A Little Bit More!

The times are very emotional. After a high which lasted for almost three months, I need to try to control my emotions.

Felix and Andy tell me that they have now both decided to stop hiking, at least for the moment, as there is just too much snow out here still.

Right. I do totally understand this decision and I do not burst out into tears but am OK with this. I knew that this was coming one day, hearing all these snow stories.

I can not and don’t want to go on by my own from here. For one thing, we hardly see any other hiker out here further north, and I am just not carved out to hike up here in the mountains alone without meeting anybody, perhaps for days, facing dangerous snow areas. Nope, that’s not me.

And the other thing is of course, my PCT is forever connected with Felix and Andy, so I just can not imagine go on and hike with someone else at the moment.

Nope, that’s not me either.

It is perhaps really time to let go and just say THANK YOU!

I wake up in the morning and am hit by sadness right away. I pack my stuff into my backpack and look at my tent, my mattress, my colour coded, waterproof little bags with outdoorsy things in it and can’t stop being sad. I don’t want to leave all this behind yet.

Felix sits on a chair in the corner of the hotel room and I can see that he is in thinking mode. 

The guys are leaving today and I have to kick my ass to make up my mind about what my next step should be.

I book a room for another night, so that I can do some thinking myself before I perhaps book a bus ticket.

Felix comes over to me and says:

“I have changed my mind, I want to hike on and try the next session, despite the snowy patches. I want to at least try. It think it will take about six days.”

“Seriously? Really?! Cool! I am in! Holy shit! YEAH!, I am coming with you!”
BAM, I am all happy again!

“Yes man, let’s do this!!”

“Let’s go and figure out how bad these snow patches really are!”

I totally trust Felix and his sense for navigation an judgment-making out there, so I am feeling great about this, even though the stories we hear from Southbounders make me shudder.
It will be sad to go on without Andy, I will miss him buckets!!

But I look forward to hike on with Felix, who is such a wonderful guy. I have never met anybody who has such a big heart and who cares so much for other people, and animals, and nature, and his environment in general.

So I make my pack ready for another section. Andy’s dad comes to pick him up. Felix and I get a ride to the trailhead.

“Goodbye Andy!”

“Thank you oh so much for everything you have given me on our PCT journey together.”

Felix and I hike on through the woods. It is hot hot hot. It has bloody 40°C. Have you ever hiked uphill with a fully equipped backpack and 7 days worth of hiker food plus a few litres of water? I tell you, it is hard work!
The path seems to go up all day and I am sweating buckets.

We mention Andy a lot and think what he would be doing and saying right now.

He would probably swear a lot.

I am nervous about the steep snowy bits which lay ahead, but Felix who had studied the map and the Facebook comments thoroughly assures me, that the first two days will be completely snow free.

Alright!

It’s a long hot day. We get some water at a spring and search for a place to camp.

“There!” Felix sees a great flat spot with a mountain view. The spot gets 10 points out of 10! It is beautiful. Too bad we arrive so late, it gets dark while we eat dinner.

Off to sleep! It’s time to look at the stars before I pass out.

It’s a nice colorful morning and the wiev out of my tent is great.

Oh it is terribly hot again in the morning. This heatwave is not over yet!

We hike on and soon spot a lake, about 8 mins off the trail. Real truhikers don’t usually like to go off trail, not even for a swim, as it would mean extra mileage and a waste of precious time. But we are not exactly truhikers anymore, so off path we go, down to the lake!

How awesome!

We both jump in right with our clothes on again and float around for a long time. The lake is surprisingly warm and the even bigger surprise is that there are no bugs here…

Perfection!

So we cool off, filter some water out of the lake and hike up to the path again. My clothes dry within a few minutes.

We reach our very own 900 mile point and to mark the occasion, I build a sign with pinecones. 900 bloody miles (1’440 km) of PCT which have been awesome! I got so much, my heart is so full with images and memories and gratefulness.

