Climbing high: Mile 761

Written 6/22/14

Posted 6/27/14

Oh boy the mountains are beautiful! We hit our 100th-trail-mile mark today when we got to Cottonwood Pass which also marks the start of the high Sierras! The day after we left Kennedy Meadows we were able to hike 19.5 miles with 4,000 feet of elevation gain which makes that our biggest day yet! We've been feeling really good and we're incredibly excited to spend the next couple of days in the mountains. We also got to experience our first lake swim at the 10,500 foot high Chicken Springs Lake. It was cold but clear and refreshing!

Ever since we left Kennedy Meadows we've been gaining elevation and the scenery has been constantly changing. Our water sources are starting to become more frequent which allows us to carry only 1 or 2 liters at a time and save some extra pounds on our backs. We started this section with 7 days of food and 2 liters of water each. Those are easily the heaviest packs that we'll have this entire trip so it feels great to have that behind us!

Our leg muscles are holding up incredibly well. We both feel like our legs haven't really been tired much. We do some yoga and stretch every other night which is definitely helping. Our blisters on our feet have been more of an issue than any thing else. PCT hikers refer to it as "having your blisters come in". It's inevitable that we'll get blisters and everyone experiences this phase differently. For me, I had horrible blisters all over my feet by day 4. I had a blister on each toe, one on the back of my heel, some between my toes, and some on the balls of my feet. Luckily for me, most of those blisters were small and they completely healed by day 7 and now they never hurt! Mike's blister experience has been a little different. He tends to only get one (maybe two) blisters at a time but there is always a fresh one somewhere on one of his feet. They heal after a few days and I'm sure that eventually he won't get them anymore. Just have to tough it out a little longer! 

We're getting creative setting up the tent. We were missing out on the stars because we weren't able to set up the mesh without the tarp. We started using this cord that Mike brought to tie between two trees and then just hooking the mesh to that. This way the ridge line isn't weight-bearing and we don't have to worry about putting too much force on the mesh seams. We can't cowboy camp without a mesh around the Sierras because the mosquitos would eat us all night.

I've also started to get in better eating habits with my trail food. The first few days I was trying to conserve my food because I didn't want to run out. So I was only eating snacks when I started to feel hungry. I was burning out in the afternoons with that scheme and I didn't have enough energy to get me through the day. I'm now eating something every two hours (minimum) even if I don't feel hungry and it's helping me keep my endurance throughout the day.