PCT Day 61
June 30, 2021
Mile: 706.9 to 730.8 (23.9 miles)
Start: South Fork Kern River campsite snuggled in some rocks and pines
Finish: Death Canyon campsite (aka Death by Mosquitoes Campsite)
Early this morning, 4 very noisy section hikers (aka people who hike part of the Pacific Crest Trail) decided for us that they were going to be our alarm clock. We jumped up out of our sleeping bags upon hearing the guys essentially yelling while it was still dark out. I was super confused and thought for a second that the local bear population had learned to speak English. Turns out it was just some overly excited guys out for a boys trip who were awake and wanted everyone else in the area to wake up as well. Sigh.
Shannon and I packed our stuff up and took off through beautiful meadows and thick forests that we hadn’t seen the previous 700 miles of trail in the deserts of southern California. It was hard to be grumpy as we strolled through huge towering pine trees, traipsed by lush green meadows of wildflowers and passed clear abundant rivers and creeks. At the first meadow, I thought there was a black colored coyote out in the wildflowers but it turned out to be two baby black bears playing! As we watched the baby bears frolic around, we started to get pretty nervous because mama bear was nowhere to be seen. Mama black bears are notoriously protective of their babies and you never want to get between them and their offspring. On the Appalachian Trail I’d actually been bluff charged by a mother black bear who was aggressively protecting her 3 cubs that I’d accidentally wandered too close to. Getting charged by a several hundred pound black bear was not an experience I wanted to have again so we decided to sing some songs asking the mama bear to please not eat us. We were hoping that she would hear us singing and run off instead of us accidentally silently sneaking up on her coming around a corner or something. Thankfully we ended up not seeing the mama bear at all and hiked out of that section of trail as quickly as our legs would take us!
Shortly up the trail we ran into the 4 loud section hikers who had woken us up and easily passed them as they struggled up the hillside. Just past the section hikers, we saw our buddy Draggin’ (whose trail name was short for Draggin’ A$$ – haha!) who was turned around and hiking south which was not the direction he was supposed to be heading to get to Canada. We joked with him that he was hiking the wrong direction and he smiled sadly, admitting that his knees were hurting him so much that he was going to hike the handful of miles back to Kennedy Meadows. Draggin’ didn’t think he could make it any further north on the PCT as the mountains were starting to get taller and more rugged as we entered into the Sierra Nevadas. Since the next town was 80+ miles away up over lots of big mountains, it was a smart thing to do. He said he was also unfortunately ending his hike when he got back to Kennedy Meadows. We wished him the best of luck and told him to watch out for the two baby black bears in the fields on the way back which got Draggin’ to turn his frown upside down.
As we hiked up into the foothills of the dramatic Sierras, we had to scramble over the obstacle course of fallen trees that were downed on the trail from previous storms. When we jumped over a particularly large log, we brushed up against a thick creosote bush as we landed. The thick foliage started loudly rattling at us and we leaped away as fast as possible from the angry rattlesnake concealed somewhere in the bush. Of course, curious Shannon had to triplecheck that there was actually a rattlesnake in the brush as when we moved away from the bush, it went silent.
Shannon decided to get really close to the bush where the rattlesnake was hiding to inspect if the snake was still there but then I freaked out, shrilly asking him, “Um, do you want to die?”
He paused for a second, contemplating the risk of getting bit by a venomous snake so far out in the backcountry. If you don’t get antivenim after being bit by a rattlesnake within a couple of hours, there’s a serious chance you’ll die or at least lose a couple limbs. There was no way we’d be able to evacuate from the remote backcountry and rush to a hospital that even had rattlesnake antivenin in a few hours. Defeated, Shannon admitted, “No, I guess I don’t want to die.”
“Good,” I accepted. “Otherwise I’ll just have to hike the rest of the PCT by myself if you die from sticking your head in a rattlesnake nest. At your funeral everyone will comment about all the reasons that women live longer than men. And then I’ll just have to meet a new fiancé on the PCT and hike the rest of the trail with them.”
Shannon didn’t like that reply but settled with throwing sticks and rocks at the rattlesnake bush from a safe distance. After he pissed it off again and the serpent started rattling again, Shannon was finally content to leave rattlesnakeland and head up the rest of the mountain pass. After scrambling over more fallen trees and rocks, the trail poured out onto a stunning grassy meadow. The fields stretched as far as the eye could see and were flanked on all sides by dark silver mountains. Clusters of ebony colored cattle crowded in the lush grass below near a creek and for a brief moment, we thought that we were witnessing a field of black bears grazing together instead of a field of cows.
