PCT 2018 Thru-Hike: Episode 19 - Death By Mosquito

Description

PCT Gear List Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaQqPbu1Fa0

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Tags: UL Hiking Gear,PCT,Pacific Crest Trail,PCT Thru Hike,Thru-Hike Gear List,UL Backpacking,Zpacks,Enlightened Equipment,CNOC Outdoors,UL Backpacking Gear,Vargo Bot 700,Hiker Trash,Hiking,Backpacking,Pinhoti Trail,Adventure,Long Distance Hiking,Zpacks Duplex,Zpacks ArcBlast,Crater Lake,Crater Lake National Park

Video Transcription

well I'm back on the trail after taking a day off in Ashland kind of a unplanned zero but since I did that 42 N I was going to take an arrow so I ended up taking a zero instead which is pretty nice got some food got to resupply sent myself a box about 105 miles ahead and now I'm back so this morning because of the fire closure there was about a 20-something mile fire closure from callaghan's

all the way up to highway 66 obviously those miles aren't available because the PCT a has closed them down [Music]

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so today ended up being not too bad I did like a twenty seven and a half mile day out of town which wasn't bad kind of sucked to have to skip that fire closure section right at like 20-something miles so definitely not part of my hike this year but overall the train was really smooth today definitely Oregon has already started to deliver what people say it will deliver and then tomorrow looks pretty smooth as well I think that I might be actually cruising into the boundary of Crater Lake National Park tomorrow where I ended tonight I saw that there was a quote-unquote shelter or cabin this is definitely a cabin it has a wood fire stove in it it has bunks people have left firewood in there there's like an axe to cut up firewood a picnic table there's even a water pump for the last couple hours there has been a huge herd of deer we've just been grazing all the way around here so I don't want the deer to kind of bite up my tent and bite it my trekking poles that hold up my tent because they do that they are always looking to lick salt

so typically mess with people's gear and chew on people's stuff so I have elected to sleep inside of the shelter or cabin for the night often I have heard Oregon referred to as the lava state or the lava rock state on the PCT yeah there's lava rock everywhere this morning right out of the gate started these big like lava rock sections which is kind of loud because most of it's like a black lava rock field and then the trail is actually covered in like this lava-rock where it almost looks like it's landscape like somebody came out here and did landscaping just kind of crazy

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lunch time on today's menu another green belly mosquitoes are starting to get really really really bad out here

just kind of started getting really bad this morning and like all the comments on buck that I'm reading for like the next 30 miles and every stop that everyone's making is talking about how insane the mosquitoes are so [Music]

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sceetos are really really bad it's like hiking through a volcanic swamp

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good morning I didn't film much when I got into camp last night because I got in late there was a another hiker already camp so I didn't want to disturb him starting laying down so I tried to be kind of hush-hush plus I got chased by an entire herd of mosquitoes in the camp so I basically just set my tent up jumped in shoved a bunch of food in my mouth and passed out same with this morning I woke up and even though it's 5:30 in the morning there was about a thousand mosquitoes waiting outside my tent for me so interesting I'm in route to Crater Lake National Park which is cool I always wanted to go to crater lake I don't know how the trail is currently routed but if the regular PCT is still closed from the old fire closure now I'm actually going to be hiking around crater lake on the rim trail if it's open you know me I'm going to hike the PCT I got here to Crater Lake National Park and I got to the road that will actually take you down to the village so there's a village with like a restaurant and like a hiker campground and a post office so I'm gonna go down and see if I can get myself a meal and charge my phone wait for it to cool down because today is it's hot I think it got like over a hundred degrees today maybe not here but like I know back in Ashland it was said to be over a hundred today and I'm not too far from Ashland I ended up going ahead and hiking the PCT those the last six miles that I can hike it so a lot of times when people come into Crater Lake they will actually take that reroute Junction that will take them completely around crater like REM however the PCT a did open the trail for like six miles up until a junction called the lightning spring trail junction which is where I'm camping right now the Junction's like literally right there um so you know I decided I just wanted to get those miles they're open miles and the great thing is in the morning when I wake up I'll only have four miles to hike down the Lightning spring trail and then that will connect with the rim trail and then I'll have about nine miles of the rim trail which are unofficial miles and it sucks that I don't get to to hike the PCT all the way through crater lake but the upside of it is I will actually get to see crater lake

