Day 77: 50 miles

The mosquitos were worse in the morning than when we went to bed, but I had no concept yet how bad mosquitos could really be. This section of the PCT is one of the “flattest” sections and the miles came fast. Around 10 am, I felt amazing and started to think this could be the day I go for 50 miles, a small goal i wanted to accomplish on the hike. I stopped to eat Oreos at Thielson Peak and see if this was realistic. It seemed like it could be and Sandman said he was down. 

Off we went! There was some fun snow banks to climb through coming down Thielson, although fortunately they lasted only a few miles. 

The afternoon brought us the highest point of the PCT for both Oregon and Washington, a cool lil highlight. 

Kissing high elevation goodbye

The evening brought biblical levels of mosquitos. The best decision I made all trip was buying bug spray at Crater Lake. I ran parts of the trail in the hopes to move faster than them, and it worked somewhat. I’d had no concept how many mosquitos there could be at once until today. If I stopped for a second, I had at least 20-30 land on me and it was almost comical to see the cloud of skeeters hovering around us while we hiked. The bloodsuckers certainly provided inspiration to hike fast and we rolled into camp around 10:30. 

Smiling through 50 miles

Within the last mile to camp, we had to cross a 20 foot wide river in the dark. There was a log spanning the banks but I was so tired I couldn’t maintain my balance. My solution was to crawl across the log, which was hilarious. A funny end to the day. 

Miles: 49.8

Total Miles: 2,104

Filling up water as fast as possible