Day: 237
Direction: Southbound
Trail location: 1747
Cumulative miles hiked 2019/2021: 2395
Cumulative miles hiked 2021: 378
Miles hiked today: 12.3
Elevation: 7597
High/low temp/humidity: 55/83/70
Spinning on the turntable: Baltic Sea Philharmonic: Richter: Exiles

This morning I had a nice cruisey downhill trek. Finding my groove in the mornings is much easier if I have a half mile or so of downhill, or flat terrain, to begin my day.

Today started with lots of hikers headed up towards 1000 Island Lake. It’s interesting to be able to watch them as they hike up a hill and I’m hiking down switchbacks. It’s almost like being in a crowded shopping mall with sunglasses watching everyone walk by unaware that I can see them. Ditto for this morning.

How do day hikers decide what they should take and what they should leave at home? I’m stripped down to the bare necessities. Some of these (cough cough) “day packs” look quite full. At least I don’t have to carry them uphill!

I bumped into this fellow in the middle of trail when I was coming into a day use parking area.

He was quite relaxed and we touched noses. Not really. I gave him a pat and kept moving.

Somewhere on my downhill joyride I missed a trail turnoff and ended up about 1.5 miles too far. Honestly, it pissed me off. I was looking for a turnoff but missed it. It’s trying to find balance between too much electronics and too little. I don’t want to keep pulling out my phone every ten minutes to check my progress, but clearly I should have checked it more often today. What should have been an easy day of about nine miles turned into about thirteen miles.

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When I backtracked I found the trail turn off, and a sign for Red Meadow. Unfortunately, the sign was very easy to miss from the South side. I later saw other Guthook comments that other hikers had also missed the turn off. Geez.

I had a nice bridge crossing today, and I had a log crossing today.

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I keep reminding myself that I need to check the actual water level before I jump up on logs to cross a stream. Many of these crossings are crazy in during the snow melt, but not so crazy now. It may be less of a risk for me to rock hop than to log hop.

As I worked my way towards Reds Meadow, and Noelle, the amount of day hikers grew and grew. Boy, they sure do smell fresh! Me, not so much.

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After a quick stop at the basalt rocks I met up with Noelle.

Tomorrow I’ll hike “up” on my way out of Reds with 8 days of food in my bear canister.

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Just a reminder that we’re also publishing Video Only VLOGS of our PCT hike on our Patreon channel. They’re quick and dirty and we post about once per week. Thanks for your support!