Pacific Crest Trail

Forrester Pass

Day 49 Today so much happened, but I’m not going to say that so much happened that I don’t know how to start, because chronologically would be a good way, but after this meta discussion, I thought what the heck, let’s embrace the post modern non chronological storytelling and cut to the end. It ends with me eating dried cranberries, drinking a glass of riesling, and listening to Explosions in the Skies from the speaker…

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Pacific Crest Trail

Mount Whitney

Day 48 My alarm blasted me out of my comfortable sleep way too early. I had prepared most of the things I needed to climb Mount Whitney, which was the aim of the day and left my tent and everything that I didn’t need in there to be pick up when I got back from the ascent. While Mount Whitney isn’t part of the PCT, many or perhaps the majority of hikers choose to take…

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Pacific Crest Trail

An appetizer of things to come

Day 46 As per usual, I got up before the sun, but today it was unusually dark because the moon wasn’t up. Living in cities it is easy to forget how much light it really makes. As a result the stars were extraordinarily bright. It was also quite cold but I slept well (wearing two pairs of long johns). I couldn’t help thinking a bit about bears while trying to fall asleep, though. I took…

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Pacific Crest Trail

A zero in Kennedy Meadows

Day 44 If you have been reading the blog you probably already know most of the deal of a zero day: Laundry, resupply, showering etc. Today was mostly about that, though it took quite a bit of effort. I had ordered some stuff from REI, and on the shipping label, my name was basically cut off, so it was difficult and we (e.g. me and one of the employees at the general store) very nearly…

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Pacific Crest Trail

A quarter

Day 42 As usual I got up early to beat the heat. Today I was hiking by 3:30 am after way too little sleep. I started noticing that the landscape was changing as there came more and more exposed rocks signifying that we were near the Sierras. At around eleven I had my second breakfast and afterwards wanted to go the next stretch. It was a 550m (1800 feet) ascent, which again would not be…

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Pacific Crest Trail

A nero on the last stretch of the desert

Day 41 As mentioned before you can only get to the trail three times a week by bus here from Ridgecrest, so instead of having to take two zeros and wait until Wednesday to get back to the trail I did what in hiking terminology would be called a “nero”, which is a day where you do nearly zero miles. So I checked out as late as possible from my hotel, wen to do a…

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Pacific Crest Trail

An easy day going to Ridgecrest

Day 40 The weather forecast predicted even higher temperatures for today so it probably wouldn’t surprise readers of the blog that I was up early today as well. Woke up at 2:30 am an slowly start packing and was walking by 4 am. All the aches of yesterday had magically disappeared an I was feeling well. For the first part, however, I was so tired from not getting enough sleep the last couple of days…

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