Sunday, September 2nd.

Sunday, September 2nd: PCT mile 1,914.

This morning I woke up to decent weather. The night didn't get as cold as the past few nights have gotten and the morning was almost bearable. I ate the gifted granola and blueberries that the two men gave me the night before and began hiking around 7:45. First I hiked 6.5 miles to a forest service road for a snack break. A small section of those miles were part of a burn site just a week ago! They had closed this section of trail because parts of it were being directly affected by the wild fire. Many hikers who passed through this area within the past few weeks were forced to skip by this section of trail because of this. I was lucky in that the trail was reopened just days before I got to it. Although, there were parts of the forest that were still smouldering.

Once I got to the forest service road I walked down the road 6/10ths of a mile to meet up with an alternate trail. This trail is an official alternate to the PCT. The reason I opted to take this trail for 20 miles was because the PCT in this section has almost no water sources whereas the alternate passed by many lakes. The alternate trail lead to a road which would take you into Crescent City. Navi got a hitch first followed by Baboon and I in the back of a Jeep. It was my first ever hitch in a Jeep. Jeep drivers almost never pick up hitchhikers it seems...and their suppose to be the outdoors type. It was a two part hitch to the bar. Our second ride was from the bartender at the exact bar we were aiming to go to (the only bar). She took us right to the parking lot as her shift was just about to start.

Baboon, Navi, and I took a seat at one of the tables, plugged in our electronics and promptly ordered a pitcher followed by a slew of fried food and a whole chicken (for Navi and Baboon). We sat at that table from 5pm to 11:30pm drinking and eating. I stopped after two or three decent glasses of beer because I know what alcohol can do to me while thru hiking. Even the smallest amount can send me into a horrible state. My body becomes so sensitive to it when maintaining such activity. So, I ordered myself a pitcher of water instead and sipped on it all night while I watched Navi and Baboon kill their 5th and 6th pitchers of beer. Even despite my attempt to take the responsible action I still woke up the next morning with the worst hangover of the three of us! Neither Baboon or Navi drank any water. Navi, in the morning stated that she was too drunk to set up her tarp after leaving the bar so she simply wrapped herself in it and fell asleep. I guess drinking and thru hiking are just two things that don't go together well for me.

We ended up setting up camp 75 yards from the back of the bar tucked away in some trees....not really hidden but at that particular point none of us cared so much. The weather had dropped drastically while we were at the bar and once we stepped outside we were greeted with and unpleasant situation. We spent a horrible 15-20 minutes fumbling with our gear trying to set it up with frozen fingers. Navi eventually gave up her attempt and as I stated before just wrapped herself in her tarp for added warmth. Baboon and I managed to get our tents up. It wasn't until the morning, though, that we realized we had set up on shards of broken glass.