Miles 11.4
PCT Mile 120.9
It was 6pm, the sun was behind the hill, it was really cold, and I wasn’t wearing any pants.
We started the morning by getting our wet tents packed up, the marine layer slowly burning off once again, and tried to take a shortcut to the post office. We hopped a fence and found an old trail through the closed golf course. We took it and wandered around and got lost twelve times before we found some dude mowing the grass, apologized a hundred times for being there, and asked him directions to the post office. He said he wouldn’t tell his boss we were there and showed us the way.
I laid out the tents on the asphalt to dry while we waited for our resupply box.
I heard Anji yell “Christmas!” and we were in business. We had too much food, of course, so we donated a bunch to the hiker box in the post office and then road walked with a crew of young hikers back to the trail and we were off on an enormous climb that lasted all day.
That, and six river crossings. Shoes and socks off every time. Other hikers made fun of us, but we didn’t dare let our shoes get wet. We Fear Blistered Feet.
We made a nice stop for lunch and I cleaned up in the creek. It felt so good to be clean…but I made the critical error of washing my pants, and they never dried. I just hiked along in my underwear for the remainder of the day.
Up up up up two thousand feet into the mountains we climbed and finally stopped when it was really cold, the sun was behind the hill…
And I really needed some pants.