Day 166 (2 October) - Mile 2404.84 - 2425.21

Campsite at mile 2404.84 to Campsite at mile 2425.21

Wow...it was a cold night!  We woke to everything covered with a heavy frost. Our tents were glittering under the light of our headlights.  Very pretty, but something we could have easily done without. It was very hard to get out of the sleeping bags at 5:30 AM given how cold it was, but now is the time to suck it up and just do it. We have less than 250 miles to go and we are all anxious to finish. That thought alone got us all up and going. 

However, the cold did slow us down and despite waking at 5:30 AM, we weren't ready to hike until just before 7:30 AM. 

Ready to hike

Today's hike is a roller coaster. We head down for 5 miles, the back up for 5.5 miles, then back down 5 miles. The good news is that our planned campsite is at the bottom of the last down hill at 3,125 feet so it should be much warmer tonight. 

Check out a frozen lake we passed just out of our camp this morning...I told you it was cold.

Frozen lake

Just before we headed down for the first time today, we had an awesome view:

Amazing

There was his really cool bridge with a nice waterfall behind it on the way down the hill:

Pretty cool

Washed-out bridges are good for something, like hanging our bladder off it to filter some water.

Brad uses the washed-out bridge to filter water

I came across this spiffy PCT sign today:

PCT sign of the day

Now that we went down, it is time to climb back up. The only good thing about the climb is we had this great view for most of it:

Great climbing view

We made it about halfway up the climb when we stopped for lunch. Share Bear arrived first followed by me, and then we heard Brad approaching but talking to someone. It was Jazzman, so he joined us for lunch as well. Also during lunch we got our still frozen tents out and dried them.

After that climb finally finished we had this incredible view on the way down the other side.

Great view while headed down

Our downhill view

Just before 6:30 PM I made it to camp. It was chilly, but definitely more comfortable than last night. Hopefully we can all appreciate it and get a good night sleep because tomorrow night we will be back up over 5,000 feet...burrrr. 

Well, I am totally exhausted since it was hard to sleep in the cold last night.  Until tomorrow...

Close quarters for the night