PCT #64, 1534mi: More mountains and an unexpected turn of the day after lunch

My view this morning. Not blocked by a tent or anything. Just woke up with the sunrise and turned my head to watch it.

Also the night was beautiful – since we are at new moon it was more or less dark out side. The Milky Way was hanging right over us the entire night and was very intense! The beauty of sleeping without a tent…

We went through more of my favourite terrain.

And had the first ten miles in before 9.30h. We were rolling quite good. My new insoles are holding up so far. Only my toes getting pinched more sine I had to cut the front part of the new ones of and now every rock goes right in them – but at least the arch support is holding up.

The feared snow patches had almost all melted. There was only one left which was nothing compared to what we had done already.

We on the other hand had great alpine views instead. Mt. Shasta is still with us and giving us views. Since the snow melt here has only been recent spring just started and the little alpine flowers are everywhere. Even lilies are up here. I’ll have too capture them tomorrow.

And then we hit our lunch spot – Deadfall Lake. We wanted to keep it short and put another 10 miles in afterwards. But it was a magical spot. I fell asleep for a nap, we played euchre and even without talking we had already decided to just call it a day and camp. Finally I had done something I wanted to do more often – hike fast but also take the opportunity to enjoy half a day somewhere where it’s nice. Voila!

Some camp site moods. Dinner – which now has to be cooked away from the tents to keep the smell out of the sleeping areas – was relaxed today. Everything was set up already and so we could take it easy. Only annoying thing is the food hanging. Everything that has a smell has to be hanged in the tree to keep it away from the bears. So even sunscreen, toothpaste, cremes, wet wipes and so on. Too bad if you forget something in your pack. Then you’ll have to go back get it, walk back down to the food area, hang it and come back. So far – very flat learning curve… 🙈

And then the next highlight of today. My camp spot 😊.