PCT Day 101, Mile 1542 to 1572

Day 101

Mile 1542 to 1572, 30 miles

Cost: camped, free
I didn’t sleep well last night. All through the night I heard the sound of a chipmunk/squirrel/mouse/rat climbing all over my pack which was under the front vestibule of my tent. I was worried I was going to wake up with a hole in my tent, and a critter inside my tent trying to get into my food bag which I’m using as a pillow. Every time I heard it, I would clap my hands then hear whatever it was scurry away.

I packed up my tent with my eyes closed, or so it seemed.

The trail was quite steady for the first 16 miles then was a more typical PCT up and down trail.

At one of the water sources we passed these martian/alien plants:

Evil martian

We then came across a young deer in front of us on the trail:

The next animal we came across was a chipmunk in the middle of the narrow trail. It was moving like a dog or cat would do if they were sleeping and dreaming. We didn’t know what to do but were worried that another hiker might stand on it if they were walking fast and didn’t see it. We thought about trying to lift it off the trail but didn’t know what to use to do so. KC stroked it gently with a stick to see if it would wake up and move but it didn’t. In the end I got some big rocks and put them around it so no-one would accidentally stand on it. (We spoke to 3 hikers later in the day who all said they didn’t see it, so either it was sleeping and got up and scurried away or it was lunch for a bigger animal, I want to believe it got up).

I met two new hikers, Space Kitty and Gulay and flip-flopped with them and Mountain Prana, Haiku and Tapatio all day. We came across some wild raspberries and ate a handful, the first few I ate tasted like eating a lemon but Mountain Prana picked me some nice ripe ones 🙂

Here’s a few more pics from today:

Anyone know what kind of flower this is?

I didn’t have phone service all day and was quite desperate to make an order with REI. My shoes are holey again and I need to order some new ones to hopefully arrive in time for when I get to Ashland.