But there are these snow patches ahead (and Southbounders keep telling us they are “hairy”.)

So I worry, even though Felix says “it will be fine”.

We encounter more lakes today and jump in a little more.

The first scary snow bit approaches! We hike up this ridge (with a beautiful view by the way) and my blood pressure rises, as I do remember my last encounter with the snow was not exactly pleasant ….

We are on the ridge and I can see the snow.

“Oh no!”

We make a few steps on the snow to see further down, and, it looks absolutely fine! Just one little steep bit, the rest of the patch is going to be a piece of cake!

Phiuuuuuu, all the worries for nothing. The snow must have melted on this patch now rather rapidly.

We make our way down to Deadfall Lake, I fall in love with it right away!

“Felix, do you also think we should call it a day and stay here for tonight? I know … it is only 3 pm … And we need to pack these miles in, otherwise we run out of food… but I would really love to swim in that water and then put my Big Agnes right next to the lake”.

“Pleeeease Felix…!?”

Felix contemplates over the miles we do not get to do if we stay here, but after a while he gives in to my begging, as he also likes to play in the water!
So we go swimming and do some awesome floating on the Therma Rest mattress, and I look for the perfect spot to pitch my Agnes.

How very wonderful.

After my unavoidable 2pm night poo I can see the stars reflecting in the lake.

Awesome!

That night by the lake means so much to me. Indeed this whole stretch with Felix means so much to me.

It probably is going to be my last week on the PCT for me (for now), so I have now a full week time to say goodbye to it all. This is much better than a sudden ending in Mt Shasta.

The trail gets busier again all of a sudden. We see lots of Northbounders and Southbounders, and also section hikers.

We discuss whether we should hike all the way to Etna, or whether we should exit a day earlier to skip one of those “hairy” bits.

It is so beautiful out here though and it would suck not to properly finish a section, so we go for it.

Uphill.

Bloody all day long.

I am exhausted and I believe Felix is too.

Oh PCT, sometimes you are really asking for a lot. The terrain is hard, there are so many blowdowns on the path over which we have to climb. And the next scary snow patch is awaiting right at the border of the Russian Wilderness.

Felix takes the lead, we climb around it, over big sharp borders, right up to the ridge and then down the ridge, back to the path.

Again: Thank you Felix!!

We are already knackered, but we have more miles to do. And there is more up, more blowdowns.

Oh PCT.

We plan to camp at a lake, but we are both just too knackered to go on. So we set up camp in the woods.

 

We will reach Etna tomorrow, so I wonder whether this is going to be my last night on the PCT (for now?)

I just don’t know at the moment…

Oh this bloody snow!!

More walking through a burned down forest this morning… We saw lots of those…

We arrive at the last snow patch on this section.

“Oh dear, be brave Heidi”.

“You can do this, just go slowly, step by step, no rush”.

I focus, strap on my spikes, and follow Felix’s footsteps.

Patch after patch. Slowly and focused.

[Image taken by Felix.]

“Done!”

We reach the sunny side, all went fine!
Phiuu! I am excited! Definitely type II fun.

Only a tiny few more miles to the trailhead now.

I doodle a bit. Am in no rush. Perhaps these are going to be the last miles for me …

We reach the trailhead. The road to Etna is super quiet, it will be a very hard hitch. I mentally prepare to wait hours for a ride.

We walk toward the road and hear a car, so immediately stick our thumbs out.

“It’s a pickup and he seems to slow down!!“

“Yes! We get a ride!”

Holy shit, how lucky we are! Again!

“Would you mind sitting in the back? The seats are occupied by the dogs.”

“Sure! No problem!”

We throw our packs in and climb up into the back of the pickup.

“So very cool! We get an outdoor ride to Etna”.

[Image taken by Felix.]

We both get a little motion sick though as we ride backwards, so I guess the Pizza which we longed for for day has to wait a bit.

“This ride is so cool!”

So I guess we are in Etna now and the painful “keep hiking or not” decision making process starts all over again.