PCT Day 21
Mile: 226.2 to 239.9 (13.7 miles)
Start: beachside campsite on Mission Creek
End: Snowy tentsite in the pines at 8000 feet at Mission Camp
We woke up in the early morning to see the beautiful sunrise rising above the mountains. I knew that it was probably time to get hiking right away after a couple groups of hikers passed us but our campsite was so beautiful, shaded and comfortable that we lounged around all morning til about 10:30. We headed out into this next section of trail, dubbed by the thru hiking community as “H-E-double-hockey-sticks” aka Hell. Welcome to Hell, everybody. Who knows what we’d see on our little tour of the place!
The hike today wasn’t all that bad and we gained about 5000 or 6000 feet throughout the day which was a lot. You couldn’t really feel the elevation gain because of the grade of the trail which has to be easy enough for horses and pack animals to traverse. We also didn’t feel the elevation gain because while we were hiking in the creek bed, we were too busy dodging willows whipping in your face, rock hopping trying to avoid breaking our ankles, bushwhacking through overgrown swamp and trying to keep on trail in a creek bed that changed every year with the spring floods. It was hard to try not to get lost on the spur trails and the game paths that crisscrossed the valley floor. Most of the trail was somewhat okay to follow as there were rock cairns, or stacks of rocks, that hikers had set up to show where the trail led.
However it was a lot of bushwhacking and pretty slow going for the most part. Thankfully we had done a couple of hikes in the past in Utah and Arizona where we traversed through canyons for days at a time, splashing through creeks, dodging quicksand and clambering up and down steep riverbanks. Today’s hike on the PCT wasn’t as bad as the canyon hikes that we had done in the past so felt like we had some good training and good navigation skills to help us. We kept each other within sight the whole time so we didn’t get lost which was smart. As we ascended and descended into the briars and willow bushes, into the creek mud and then out again we were constantly trying to find our way through the soft sand and the rocks.
At one point on the trail, we ran into this tree where there were large scratch marks all up and down it from ground level to about 30 or 40 feet in the air. We weren’t sure what type of animal made the deep gouges on the tree and were hoping it was just a black bear. Shortly after that section of scarred tree trunks, we heard something big in the creek rustling in the brush near us and I know I got a little bit scared. We just talked really loudly to scare whatever it was off and let it know we were there. We stuck close together, deliberately moving out of that section pretty quick but not running so as not to trigger the predatory instincts of whatever large creature was in the bushes.
What we now think made those scratch marks on the tree was a mountain lion. We met another hiker, an older guy, who was hiking through Mission Creek by himself and saw a mountain lion about noon, drinking water from the creek 100 feet from him, just about in that same area as we were in. Yikes… We stuck close together and were so glad that we weren’t hiking through the creek at night, like our buddy Taco Bell Scott had been doing. I couldn’t even imagine trying to find our way during the night, through that area of PCT “Hell.” It was difficult enough with the light out to find our way and not get super lost!
Besides the possible mountain lion presence, some good parts of the trail today was that it was very nice to have water all day, and to not have these long water carries of 20 plus miles to contend with. We were grateful to have water to filter every couple of miles. We met these two girls Christina and Sarah from Quebec who were hiking together and we talked to them a little bit while we sat under some shady willow trees for lunch in the sand.
As the day drew on, the trail became steeper and steeper, and we finally came out of the canyon after a long hot bushwhack episode. It was a relief to leave the twisty turny canyon creek and be back up to a proper trail on the side of a mountain. Despite the trees being all burnt, it was still pretty in a way and nice to not have to be constantly hit in the face with brush, reeds and willow saplings. The huge hulking pines were charred inside and out from forest fire and some of the massive trunks had fallen across the trail so there were a lot of obstacle courses towards the end of the day. We thought we were done with jumping over and crawling under things after leaving Mission Creek but oh no, “Hell” was not over yet.
As the trail steepened, it was just a little bit exhausting, especially for the end of the day after having essentially bushwhacked for the past, you know, 8 to 10 hours on trail. The sun was really pretty shining through the charred remains of the trees, as it started to set I felt like the day couldn’t end soon enough. But it was just one more uphill, one more twist to the trail and one more giant trunk to jump over or belly crawl underneath.
Finally, we got onto a dirt road, which we thought signaled that we were pretty close to the Mission Camp tentsite where there was supposedly a nice water spring, which was the only water source for the next 15 or 20 miles. So we thought it would be best to stay the night there so we didn’t have to ration our water for dinner and breakfast.
The higher we got up into the mountains, the chillier the temperature became and we saw some ominous clouds in the distance that looked like storm clouds or snow clouds. We didn’t really think too much of the clouds because we hadn’t been rained on or snowed on the past couple of weeks that we’d been out on the trail.
Well, wouldn’t you know it, as we’re setting up dinner and talking to some of the other hikers, one of whom was wearing his sleeping bag as a jacket since it was that cold, it started to snow on us!!! At first we thought it was a fluke, a passing dusting that would just disappear as easily as it came. The little tiny snowflakes shocked us after having left 100 degree temperatures in the desert valley the day before but soon the snow started coming down heavier and heavier. We went to go get water from the spring where there were icicles hanging down from the water source. After scooping water from the spring, Shannon’s hands were frozen and we had to put them under my armpits to thaw them out.
We chowed down on dinner as quickly as we could, the fat flakes gathering in a thick blanket on top of us. My body started shivering nonstop uncontrollably and it was starting to get to the point where I couldn’t feel my fingers or toes very well. Shannon was also shivering and we threw all of our stuff into our tent dashing inside the thin-walled shelter as the snow started coming down thicker and thicker collecting on top of the tent. It was as if we walked through Hell to get here and now Hell had frozen over.
To keep the mood light, I told Shannon with a straight face that, “…we have to keep farting to warm up the tent and get all that warm air circulating so it wouldn’t be so cold.” Shannon thought that was stupid and I laughed. Despite Shannon disagreeing with “The warm air theory of hiker offgas” mentality, it was inevitable that Mr. Lactose Intolerant ate dairy at dinner and one of the byproducts of eating high fiber lentil pasta was offgas. You get the picture…. it warmed up really quickly in our tent that night.
As we went to sleep, the snow started coming down heavier and ice pellets knocked about on our tent walls. We snuggled up and went to sleep, not knowing how much snow was going to come down on our tent during the night. Hell had frozen over!
