Here is the 12th installation of my PCT trail journal (about 1 week off the present timeline as a safety precaution).

I feel that this leg of my PCT journey is a completely different journey from the one i started in July. I have quite a bit of different gear, I’m preparing for freezing temps and snow and rain, many of my original resupply spots have closed for the winter, I’m going north bound, i took a month and a half break, there will be fewer and fewer hikers, i have more experience and better know my limitations, the trail is now riddled with fire closures. So much has changed!

Follow my thruhike in section-by-section blog posts, or in daily posts on Instagram or Facebook (@JustAGirlAndABackpack.Blog). Please attribute all spelling/grammar errors to autocorrect and exhaustion at the end of the day.

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Statistics for the second part of my journey are as follows:

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PCT 2021 Series: Monday October 11, Mile 745.3 zero in Ridgecrest to wait out the snow (0 miles, day 10)

I woke up at 8ish so that I could eat lots of the buffet breakfast (1 waffle smothered in butter and syrup, 2 omelettes, 3 sausage patties, 1 yogurt, 2 apples, 1 bagel and cream cheese, 3 English Breakfast teas).

We decided to stay another night because there was a snow storm afoot in the mountains, and a wind storm down where we were. The temps might have got into the negatives, and I knew my gear wasn’t prepared for that.

I spent the morning wiping all my gear down with a rag, and laying it out to make sure I had everything I needed, or everything I didn’t need in a bag to send home with Andrea, and to see what I needed or might need.

I went to a grocery store and bought a bunch of food, way too much for 3 days, but I’m trying to increase my calorie intake to keep warmer at night. There were no good gear shops in town, which was rather sad: one was a military surplus type store for the local military base, and the other was Big 5. Neither had liner socks, liner gloves or a reasonably sized dry bag.

Back at the hotel, I sorted the food into 3 days of about 5,859 calories/day. There’s no way I’ll finish it all, but hopefully I’ll be able to force myself to eat more.

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My mom, sister and boyfriend all called that afternoon so I talked with all of them for a bit before we went out for dinner at a steakhouse. Back at the hotel, I packed most of my gear before flopping down to watch star trek on my phone until it was decently late.

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PCT 2021 Series: Sunday October 10, mile 743 to Mile 745.3, +.2 from spring, +2.3 to cottonwood lakes campground for access to Lone Pine (4.7 miles, day 9)

Woke up to liquid water in my water bottles, which was nice, and will probably not be happening too much more this season. I did the Leave No Trace thing to cover up the fact that I had moved a lot of earth around the night before to give myself a little more insulation.

It was a quick 5 miles to the Cottonwood Pass Trailhead campground, with the Tale of Two Cities in my ear. I saw a massive coyote on the prowl from a distance.

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I arrived 15 minutes early and walked around the loop to see if my friend Andrea and her friend might have already been there to pick me up. I settled down to read by the entrance to await them, and when they did arrive, they drove right past me without noticing.

They had gotten hotel rooms in Ridgecrest for the night, because Lone Pine was booked-out for a film festival, but since we needed gas ASAP, we stopped in Lone Pine and grabbed breakfast at the Alabama Hills Cafe and Bakery.

Andrea wouldn’t let me pay for a single thing the whole time we were together, no matter how much I pleaded, so I’m very grateful to her. We even went gear shopping to get me some warmer equipment to survive the freezing mountains. I got the Thermarest Neoair Xtherm sleeping pad, which is a blow up PAD with an R value of 6.9, which will be greatly warmer than my foam R = 2. I also got the Mountain Hardware Phantom 15 sleeping bag, which is hypothetically 5 degrees less warm than my quilt, but since it has a back and a hood, extra stuffing in the toe box, and feels denser, I have my doubts. Finally, I grabbed some Tempest Mitt Evo waterproof mittens by Camp, since my little gloves weren’t cutting it, and a medium sized gas canister so I’d worry less about using too much fuel while heating beverages.

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On the drive to Ridgecrest, we laughed our hearts out, telling stories and just generally having a good time. It felt really good to laugh so much.

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We settled in at the hotel, and I spread my gear out on every surface to let it air out, then I went downstairs to use the computer in the business center to schedule some blog posts. Exciting because the next post was my first back on trail post!

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It was 8pm by the time I realized it was late and we hadn’t had dinner, and i also realized that Andrea might have been texting my Garmin, because I don’t think she had my cell. Turns out I was right, I received her Garmin message when I turned it on the next day. Andrea had decided to tuck in early, but she made me a delish sandwich. I did that horrible thing that i do, and stayed up really late, first reading, then watching TV, then on my phone.

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PCT 2021 Series: Saturday October 9, mile 728.8 to Mile 743, +.2 to Dutch Meadow Spring (14.4 miles, day 8)

“I woke up in the middle of the night having to pee but not wanting to brave the cold. I know that emptying the bladder will actually help keep me warmer, though, so i got out and was surprisingly able to fall right back asleep”

Slowly Dying

I woke up in the middle of the night having to pee but not wanting to brave the cold. I know that emptying the bladder will actually help keep me warmer, though, so i got out and was surprisingly able to fall right back asleep.

4 sobos hiked past around 7:45 as i was waking up. I found that my water bottles had all partially frozen (two of them the caps had frozen shut, so essentially they were too frozen to drink from). Where normally a little condensation gathers on the tent and quilt, there were frost crystals.

