July 6th, 2021
Mile Marker: 1135
Miles Hiked Today: 27
The sunrise this morning was one of the best ones yet. The sun started making the skies pink and orange as it crept up over the back of distant mountains. I had my rain fly on and kept poking my head out to watch as it continuously changed.
Once I was all packed up I sat up on a rock eating breakfast and embracing the sunrise. I was feeling energized for the day.
We headed out with a goal of hiking 10 miles to yet another lake. The temperature isn’t unbearably hot, but hot nonetheless.
The miles flew by as there isn’t any extreme climbs. We made it to the lake by ten and hopped in, swam about, and tried to float on our backs. I feel like my inner fish is coming out as all I can think about is swimming in these lakes.
After drying off we continued through the green pine trees and out onto a ridge line that showed Lake Tahoe in the background.
It’s a different kind of beauty than the Sierras, but still incredible as it lets us see far into the distance.
We decided to do dinner on the top of a mountain and then hike 2 miles to camp.
The top was extremely windy so we went behind a rock wall and found ourselves staring right at a wildfire in the distance.
We checked the PCT page to see what they said about it. To me, it felt like we were heading right for it but I knew that if we were in any danger, we would be notified.
After we finished our dinner we hiked in for a couple miles to a camp site that was loaded with people. I was stunned. We must have seen about 12 tents. We decided to backtrack a bit and then set up our tents.
Around 9:15 we heard a thru hiker coming through and he told us that a mile back he had a bear bluff charge him and that he heard two PCT hikers had lost their food to a bear recently.
All of us got a little worried so we decided that we should hang our food. The issue though, was that we only had Planner’s thin cord to hang all of our bags. Whoops…
Bottleneck, Tide, Planner, and I all decided to go ahead and try. I kind of wished some one was recording from a distance, it must have been a scene.
We found a tree, I threw the thin rope over the outstretched branch and we hooked each bag to it. We then had to hoist up the bags and have Tide (The Tallest) try to tie a knot with a stick. Once we let go, the bags were lower than we wanted so we pulled the excess cord over to another tree to make the bags sat higher up. We felt like newbs for sure. It had been 4 years since I had had to do that!
It’s a little nerve wracking going to bed knowing I spilt some of my Chex Mix next to my tent. But, what can I do. 🤷🏽♀️
Iz and Oz
Izzy + Ozzy 