Another long day with a lot of trees. My longest day yet, in fact — a little over 32 miles. My neighbors got up at 4:30 this morning, so after failing to get back to sleep, I eventually got up and got on the road at about 7. This relatively early start meant I had a chance to cover a lot of miles today.
And, with today’s scenery, there was little else to do. For the first 25 miles, there was barely anything to see besides the trail.
The bulk of the day was spent in tree cover. This particular area had numerous blown-down trees covering the trail, making something of an obstacle course to climb over them, and slowing my progress.
Around my 50th fallen tree, I began to wonder how horseback riders deal with fallen trees. Supposedly, the entire PCT is open to horseback riding, but I couldn’t see how a horse could get over many of these logs.
As if on cue to answer my question, I caught up to a horseback-riding family. They were patiently leading their horses in big alternate routes around or over the trees. The brush made this difficult, and slowed them down a lot (I eventually passed them), but it was always possible to get by.
In the evening, I began to climb out of the view-less forest.
After reaching a campsite by a stream, I set up camp, and went to bed.
