Day 54 (12 June) - Mile 583.28 - 602.12

Golden Oaks Spring to Robin Bird Spring

I slept pretty well last night considering my tent wasn't on the flattest spot...I really was tired. I awoke around 5:30 AM but stayed in my sleeping bag until 6:00 AM. I packed up my bag and went down to the spring to filter a couple of liters of water and eat breakfast. Today we have almost 19 miles to hike before there is any water, so I'm carrying 5 liters which is pretty much the max I am comfortable carrying.

Share Bear and Rocket Pop headed out before me and Max decided to sleep a couple more hours before hiking today, so that left Kennan and I. We started out 7:49 AM.

Kennan and I ready to hike.

Kennan is a pretty fast hiker, so I didn't expect to be able to stay with him long. My goal was to try to stay with him until I caught up to Share Bear and Rocket Pop. Let's see if I could do it.

First off, the scenery this morning was beautiful:

Great morning view.

It turned out that the terrain for the first 7 miles wasn't too bad, so I was actually able to stay pretty close to Kennan. He would lose me on the parts of the trail with rocks or downhill since I was more careful on those parts, but I would then speed up to catch him. Regardless, this was pretty much my view for the first hour or so that it took me to catch Share Bear and Rocket Pop.

My view of Kennan.

We hiked through a burn area and saw some beautiful, yet poisonous poodle dog plant. Here is Rocket Pop walking by a bush:

Rocket Pop and Poodle Dog

The burn area really is beautiful.

Rocket Pop hiking through a burn area.

Finally, after 9.5 miles of hiking, we stopped for lunch at 12:15 PM. I can't believe that this is only the halfway point of today's hike. It wasn't that long ago that 10 miles was my entire days worth of miles!

Kennan was already stopped when he came across Passport taking a lunch break. When we stopped, Share Bear mentioned that her foot was hurting a bit and Passport immediately went into his bag and grabbed some kinetic tape along with instructions on how to tape for different injuries. I love how everyone is out here helping each other out.

Passport being helpful

For lunch today I decided to cook my dinner for lunch figuring I will be pretty tired after the hike today. Rocket Pop had leftover dinner from last night that she ate. I haven't mentioned it yet, but Max and Rocket Pop dehydrated a lot of food for the trail. In the pot is Pad Thai which Rocket Pop had no problem bragging about.

Bragging about Pad Thai.

Her brother Kennan was a bit jealous about it:

Kennan wanting in on the Pad Thai.

I just sat back and enjoyed my broccoli cheese rice with salmon.

Enjoying dinner for lunch.

After about a 2 hour break we were off. The afternoon promises to be a bit more challenging with some steep climbing, but it also had some gentle hiking through meadows and a pine forest.

Share Bear, Rocket Pop, and Heidi hiking through a meadow.

Self-portrait "Meadow with a view"

Beautiful pine forest.

Share Bear was happy to make my PCT sign of the day photo:

PCT sign of the day with Share Bear

Oh...we hit a new milestone today...600 miles!

Proof I'm standing at Mile 600.

Mile 600 pose.

Nearly 11.5 hours after starting out hike today, we saw a sign for Robin Bird Spring, our goal for the day.

Finally there.

Today we hiked 18.84 miles, a new daily record for me. Tomorrow we are planning another long day...maybe even another new record. But before any record will be broke, we are meeting Tim in 14 miles tomorrow.

Well. As you can imagine, I am totally exhausted right now. Share Bear has set her alarm for 5:30 AM and it is almost 10:00 PM now as a write this. I better get to bed.

Close quarters with Share Bear.