trailhead of the PCT. They spent a one of their zero days with us here in Santa Clarita. It was fun having them. #pct #pctnobo #pctnobo2019 (at Bouquet Canyon, California) https://www.instagram.com/p/ByfXkrGnM7G/?igshid=h4p66lrk4pkr

Pacific Crest Trail Day 13: One of the reasons I used to justify taking months out of my life to hike the Pacific Crest Trail for a second time is that I believed the experience would be completely different than the first time around. My first PCT thru-hike in 2013 was my first time ever overnight backpacking and despite all my hours of research and planning, I had no idea what I was doing when I hit the trail. After 330 miles (how far I’ve come this time), I could in no capacity tell you that I knew what I was doing, but I knew that there were some things I was doing incorrectly (carrying three cameras, carrying a set of sleeping clothes, not carrying wet wipes - you know why). . So is PCT Round 2 any different than PCT Round 1? It could not be more different (unless maybe there were paintball gun-wielding velociraptors out here, that would be different). . I’ve changed a lot since my first time out here, but the trail has changed as well. I don’t think I met more than a few dozen thru-hikers in the entirety of the desert portion (the first 700 mi / 1,100 km) of the Pacific Crest Trail my first time around. This year, it’s not unusual for me to meet a few dozen (hopeful) thru-hikers in a single day. It’s been frustrating at times since I typically hike until dusk and have been finding all of the (halfway decent) campsites occupied as I begin searching for a place to fall on the ground and sleep each night. It was exactly this situation that pushed me to doing my longest day of the trail thus far - a day that took me over 2,000 mi / 3,200 km to match on my first thru-hike (I’m sorry @dylan.h.brown, I promise I’ll bust a 40-mile day for you soon). As in 2013, I’ve been hiking alone for nearly the entirety of the trail until now, but this year I’m isolating myself instead of simply being literally alone out here on the trail. Sometimes I feel like I should be wondering what the hell I’m doing out here again, but I’m too damn tired to spend my energy at the end of the day doing anything other than shoveling food into my mouth. Day: Mile 289.9 to Mile 330.5 Day's distance: 39.22 mi / 63.12 km Day's elevation gain: 3,961 ft / 1,207 m #SilverwoodLake #PCT

Pacific Crest Trail Day 7: Today was one of my worst days of hiking on record. Not measured by miles hiked, but instead by the amount of frustration endured. Although there is blue sky in a couple of these photos, they do not accurately tell the story of today. The weather today was 90% miserable. Below freezing temperatures, unrelenting wind, waves of rain and sleet. No bueno. I also managed to break my phone (I've gotten a new one - should probably get insurance), drop my camera in the mud (then had no way to clean or dry it - rain etc.), and get off trail (I eventually managed to link back up). . I always tell people that thru-hiking sucks and if they expect it to be all puppies and rainbows, they are gravely mistaken. I could see it in the eyes of a lot of the people whom I passed the first two days, "What the hell did I get myself into?" . If you're considering a long-distance hike, remember that Instagram photos and cheery progress reports tell only a piece of the story. The other part of the story, the pooping in a hole in the freezing rain and the butt chafe that follows the rest of the day, is lesser told by just as real. Day: Paradise Valley Cafe to Idyllwild  Day's distance: 31.1 mi / 50 km #Idyllwild #PCT