Day 105 (2 August) - Mile 1224.64 - 1244.58

 Unpaved Road to Unpaved road 23N65YB

Last night the temperature was perfect allowing me to have a great night of sleep. I awoke just after 6:00 AM and stayed in my sleeping bag until I heard others making noise around 6:15 AM.  I packed my stuff and ate breakfast and then waited and hoped to hear a vehicle driving up the dirt road. At this point it wasn't 100% that Tim would make it here this morning because we weren't sure of the condition of the roads for him to get here. Sure enough, at 7:10 AM he pulled up. Woohoo...so cool!

We emptied out our bag of all things we didn't need for the day and put them in the 4Runner. Tim will meet us for lunch at the 10 mile point and then meet us at the 14 mile point where we will take back all our gear. A 14-mile slack pack sounds good to me!  Plus, seeing Tim throughout the day is a real bonus as well.

At 7:52 AM we were ready to hike.

Ready to hike

Today's hike should be pretty pleasant, especially since we just have daypack for the first 14 miles. There are no long ups or downs...pretty much a roller coaster all day, except for the last 2 miles that go down pretty steep.

The first hour of the hike gave us some wonderful views:

Morning view #1

Morning view #2

At 9:00 AM we were at a road crossing and came across this PCT sign.

PCT sign of the day.

Right after this crossing the trail went up a bit to the top of a ridge.

Brad & Share Bear following up the climb.

Self-portrait "At the top"

Share Bear noticed a wired shape at the top of a mountain across from us, so I zoomed in and took this picture.  What the heck is that?!?

Weird structure

At the 5 mile point we took our "shoes off break" and headed back on the trail at 10:30 AM. We told Tim to meet us at the 10 mile point for lunch at 12:00 PM, so we were right on time. At about the 8 mile point we saw Tim hiking towards us and followed him back to the 4Runner where we took our lunch break.

Our lunch break was all but relaxing since there were hornets everywhere. We quickly ate and got out of there around 1:30 PM. We hiked another 4 miles and met Tim at another road crossing so we could repack all our stuff into our bags.

We are doing pretty good today. It is before 4:30 PM and we only have  5.68 miles to go till our planned stop for the night at the 20 mile mark. We said goodbye and thank you to Tim. We will see him in 2 days when he meets us in the morning allowing us to slack pack the 20 miles into Belden. Tomorrow we will be on our own.

Bye-bye Tim. See you in 2 days

The last 6 miles of the day were hiked in a pine forest. Actually, most of today's hike was through a pine forest just like this:

Hiking through a beautiful pine forest

Before 7:00 PM we made it to our camp for the night. Actually, we weren't sure if there would be tentsites, but usually when there is a road crossing there is a tentsite. In this case, the tent sites were in the side of the dirt road which is fine since it doesn't look like any vehicles have been on this road in a while. Even the trailhead sign here looks worn:

Trailhead sign on side of dirt road

We set up our tents and then the mosquitoes rolled in. I was in no mood to deal with them during dinner, especially since lunch was a disaster, so I ate inside my tent. Luckily I cooked for lunch, so it was quick and easy to eat my peanut butter & jelly tortillas.

Wow...another early night. It is just 9:00 PM and I am done with the blog. Looks like I will have another great night sleep. We are down to 4,636 feet, so the temperature should be perfect.

My home for the night on the side of an abandoned dirt road.