- Date: Tuesday June 16, 2015
- Miles hiked: 8.19 miles
- Miles covered: 1092.27 to 1100.46 PCT
- Weather Report: For the hike, temperatures from 65 to 75. Sunny and warm and dry, with clear blue skies.
- Wildlife seen: deer, chipmunks, lizards, and a baby marmot
- Mood of the day: Mellow
Not much to report: woke up, Dave made some yummy eggs, Sage and I went shoe shopping. I swapped out my $7 water shoes for some more usable Teva sandals--the water shoes work fine, but they are a bit heavy, and they stay wet a fairly long time. The Tevas just have straps, enough to stay on for fording creeks and such... plus they're a bit lighter.
We came back and got Dave for lunch, once again enjoying a cheap lunch at the restuarant in Montbleu, and the Aztec Tacos once again, yum! Back to the house for packing up food, and Dave drove me out to the Echo Lake. Sage is going to stay another night at Dave's--he's feeling a bit slow and worn down and wants to rest another day.
Back on the trail at the Echo Lake resort, and wow are there a lot of people around. I started late in the day, at 5pm, and encountered a good dozen or more hikers headed back from their day hikes. It was a beautiful day, with temps right around 70 and a light breeze to chase any mosquitoes away, no wonder the trail was popular on this Tuesday.
I was thinking of camping at Aloha Lake, and reached it around 7, but felt like I could go further--and I didn't want to camp amongst the half dozen tents already there on the lake shore. I just kept on going, figuring I'd find someplace right around sunset and quickly setup my tent and fill up a dirty water bottle and bag for later filtering.
An aside: I really hate filtering water, it's my least favorite thing to do on the PCT. It always takes longer than you want, your hands get cold, mosquitos bite you, etc etc etc. In Tahoe I bought a small 700ml SmartWater bottle for dirty (ie unfitered) water collection--the Platypus bag I have works great for squeezing water through the Sawyer filter, but trying to fill up that floppy bag in a lake can be very trying. Dipping the small SmartWater bottle in the lake was much faster, and I filled up the Platypus dirty water bag for filtering later in my tent, away from the mosquitos.
Anyways, that's all for today. Not a big day at all, just a pleasant day with Sage and Dave getting things done.