Another 30 mile day for us today! Early this morning we passed the PCT midpoint. Because of our flip, this didn’t actually mark our halfway point. We still had about 150 miles until we would reach 1320 miles (about halfway, the trail changes slightly year to year so the halfway point varies as well). Regardless, we still took a couple photos at the halfway marker before continuing on.
We had a decently long stretch without water today for a change, as well as a fairly long uphill. I threw in my headphones and listened to podcasts and music as I cranked out 9 or so miles, most of them uphill. At the top, Wolf Bird and I had lunch at high point junction. As we were packing up, a northbound hiker asked us when the next water was. He had no way of knowing because he fell in a river and ruined his phone. There aren’t any major river crossings near here so I’m not sure where that happened, but we felt bad for him because he seemed pretty frazzled.
After lunch we stopped for water at a wonderful piped spring with the coldest, best tasting water. It was quite refreshing. We didn’t filter it so hopefully it doesn’t get us sick! There was a curious deer I enjoyed watching while we sat and drank our water. We decided to hike on to a campsite that would make about 30 miles for the day. This would get us partway down the 12 mile downhill to Belden, a small resort on the trail with a restaurant and store.
Our last miles of the day passed quickly especially since they were downhill and thus easier. I really enjoy walking in late afternoon and early evening. We arrived at the creek we were aiming for and quickly set up our tent as it was buggy and we wanted to get inside as quickly as possible. Wolf Bird made a fancy sandwich creation for dinner that he was very proud of. We ate dinner in the tent to avoid mosquitoes and I joined Wolf Bird in watching part of the stupidest movie ever, Daddy’s Home. It was painful to watch and he kept watching it (with headphones) after dinner while i was trying to get to sleep but he kept laughing out loud at the terrible corny jokes. His laughter was keeping me up so I had to make him cut his crappy movie watching time short. We went to bed excited to get to Belden tomorrow for some real food!