PCT 2023 - Day 9 - Snooze day!

The one with long siesta!

📍 Location: MM 80.4 to MM 94.4

🏔️ Elevation: 4297 ft
🥾 I actually walked: 14 miles
💰 Money: None spent but I’ve had some donations (thank you)
⛑️ Health: My left foot is clearing up nicely. The key is to try and keep it clean which is difficult in the desert. My shoulder and back aches with the extra water we are carrying (5 litres!).

☀️ Weather: Frigging hot. 36 degrees so we took a siesta. It’s too hot to hike.

🍲 Food: Had the second part of that breakfast burrito from yesterday for breakfast, with a coffee. Then tortilla for lunch. I cooked Mac & cheese for dinner which was surprisingly good!

💤 Sleep: I’m not sleeping at all well. My slowing pad is super warm and I just sweat all night. I’m seriously considering buying a new pad and shipping this one forward to the snow section.

🐍 Snake count: 4! We saw another one today but not a dangerous one. This was quite cute!

👨 People update: Hiking with DinkyDi, Amber and Harry. We are calling ourselves “snake patrol” 😂

LEARNINGS:-
When cooking max and cheese, you have to continually sit the pasta or it burns the bottom of the pot!

THE LONG WINDED VERSION:-

🤕 4.30am - Ouch! I’ve got my headlamp on as I’m packing Ip but didn’t see the cactus. A spike went straight through my shoe and into the side of my foot. My swearing woke up the rest of the camp. Oh well, they needed to get up anyway as we have hiking to do! We want to avoid the heat of the day and those horrible rattle snakes.

🥾 5.30am. All set! 12 miles to do. Let’s get this shit done! Headlamps set to red mode.

🤫 8.10 first break. Everyone is very quiet this morning and the chatter is very low key. It’s mentally exhausting looking for snakes.

🌱 9.20 DinkyDi points out a plant that is safe and we all run it and smell our fingers. Nice!

👋 10.21 - Look at that! Someone has made a sign from stones saying “90 miles”. Have I really walked 90 miles already. That’s awesome.
The walking is slow and hot today. The super bloom in this area is amazing and today it was mainly white and purple flowers. We still have the most spectacular views but most of my day is looking at my feet! I must remember to look up and take in my surroundings more. Military Helicopters are flying over and they are very low. The noise seems so loud when all you have listened to is nature.

I’m petrified of every bush and rock as we hike. I’m not wearing headphones as I need to listen out for those rattles.

💦 11.30 - We made it to the third gate water cache. It’s a traipse down a long hill but some kind some has put gallons and gallons of water here for the hikers. We fill up, leave a donation in the pot and hike back up the hill. Siesta time! We eat lunch under a tree and put the world to right before closing my eyes and catching a few more hours of sleep. We stayed there until 4pm!

🥾 4.10 - Packed up, our little snake patrol sets off again. Our goal is to hike 4 miles and then set up camp.

🏕️ 17.04 - Made it! I have a cute little spot which is protected by the wind. I don’t have the energy to socialise so just cook dinner and then get into my tent to watch some Netflix. Editing videos and blogs am a wait for another day. For now, I just need to rest. I’m rather tired.

Thanks for listening to my rambles.Les mer