A lone cowboy on his horse circled the perimeter of the cattle with his dogs and a spare pony trailing behind him, checking out the herds to make sure they were okay. We were going to fly the drone but once we saw the cowboy and cattle we decided it probably wasn’t the best idea to scare the animals. The PCT skirted the fields, dipping into the woods where we made quick work of the fast trail powered by granola bars and audiobooks. I was deep into an audiobook about the Mongol Queens who ruled the Mongol empire hundreds of years ago when we came up on an older guy staring straight at me with a big sleepy dog at his feet. At closer inspection, the guy wasn’t so much staring at us but almost staring straight through us which freaked me out a little bit because all of a sudden we turned around a corner and there he was, unblinking and silently watching. We waved a friendly hello and quickly kept hiking. The man stared wordlessly, his sharp gaze following us into the woods where we shook off the heebie jeebies after we were able to put some distance between us. Maybe he was harmless but my gut instinct was telling me to get the heck out of there and more often than not, you should listen to your instinct.
Finally, we descended to a wide open river that split the wildflower fields with soft sandy banks and vibrant green strands of water plants. The slow moving stream was crossed by a bridge where dozens of swallows had made mud nests under the planking. Hoards of the agile birds were darting and skimming the water below to catch bugs to feed their babies in the nests crowded under the bridge. The swallows make mud nests that look like beehives hanging straight down from the bridge with a small opening to feed their babies. The industrious birds were super cool to see and it was fun watching them perform aerial acrobatics with little effort.
At the streamside beach we hung out with Diamond, our new hiking friend from New Orleans, and cooked lunch under the overcast sky. After lunch we rinsed off our nasty hobbit feetsies in the cold, clear river that shocked us with how chilly the temperature was. Just downstream of us bleached cattle bones and bovine back vertebrae had washed up, their ivory coloration striking against the gray muted skies. We enjoyed the beauty of the area over lunch, flying the drone a bit and from a little bit of a distance curiously peeking into the swallow nests at the baby birds that were eagerly waiting for their insect meals.
The 4 section hikers who woke us up this morning finally caught up to us as we were eating. We courteously greeted the hikers and then packed up, leaving the somewhat combative guys to talk about hiking gear, how cool they were and other stupid stuff. As we headed out in the light drizzle, the whirring of helicopter rotors became louder and louder. Only a couple hundred feet above us a helicopter buzzed overhead, the air currents off the rotors whipping our hair and the noise of the engines deafening. The aircraft was so close to us that we could see the pilots smiling at us and they stuck their heads and arms out of the cockpit, furiously waving at us like backcountry daredevils. Our adrenaline was pumping and we laughed and danced and shouted at them. They didn’t look like Search and Rescue pilots which you never want to see out in the backcountry. Later on when we saw smoke plumes from a small wildfire we realized they were probably rangers or firefighters checking out the fire. But as the helicopter pilots buzzed over us, they descended a bit and I thought at one point that the guys were trying to high five us from the copter – that’s how close they were!
We passed rare mariposa lilies (mariposa is Spanish for butterfly) and sweetly scented sage brush as we hiked up into the foothills of the Sierras in the rain. As we trekked through the woods, we accidentally riled up a cow herd taking cover under the pines. It got a little hairy for a second as the huge cattle stampeded into the meadow, scared of us weird looking hikers with backpacks and bear canisters strapped to us. One overly aggressive (or maybe not so smart) cow lingered behind in the woods, staring us down and then started to walk towards us. We left and steered clear away from this cow because we weren’t sure what was up and if it was going to charge us or not.
Up in the woods were beautiful flowers and lush lands where we encountered a couple small herds of tawny mountain deer and celebrated one of the first rainstorms that we had seen on the entire PCT so far after 700 miles. The trail climbed higher and higher and from one of the peaks we saw a small forest fire burning in the distance. We tried to call the fire in to the forest service but had no cell service so decided to keep an eye on it in case it spread towards the trail and we had to find a way to evacuate.
Soon after being all jazzed up from seeing the forest fire burning down the hillside, we saw another big black bear putzing around in an alpine meadow just doing black bear things. As soon as the big ole bear saw us, he ran across the field and stared at us from a few hundred yards away, sitting on his butt and watching us like we were a sitcom on prime time black bear TV. We said goodbye to our bear friend and headed up the mountain to collect water from a clear spring hidden deep beneath a bunch of wild plants, having to climb down inside a small rocky hole to access the water spilling off the rocks. An intrepid hiker before us had increased the flow rate on the spring by placing a big leaf on the rocks. I’m not sure if drinking water that poured over the leaf made me and several other hikers sick but we later identified the leaf as coming from the corn lily or the false hellebore plant. Turns out all parts of false hellebore are extremely toxic and potentially fatal to humans. Native Americans actually used to poison their arrows with the false hellebore plant. We didn’t know it at the time but my symptoms that appeared a day later after drinking the water that flowed over the hellebore leaf matched up to the same symptoms of minor poisoning from false hellebore.