[Music]

what a killer day on the trail crater lake was absolutely amazing I didn't do a lot of talking today I was really wrapped up and the scenery of Crater Lake and just wanted to hike so yeah it didn't really have much to say today I did end up going down to Diamond Lake about 20 miles in right after I got done with the Rim Trail I hitched down into Diamond Lake and was just there for a couple seconds picked up my resupply box threw a bunch of food and my pack and then kind of bugging on out back up to the trail and then I spent the last 12 miles running from mosquitoes so mosquitoes are just unreal absolutely unreal so I got here and set up my tent really fast and jumped in and that's pretty much it that's the end of the day so it's 6 o'clock in the morning and I'm already wearing my suit windpants head net there were things completely buttoned up mosquitoes are just insane usually on the trail you want to wake up to the sounds of birds chirping not to the sound of hundreds of mosquitoes swarming me outside your tent and I'm not exaggerating this morning there was literally just a buzz on the outside of my tent oh they're there they all caught up with me so it's just been insane out here with mosquitoes I've never seen so many mosquitoes in my life Massachusetts on the 80 was unreal bad but I think out here Southern Oregon Central we're going whatever you want to call this definitely takes the cake I am absolutely just knocked out today between this morning with all the mosquitoes biting the crap out of me and having outrun them this afternoon it's just insanely hot it's so humid and thick in the air it's hard to breathe I have no energy I'm just knocked out this is probably the worst I think I felt on the trail and quite sometime here we are at the end of another day and I say today was pretty miserable today sucked between the mosquitoes and the heat

just terrible terrible damn to that's to be expected you know I'm just at about to hit 1900 miles this usually starts to happen on the trail you start to kind of wear down you mentally wore out obviously physically wore out cuz hiking 1,900 miles to do that and then whenever you throw in weather you know super hot super dry sticky and then throw in a nuisance like mosquitoes have just cost nice warming you and biting you it's a pretty good recipe for a pretty crappy day

now I'm sure as you could probably guess I've spent most of my morning outrunning mosquitoes ever since I got up all the way down the trail a little bit ago I jumped onto this road finally after like 14 miles and I am walking down to a little place called Shelter Cove apparently they have showers and they have hot food and a place to come and take a break for a little bit [Music]

often rolling this morning mosquitoes aren't too crazy bad they weren't that bad last night but yeah still a lot of them apparently today around Elk Lake is when they're supposed to start to really calm down last night when I got to camp I actually hung out and shared a camp with a couple of really awesome ladies from Idaho tortoise and hare will call them that they're working on trail names yeah just haven't done that well haven't sat around and just talked trail with people in awhile you know I've been hiking solo and camping a lot by myself and kind of missed that you missed that a camaraderie around camp so it's really nice well just got done eating some lunch and taking a little bit of a nap to go with cs6 it's starting to kind of warm so siesta sounded good I'm about 15 miles away from Elk Lake which is actually the closest access to Bend there is a couple that lives in Bend that wants to take me in for the night and then have me stay with them tomorrow so I'm gonna take them up on that offer I'm pretty wore out already getting eaten up by mosquitoes I need to recharge so I'm gonna go ahead and get off of the trail [Music]

2,000 miles over the last couple days I haven't talked much to the camera and filmed much narration so I figured I'd fill you guys in on what has happened so a couple days ago I ended up getting off at Oak Lake and going into Bend to get that recharge got in there I had a really good time got me some new shoes drank a bunch of kombucha and a couple beers got nice and hydrated ate a lot of food resupplied set myself a box ahead and then yesterday I actually got back on trail at Elk Lake and mr. racer X finally caught up with me after 1,600 miles of not seen him last time I saw X was in Wrightwood when we both got injured and ever since he's been like a couple days behind me and I took that zero and he was able to catch up to me so we are now rolling again together and the trails just been beautiful often moving pretty early this morning X and I decided that in order to kind of maximize our days for these last 600 miles that we'd start getting up before a.m. hiking by 5 that way we can get a nice big long day in amazing beautiful beautiful sunrises [Music]

ladies and gentlemen that behind me is Washington about time [Music]

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