Walks A Ways: 08/19/26

2026 PCT Day 2, 16 August 2026 (Sunday)

Overall PCT Day 118

"Pacific Crest Treadmill"

Start Location:	PCT Campsite Near Picayune Spring	Destination:	PCT Mi. 1554.3
PCT Miles Day 118:	26.2	Cum PCT Miles:	2108.8
Non-PCT Miles Day 118:	0	Cum All Miles:	2307.25
PCT Miles Remaining:	538.5
Elevation Gain Day 118:	1782	Cum Elevation Gain:	374.354

There was absolutely nothing wrong with the trail today. It was perfectly fine and the views were pleasant. However, there weren’t many views that just popped out at you and demanded a picture be taken. The trail tread was decent for the most part, there were no long steep ascents or decents. Though I got a fair number of miles in, I probably should’ve gotten more.

I didn’t get the very early start that I got yesterday, so I didn’t have as many hiking hours in the day today. I’ve also been making some rookie mistakes that are really just part of the process of getting back into the swing of things.

The temperature today was relatively comfortable, and surprisingly, there were no bugs until I got to my campsite. I also still have not seen any burn areas. I did run into quite a few more people today. I came across four SOBO PCT hikers and a lot of locals doing day hikes. I did chat with a few of them so that took up some time. Also, I had a goal today of staying completely hydrated. I got a little dehydrated yesterday because of the lack of water sources in the last 15 miles, and I didn’t want to get dehydrated two days in a row. So, I stopped multiple times along the way to gather and treat water.

Overall, I feel like I’m still getting my long distance trail legs back. This will probably take at least a week or so. So, we’ll just have to see how everything goes.

One of the really stupid mistakes I made was not having the right charging cord for my GPS watch. My power bank only accepts USB-C, and my Garmin is a USBA. And I failed to bring a converter or like to see if I could buy a charging cord for the watch, that was USB-C. And the whole scheme of things, this isn’t that big a deal. I have apps on my phone that can track everything the Garmin watch tracks except heart rate. So to conserve battery on my watch instead of putting it in hiking mode which uses the GPS I put it in treadmill mode that way I could see my heart rate without using the GPS.

NOTE: I may not be able to publish the next posts until around 24 August when I'll be in Ashland Oregon.

Phone Battery: 73%

Nice morning trail

First water source of the day, White Ridge Spring

White Ridge Spring, like Picayune Spring last night, is a piped spring. These are pretty nice for filling the water bottle.

Ant bring food back to it's secret nest

Deadfall Creek

Bull Lake with Mt. Shasta in the background

Night 2 Camp

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2026 PCT Day 1, 15 August 2026 (Saturday)

Overall PCT Day 117

"LASHing Out"

Start Location:	PCT Soda Creek Trailhead (South of Dunsmuir, CA)	Destination:	PCT Campsite Near Picayune Spring
PCT Miles Day 117:	25.8	Cum PCT Miles:	2082.6
Non-PCT Miles Day 117:	.35	Cum All Miles:	2281.05
PCT Miles Remaining:	564.7
Elevation Gain Day 117:	6265	Cum Elevation Gain:	372,572

When my 2022 hike ended due to fire, I mentioned that my intended thru-hike had turned into a section hike. To be more precise, though, it was what is referred to in the long-distance hiking world as a Long Ass Section Hike (LASH). To complete the PCT, I have to do one more LASH. Today that LASH started and it was more like the trail give me a good lashing. It was a tough first day. I knew it was going to be because of the significant elevation gain, and doing that elevation with a pack weighed down with almost seven days worth of food. If I want to complete the PCT, there was really no way to avoid this tough start.

To even get back to this spot on trail, I flew from Las Vegas to Sacramento in the morning. Then took the 11:49pm Amtrak train from Sacramento to Dunsmuir. After getting into Dunsmuir around 5am, I got a lucky ride to the Soda Creek Trailhead.

So, the first day of my LASH was a pretty momentous day. It was everything wrapped into one.

Because the Amtrak train I took wasn’t scheduled to arrive in Dunsmuir until early in the morning, I didn’t think I would be able to get a ride back down to the trailhead where I got off in 2022. I’m not going to get into an overly involved explanation, but I used a technique called Yogiing to get a ride. So, right from the get-go I had trail magic. This was a significant time and energy saver for me.

Because of this ride, I was able to do a 10 x 10 on the first day (ten miles by 10am). In 2022, with four months on the trail, I only did one 10 x 10. And I did one on the very first day this year.

Also, because I thought I was going to have to walk from the Dunsmuir train depot to the PCT trailhead at Soda Creek, I had planned on doing only around 17 miles today. However,
I did almost 26. I actually had plenty of daylight to do more miles, but I came upon a good campsite and decided it was a good time to end the day.

I also experienced bad bugs on the first day. They got progressively worse throughout the first 10 miles. It got so bad I had to put on my mosquito netting. However, after that, a slight breeze came up and that seemed to help with the bugs. By the end of the day, it wasn’t even an issue.

I was surprised that I didn’t see any burn areas today, as it was because of fires in 2022 that I wasn’t able to hike this section of the trail. However, I’m sure as I continue going further north I will start seeing significant for areas.

Except for Castle Crags and Mount Shasta, there was nothing distinguishable today. However, the scenery in the second half of the day was much more to my liking.

As anyone can see from the stats. Today was a pretty strenuous day. The steepest, longest climb came right during the warmest part of the day. Even if I were only carrying a day pack, this would’ve been a strenuous hike. But with 6 1/2 days of food in my pack (probably about 15 pounds), it was made that much more difficult.

While right in the middle of this difficult section, I asked myself the same two questions I asked on the first day of my hike in 2022: What am I doing? And was this really the best decision?

However, I see this as part of the adjustment to life back on the trail. A mental shakedown, a rewiring of the brain to discard any thoughts of daily comfort: comfortable couch, comfortable bed, precisely temperature controlled home, precisely temperature controlled beverages to drink, TV, computer, eating exactly what we want to eat, etc.

Day one of a long distance hike is a day for stubbornness, grit, resilience, or whatever you wanna call it. You just have to make it through and get to tomorrow when you start walking again.

Lastly, I only saw two other hikers all day. Because I am starting in the middle of August, I suspected I would not see very many other hikers. The NOBO hikers should be well north of me, and the SOBO hikers I’m not sure where they should be. It’ll be interesting to see how many more PCT hikers I’ll run into you over the next month.

Sorry for the lengthy post, but it was Day one, and a lot happened. Now, it’s time to go to sleep.

Optional Note: My town food today was a breakfast burrito from Trader Joe’s, and a Barbacoa beef burrito from Chipotle. In the future, I’ll pass on the breakfast burrito. It’s not that great to eat unless it can be heated up first, and I decided not to pack a microwave oven for this trip, so it really wasn’t great. The chipotle burrito for dinner was much better, but it was messy.

Also, mainly for my own purposes, I’m going to put a note about what battery level my iPhone was at the end of each day. This will give me some scientific data that will help to determine how much charging power you need on a particular hike.

Phone Battery: 70%