As we descended off the mountain, pairs of fighter jets roared overhead so close to us that the sound rattled our rib cages. It was fun to try to spot the fighter jets in the sky because when you heard the sound of their engines, the planes were already so far away since they were traveling 1-2 times the speed of sound. A local Trail Angel told us that a year or so ago one of the daredevil fighter jet pilots actually crashed into the mountainside that he was trying to buzz over. We didn’t doubt it as some of these crazy pilots zoomed over the trail so close to the mountain that you could see inside the cockpit.
We saw our first mushrooms of the trail today which meant that we were getting into wetter and damper climates, which was really exciting after being in dry desert for the past two months. We ran into Diamond again saying hi to him and hiking with him for the last little bit of trail as the sun started setting over the pines and rocky cliffs. The bugs hadn’t been too bad so far and we’d heard tales of hikers ahead of us walking for days and weeks in clouds of blood sucking mosquitoes to the point where some hikers left the trail because of how awful the insects were. We hadn’t experienced any biting insects until now when we descended into a swampy meadow, whereas we were enjoying the view of the beautiful greenery, it took us a few seconds before we realized why there were no other hikers or animals lingering out here. There is no other way to describe what happened next except to call it as it is: PCT Mosquito Hell. Hoards of bloodsucking insects attacked us as Diamond, Princess and I naively stood in the center of the swamp admiring the view. It felt like dozens of tiny needles were poking us, covering our bare skin in bloody welts, biting straight through our clothes. We freaked out and all three of us hikers took off down the trail with clouds of mosquitoes hanging on and somehow following us as we ran down the trail. Welcome to the Sierras!
At one point, we ran into another hiker who I guess we had met before (I didn’t remember) and secretly found out that people called him “Skipper” because he skipped so many miles. He was complaining about how hard the uphill climb today was which really wasn’t too bad, but I guess if you’ve been skipping miles then you still might not have your trail legs. He was camped out next to a swamp and kept complaining about the mosquitoes being really bad. We didn’t understand his thought process because he was camped literally next to a swamp, so yes, of course the mosquitoes were going to be bad. All he had to do was hike another mile or two and he’d be high up in the mountains away from the mosquitoes but he didn’t seem to understand that.
We left Skipper and headed to the ominous sounding water source at Death Canyon Creek where we ran into another hiker named Po (like the panda in Kung Fu Panda) and his son Just Shawn. They were camping out in mosquito land (the light version) because of the location of the nearby water source. We decided that we were also going to camp nearby since we were in need of water so we said goodbye to our friend Diamond who kept on hiking up the mountain since he had plenty of water still. Po told us that the skeeters were bad at the water source so Shannon and I ran down the .2 mile long side trail into the swamp as the sun was setting as quickly as we could. We collected water from a cold clear spring in the mosquito laden marsh as fast as possible as it was prime time mosquitoes. My fingers froze from dipping our water bottles into the spring to the point where I could barely move them as I submerged the Smartwater bottles. I was getting bit all over by thick hordes of mosquitoes which seemed to be only getting worse as the sun set. It took a lot of patience to fill our water up and not go crazy from the swamp mosquitoes who seemed to have alerted all of their friends and family to our presence.
Immediately after we finished collecting water for dinner and breakfast, we ran out of the swamp and camped in a cool spot where the mosquitoes eventually disappeared as the temperatures quickly dropped into the 40s. Shannon and I cooked a quick dinner, went to bed and tossed our two bear canisters into the woods. The black bears in the Sierra Nevadas are notoriously smart and have long ago figured out how to cut hiker food bags down from trees and taught their offspring how to do so as well. Bear canisters are essentially bear proof hard plastic or carbon fiber tubs that you are required to use to store all of your food and scented items like soap, toothpastes, etc. for the next 300+ miles of Pacific Crest Trail. We hoped that any bears in the area would leave our food alone tonight but weren’t too certain of this since we’d already seen 3 black bears while hiking today. As the temperatures dropped in the mountains, we were excited to finally wear tights and long sleeves to bed instead of sweating like pigs as was usual in the desert nights.
