20 miles
We set the tent up with just the mesh and no rain fly, which was a mistake. Condensation was on everything, to the point that it was dripping from the mesh. Luckily, we had some decent morning sun and got our stuff mostly dry. The hiking was fun, but challenging today. Easy enough to cruise the ups and downs, but the ups made you work for it. We mainly crossed over ridge after ridge. The views were excellent all day, with Rainier still visible at times behind us and Glacier Peak approaching ahead. A couple ladies stopped to ask the name of the mountain we were looking at, so I told them, but they said no it couldn’t be. They thought it was Mt. Washington, which is in Oregon, but I wasn’t about to argue with them. This section has a lot of elevation change, but it seems to be spread out. Lots of 500ft rollers instead of a single, 2500ft climb. Lunch was at Pear Lake, which had a blue/green tint and a nice breeze. At the next water source I met a couple that was section hiking. They were complaining about the bugs, but I wasn’t having any issues. From what I’ve seen, if you play calm, the bugs leave you alone (sorta). If you flail around, they swarm you. So I try to stay in my state of “this is fine” zen whenever possible. Right before camp, I met another German hiker that needed water (the first was a couple days ago at lunch). Both dudes were pushing big miles, this guy was at 29 miles, but apparently cutting it too close on water carries. Not a problem to share mine, we were a half mile from camp at a lake, I can get more. But he just came from the same lake, so he must have forgot to fill up. Either way, Lake Sally Ann is awesome, with an incredible thunderbox!
PCT Hike 