Monday 17 July 2017

Day 48 July 12, 2017

Daily mileage 14
Total mileage 799
Hours walked 7:30 am to 3:30 pm



The PCT never promised that returning would be easy.

As I was sitting in my grubby hotel in Reno (never be tempted to stay at the Sands Hotel) wondering how I was going to complete the journey back to the trailhead at Donner Pass, I happened to notice that a couple I know from my hometown were also in Reno. Hmmmm I wonder when they are driving home and what route they are taking. So I called them and lo and behold, they were leaving early tomorrow and heading West.

I am here to proclaim that Clinton and Linda are now PCT trail angels. They gave me a ride right to the trail and at an early enough time to get a full day in. Thanks again you two.

This is part of my weight gain program on trail

Insert all the usual Donner party jokes here 

Oh PCT I did miss you

 So then I was off down the trail. The section over to Interstate 8 was easy. I stopped at the rest area to text the family while I still had coverage.

The trail up to the next pass (sorry, I lost all of these posts due to human error, mine that is, and am having to recreate them from memory so a lot of names of passes etc are gone) was again easy. But guess what was waiting for me on the north side of that pass. If you said dancing girls with cold beer and hot pizza, you would be wrong. It was snow. And a fair bit of it.

The trail is under there somewhere 

Now it is not to say that the rest of the day was horrible. It just featured more snow than I would have wished for. But there were pretty vistas also.

Snow free vistas

 I ran into a young lady (Express) who went through the Sierra. What she told me about her adventures solidified my decision to skip that section until most of the snow melts.

As the day wore on my energy levels plummeted. I knew I would loose some degree of fitness being away from the trail for three weeks and that did turn out to be the case. I finally called it a day at mid afternoon.

As I was about to head to bed, I heard someone calling out Silver Fox. It was Brad whom I met on about day 3 of the trail. It was great to catch up with him. He went through the Sierra and is now blasting 30 plus mile days so I will not be seing him again.

Home for the night

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