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I packed up and made sure that I tore down my “nest” so that it looked as though I hadn’t moved logs and pine needles and cones around (Leave No Trace!).

The sun was hot but the wind was cold, so i had my mid layer on most of the day. I came across a frozen puddle with about 3/4 of an inch of ice covering gross algae water. I was lower on water then i wanted to admit, so i carried off a few hunks of ice to melt if i got desperate.

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I officially entered the Sierra, with the towers of granite and huge boulders everywhere.

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“The only other plants were the random scraggly shrub that had managed to shove itself in some sheltered crack amongst the boulders where dead vegetative matter was able to collect”

Slowly Dying

Bristlecone pines dominated the landscape, occasionally interrupted by a white bark pine here or there. The only other plants were the random scraggly shrub that had managed to shove itself in some sheltered crack amongst the boulders where dead vegetative matter was able to collect.

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The first four miles kicked my ass up to 10,600ft, but the following 10 flew by

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When I finally arrived at Dutch Meadow Spring, i made another nest for myself out of 4 inches of pine needles, and read over a hot cup of cider (80 calories per serving!).

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The night was cold but not quite as bad as yesterday, until I got into my tent and came to the realization that I couldn’t quite get warm enough to fall asleep. Since I don’t think it was as cold tonight as last, I believe it came down to the fact that I should have eaten more dinner, as well as more throughout the day, since calories are a big part of what keep warm blooded creatures warm in the cold.

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PCT 2021 Series: Friday October 8, mile 719 to mile 728.8 (9.8 miles, day 7)

“I woke up to gunshots echoing all around the canyon and mountains”

Slowly Dying

Today was a kind of weird day. I woke up to gunshots echoing all around the canyon and mountains (hopefully just hunters doing their thing).

I knew a storm was rolling in today, so my goal was to be over the closest peak before it hit, and to hunker down at a lower altitude to survive the freezing night. That meant either a 10 mile day or a 22 mile day, and since i didn’t want to get stuck in snow on the second peak, i went for the short day.

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Saw another family of deer, super cute and small as all 6 of them huddled above me on trail. The wind blowing the storm clouds in made the air chilly, especially when the sun got covered.

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At the top of the peak i threw on my mid layer, wind breaker, beanie, gloves and neck tube. That’s right about when it started to snow–just little flakes that blew in my eyes, nothing super significant. Turns out there’s actually a good bit of water up here, although most of it was really gross, so in split between being glad and distressed that i carried so much water from the Kern.

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A sobo hiker, Guiness, stopped for a good long chat, and as we were talking the Dutch Girls plus another hiking buddy of their’s stomped past, attempting to keep warm in bright yellow coats, and following them by a few minutes was another hi and bye hiker. Guiness was very happy to be exiting the Sierra and entering the hopefully warmer desert. He had actually started up near Canada a day before i had, so we might have met before but neither of us recognized the other.

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I found a nice campsite below 9,000 feet in the trees, which would act as a wind break and give insulation against the cold, and created a little nest for myself: i moved some fallen logs into a rectangle to act as a wind break for the openings in my tent, then made a rectangle a few inches high of pine needles in the already thick duff to give me s little more insulation under my sleeping pad. I set up my tent by 2pm then basically read and ate until i got too cold to stay outside any longer, around 5pm, at which time i packed my bear canister, for ready for bed and then rolled around and around in my quilt trying to get warm.

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PCT 2021 Series: Thursday October 7, mile 702.2 to mile 719 (16.8 miles, day 6)

Scott had offered to make me breakfast, so i woke up bright and early so i could be ready by 8am. With a second dry bag to store clothes in, I’ve found that i am better able to pack my bag while using less space, because now i can mold the bags to the inside of the pack, since they are less full.

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Scott cooked me up eggs, sausage, potatoes and two of the biggest pancakes I’ve ever seen (he made me smaller ones than usual because I was worried i wouldn’t be able to finish). He offered to take me to the trail, and on the way we saw two hours at the general store. We said our goodbyes and Scott brought up the bartender position again, sweetening the deal by telling me what the last gal had earned in tips.

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I set off into the warm desert, with blue skies and spotty cotton ball clouds above, and low chaparral below. At one point i accidentally followed a cow trail and had to reconnect with the actual PCT. One sobo woman gave me a hi and bye greeting as she passed. As I hiked, I encountered several species of plant with edible berries still hanging on for dear life so late in the season (all of which I tried!): rose rip, juniper berry, currant, and elderberry.

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It’s amazing how there are clearly a lot of large animals in the area, based purely on the scat that was everywhere on trail; it probably wasn’t dogs because it was full of blood and hair–most likely this was big cats, but there was also bear poop filled with manzanita berries. I saw 3 families of deer, one of which had a very small fawn that was really far from it’s mama.

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I spent a lot of the day working on the blog and looking up plants, until I got to the south fork of the Kern river, which was my last water for 26 miles, at which point i filled up my 5.2L capacity (10.4lbs) and shoulders in into the dying day, trying to get a few miles into the waterless stretch.

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I spent some serious time packing my bear can, and while i was messaging my fam, i was impressed by how quickly I had completed almost 70 miles (4 days!). I’ve managed to camp right under a flight path for what appear to be military jets, so their booming sound waves have been bouncing around the valley keeping me awake.

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Thank you so much for reading! Please let me know what you think I can do better to make the blog more interesting for the reader.