The Latest From The PCT

Things are still going well. I'm feeling strong and the miles are getting easier. It's getting hotter though and the humidity is up. The mosquitoes are bad at times, but they have been far less of a problem of late. The big news has been the number of fires out here. There's a 100 miles section of trail that's closed because of a forest fire. The group I've been traveling has been wondering for a over a week what we'd do about it - road walk around it? Hitch ahead? We hoped that by the time we got to the closure area that the situation would have changed and we'd be able to just continue on. No such luck. We go to Sierra City ( a sleepy little town tucked in the hills) and a ride opportunity dropped in our laps. The hitch was reputed to be rather difficult so we jumped at the chance still not knowing if we should go ahead a little more and walk all the trail we possibly could before going ahead. However, the ride we took paralleled the trail and once we got further ahead and saw just how thick the smoke was we decided that we made the right decision in taking the ride. Visibility was down to about a half mile, and had we walked through all that smoke it wouldn't have been very good for the lungs and no fun at all. So now I'm in Chester, and looking to get back to the trail in about an hour. Lassen Park is coming up next and I look forward to that section as it's very beautiful. My time's about to run out, so more when I can find the time.