Thursday, August 9th: Todays miles = 24. Total PCT miles = 1,452.5. My 5:30am start didn't happen. The alarm went off at 4am, I laid there, laid there some more, rolled over, got up to go to the bathroom, laid back down, made some coffee, and fell back asleep until 5:45am. I started hiking by 6:30 which is definitely an improvement from the past few weeks. I'm hoping to bump it up to 6am for tomorrow morning.
The first 10 miles today were uphill! The few miles after that were bumpy downhill, then back uphill for most of the day. Even with all the uphill today felt pretty easy....all 24 miles of it.
Because of the forest fires many hikers have been bunched together. Parts of the PCT closed down because of the fires and some people were forced to bypass those sections of the PCT and take alternate routes. Those that attempted to hike those parts of trail were escorted off the PCT and surrounding trails by fire fighters. Currently the sections from Belden to Quincy and from Drakesbad to Old Station are closed. I made it through the Drakesbad section by half a day. While I was hiking through there it was snowing ash. The whole sky was covered with smoke. It actually became a little difficult to breathe. I knew I was close to the fire but when your on the trail its pretty hard to know just how close. That night a woman just a few hours behind me on trail was forced off the trail by rangers. I'm lucky to have made it through.
Because of all this bunching of hikers the trail is much more populated than usual. There are a number of people that I am camping with tonight. Baboon and I were the firsts ones to roll into camp tonight, followed by Golden Ray, Snow White, Mr. C, Extra Credit, Cactus, Hollywood, Trip, As You Wish, and Scallywag. Its a party! I was complaining that there were not that many people around but right about now I'm wishing there were less.
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