Day 14 - Another tough day at the office
Start Mile 1212
End Mile 1232.1
Total Miles 20.1
We were on the trail a hair before 7 am, and the walking was very pleasant, to begin with. We were heading to get water as we were both low, and who would have thought with all the snow that it would be so difficult to source the precious liquid.
Guthooks, the PCT App used by Jim, gave a reading that we were 1.9 miles from water, but when we got there, we were told it was now 2.1 miles away! My App wasn’t faring much better as it had me at a mileage 3 miles back of where we were. Very strange. We eventually reached the water source where we each filled our two 1 liter water bottles, and I added electrolyte powder to one of my mine. We took off, and the Trail Gods were smiling on us as we kept heading down, which was a welcome relief from yesterday when our day consisted of about 75% of climbing. All was going well until about 11 am when we started to climb, and this climb was relentless in laying down the challenge. The further up we went, the more the climb kept spreading out in front of us.
We met a couple of “young guys” like us, who were heading in the opposite direction, but they had encouraging words that we were close to the top. Finally, at around noon, we crested the ridge where we decided to have lunch. Over lunch, I learned how Jim got the trail name Brave Happy, and it goes back to when he did the AT (Appalachian Trail) a couple of years ago. A couple of school teachers were doing a week of walking on the trail when they met Jim, and they thought he was incredibly brave to take on the walk alone. Later during his trip, Jim was talking politics with someone who said: “Aren’t you a happy fellow.“ Jim admits he’s neither brave or happy. After lunch, we started to climb, and it was just as relentless as this morning, but then we hit another nice downhill section which I had the pleasure of leading us down. All of a sudden Jim let it be known we had a big climb coming up, so we prepared ourselves by filling up our water bottles. I’m having to rely on Jim to help me as both of my water pouches have sprung a leak and will be thrown away once I hit town. Add in fact my chest strap on my backpack broke and I can’t wait to get into town to effect repairs.
The climb arrived, and up we went, with Jim cursing as he does, whereas I just embrace the trail for what it is. Jim really isn’t happy, and I wonder why he’s out here enduring a tough, hard long-distance hike. He constantly bad mouths the trail, whether it’s going up or tumbling down, and in almost 2 days of walking, I have not seen him pull his camera out once. To be fair to Jim, and in an effort to provide some balance, he is very good with using his Guthook App, which is an excellent tool for finding water, campsites, elevations etc.etc. And he certainly knows what he’s doing.
After a 2nd consecutive day of grueling hard work, we finally reached camp where I set up my tent, ahead of another adventure in eating with my tent pegs!!
Wanderer.