I tossed and turned all night trying to get comfortable with my makeshift pillow of my puffy wrapped in my fleece. It worked okay but it wasn’t great. There was also some sort of animal making a crazy noise all night long. I wish I could figure out what is making this noise because I heard it the last time we were hiking here in Oregon. Some people said it was bears and one person said Bigfoot but it seems more like a bird based on the way the sound moves. I’ve scoured the internet and still cannot find an answer.
Woke up to take a picture of the beautiful sunrise around 5:30 and then went back to sleep for about an hour. Around 6:30 or 7 I needed to pee so I got up, put my shoes half on and promptly scraped my foot on the sharp lava rocks.
We finally got to hiking around 8, climbing immediately and with little water I was struggling a bit. Luckily the climb was a short one and we were soon in a cool forest heading down to Big Lake Youth Camp. There was a spring before the camp so we stopped here for some water. It was cold and delicious. We cruised into BLYC in pretty good spirits.
Everyone we encountered at this camp was kind, willing to go above and beyond for PCT hikers. We grabbed some water and hung out for about an hour, maybe a little more. They served lunch at 1 but we have so much food we didn’t want to stay for it. I planned for us to stop at a pond a little up the way for our lunch. On our way there I noticed that I was having some more severe chafe issues than I thought and was hoping maybe going for a swim would help calm that down.
Once we got to the pond we realized the mosquitoes were out to feast and there was no brush/rock free spot to set up the tent for cover. We also tried to decide how much water to grab from the pond because we had a big climb and no water for several miles. The temperature was 90 if not hotter. Alaska did not prepare us for these temperatures! Finally we found a flat, shaded spot almost on the trail to have a rest. We ate some food and I dozed for a bit.
Once we were back to hiking I was having more issues with the chafe and the remedies I had tried. Mosquitoes were attacking every time we slowed down so I could readjust things and then Jake got a nosebleed. Luckily he was able to get that under control pretty quickly. I was suffering though and finally started thinking about needing to go back to town to reset. After agonizing about it and maybe having a little frustration cry I booked a room in Sisters for the night. We headed over to the highway to start hitching and after not too long we got a hitch. (Thanks Matt!)
We will spend the night and regroup tomorrow, visiting the local gear shop and then hopefully heading back out to trail with a fresh perspective.
PCT Hike 