Walks A Ways: Overall PCT Day 138

2026 PCT Day 22, 05 September 2026 (Saturday)

Overall PCT Day 138

"If A Bear Growls At You In The Woods…"

Start Location:	Elk Lake, Mi. 1955.4	Destination:	Bend Oregon From Lava Camp Lake, Mi. 1984.1
PCT Miles Day 117:	28.7	Cum PCT Miles:	2532.4
Non-PCT Miles Day 117:	2.1	Cum All Miles:	2752.5
PCT Miles Remaining:	113.9
Elevation Gain Day 117:	4576	Cum Elevation Gain:	429,442

Today was kind of a crazy day. I got up this morning to a decent forecast for at least part of today. I got a very early start, and hiked with a headlamp for about one hour.

It was cold but not extremely cold as I started. About one mile up the side trail from Elk Lake leading back to the PCT, I heard something that reminded me why I do not like hiking in the dark. I heard a bear growl in close vicinity of where I was; it was an unmistakable sound. I looked all around me, but with the dark it was hard to see and probably behind some bushes and trees. As another hiker said regarding another story while we were all hanging out around Shelter Cove during the rain a few days ago, “that will make your sphincter pucker up.”

Holy moly, it was all the motivation one needs to scamper up the trail as rapidly as possible. I would look behind me, about every minute or two to make sure the bear wasn’t following me up the trail. I would also regularly clap my hands and yell out hey bear. Obviously, nothing bad came of it. The bear was probably just giving me a warning growl, letting me know I was interrupting whatever it was doing.

As the day dawned, I looked up in the sky to see a crescent moon. It’s nice that I can finally see something in the sky other than gray clouds. As more sunlight made itself available, I could see the sky was mostly clear. And in an hour or two I could actually take off my jacket for the first time in days on the trail.

As I was hiking along this morning, I turned a corner and then, bam, right in front of my face an unobscured view of South Sister Mountain covered in new snow. I wasn’t expecting it to be so close to the trail. What a great sight.

So far this morning, the only rain is the residual water in the trees that comes pachinkoing down the needles and branches until it hits open air and falls to the ground, and occasionally falls on me.

With the bear growling at me, having some sun today, and seeing some really nice peaks, today was a pretty exciting day. And it was made even more exciting because around noon on the trail, I saw an animal. It was a fox. As soon as it heard me, it ran off into the woods, so I only got a short look at it. You can’t experience this kind of day by sitting on the couch at home.

Unfortunately, around 3 PM, the rain came back. But it got worse. This was not just a rain storm, it was a ferocious thunderstorm. There was hail, lots of hail. I felt like I was being shot at by a shotgun in the sky whose shells were filled with hail. And it was also raining very hard. The trail was getting flooded, turning into a stream.

I was in a burn zone at this time, and there were no live trees under which to seek shelter. Also, this is an area with extremely limited options for finding a place to camp— in better weather, there would’ve been more options. The one place somewhat nearby, was still about five miles away. Then the lightning and thunder came right overhead. There were multiple massive claps of thunder directly over me. To be honest, it was a bit alarming.

I got to the campsite as quickly as I could, but all the tent sites were completely unprotected, and worse, they were all under large puddles of water. It continued to rain hard, it didn’t seem like it was going to let up. This was a pretty bad situation because there didn’t seem to be any viable options as to where to go next on the trail, and it was getting late in the day. And it was getting colder.

Just before getting to this campground, I ran into a couple other hikers. One was a younger kid that I’ve seen off and on the trail for about the last week, and he was spending a few days hiking with his dad. It just so happens that they live in Bend, Oregon, which is where I was going to go tomorrow. Both of them had Garmin satellite communicators, and the dad messaged his wife, asking her to drive to the campground, which luckily has trailhead parking. They offered me a ride into Bend, and having almost no options to spend the night on the trail in these conditions, I gladly accepted. That was pretty lucky. I’m not sure what I would’ve done otherwise. It was perhaps the worst situation I’ve been in on on the PCT.

Like I said, a really crazy day. The best scenery of the trip so far, unique animal experiences, and then just an unbelievable storm on a stretch of trail with no good tenting options. And then some good luck. What a day!

Starting Monday, the weather looks very much improved. So the upcoming week will be much more conducive to hiking and ultimately completing the PCT.