Day 3 - Campsite 1687 - 10.2 miles

Amazingly enough I slept good last night. I generally don’t wear my daytime/hiking clothes to sleep in but it had been so cold yesterday I didn’t sweat at all during the day. So I felt I could give it a try.  Wearing every stitch of clothing I have worked well and I slept warmer than I had the night before. I was thinking my shoes would be frozen in the morning but no! So I guess it didn’t get too cold. Imagine my surprise and joy when this was my view through my tarp. 

Sun! Woohoo! I took down my tarp and stuffed all my gear in my pack, thinking I would get somewhere in the sun and at water. I felt very disorganized and thought I was missing some stuff. Plus I wanted to dry out my sleep gear as it had gotten damp over the last two nights. So I walked a mile to Sheep Spring and did a pack explosion. 

It turns out I hadn’t lost stuff I just didn’t know where it was. I’m now organized. Well, organized enough. The spring was a gusher and very, very cold. Yummm.

I’m going to introduce someone here I actually met back at Callahan’s Resort. He and his wife were chatting with the singer in the restaurant and I heard them mention they had just finished a section of the PCT in Oregon but that he was hiking the PCT south from there. His trail name is JD Underhill and hers is Spa. That’s the back story but coming up to today I saw someone walking towards me and it was JD. He had started a day after me but had covered the same distance in one day. Damn. Anywoo  here he is!

We ended up hiking most of the rest of the day together, which was fun for me. He is a geneticist by trade and has his own bio-tech company. It was fascinating to hear him talk about his work. 

After yesterday it was so novel to be able to see in the distance. The flowers got a bit beat down yesterday, with frost bowing them over, but the views!

If you look closely you can see Shasta in the distance. 

One fun thing was crossing over the Oregon/California border. There is a trail register that folks can sign and there are ample opportunities for photos. Here are two. 

I kept up with JD till afternoon but I started to fade. My legs were calling out for me to stop. I last saw JD at Bearground Spring. He was headed out for another 6-7 miles but I was stopping at an unnamed campsite just a bit further on. We may reconnect in Seiad Valley, which would be fun. 

So I found a good hang site and had my dinner of spaghetti. I am at 6,207’ tonight so it could be cold. We will see. At any rate I have more confidence I can figure it out and stay warm. Today was a beautiful day.