Prancing on the PCT

Half way there. I can't believe it! The miles have flown by now that we are back on solid ground. Instead of off trail navigation through miles of snow we are cruising and pushing 30 miles on a regular basis.

So I decided to change my shirt for something a little brighter... As the photographer told me over and over, bright colors pop better and I think it's true!

Glorious fields of lupine and bolsom root!

More fields of wildflowers... easy walking in Northern California

Love that ridge walking

The view from the top of Tinkler Nob at sunset

The two ladies in pink

The bright green Staghorn moss grows the entire length of the pine trees except for the bottom 10 feet which get buried in snow every winter

Awesome flowers

We stopped at a forest service hut build in honor of Peter Grubb. Unger is standing up in the winter entrance for times when there are 15 feet of snow on the ground.

Flat horizons mean maybe a little less elevation gain tomorrow?

Shout out to wonderful Aunt Barbara and wonderful friend Boz and wonderful sister Skye for three towns in a row with care packages. Thank you!!!

This is part of a 5000 foot climb out of the town of Belden which is situated way way down in The Valley!

Lots of Northern California lakes that we of course HAVE to jump in

Leopard lily

Found the bunny on trail (we named him The Walkin Fool and I carried him for three days). The watermelon was a surprise bit of trail magic from a wonderful couple

Beautiful bridge over the north fork of the Feather River

Giant sugar pine cones are a delicious snack for the local squirrel population and they leave their leftovers all over the trail

A beautiful surprise around every corner

Notice the reflection of the clouds

Easy trail

Lassen peak calling us north through beautiful volcanic landscapes

Which way to Canada?

This is the halfway point on the trail. Can't quite believe it! We are trying to practice our balancing skills but you can tell we are still falling in style.

Lassen volcanic park... lots of board walks as well as geysers, hydrothermal lakes and lots of volcanic rock

Mount Shasta at sunset calling us ever northward

One of our team members - Neon - left his car in Mammoth for the summer so we were lucky enough to have wheels during our resupply. That also means we got to take a side trip to Yosemite. What a valley! It was my first time visiting the national park and it was a fantastic day full of granite domes, waterfalls, and of course lots of hiking. What else would we do on a rest day?

Over all this section has been phenomenal. Lots of challenging stream crossings but we are slowly making our way out of the snow and back to the lower elevation greenery. It is a joy to finally see the trail again and feel like we can bump our milage up to 25-30 again. Now that we are through the toughest section it is time to get serious about making it to Canada!

I am still hiking with the same group of 8 and couldn't ask for a better team or a better year to be hiking the PCT!

Just a reminder that Hannah and I are still working on our fundraiser for Inspiring Girls Expeditions. We are trying to earn one dollar for every mile we hike to send high school girls on Wilderness Science Expeditions. Please see this link for more information. Even a 10 dollar donation helps a lot and gets us ten miles closer to our goal!

Please enjoy the photos and captions below,

Cheers!
Wasabi

PS - Photo credit goes to Ryan Unger for any pictures with me in them.

The bountiful amount of water flowing through The Valley is turning everything green and luscious!

Sunset joy!

Awesome orange fungus!

This was one of our deeper crossings

Sometimes we go over snow bridges and sometimes we crawl unde

1000 miles?!? Can't believe it

Sonora Pass beauty

Unger likes to prove that umbrellas are useful even with an ice axe in hand

One of the last high passes! Yippeee!

Flowers, mountains and hikers, what could be better?

Tony very kindly gave us a hitch into Kennedy Meadows North in the back of his truck

Sometimes we slip and "turtle" on the snow

Sometimes I hike solo and sometimes we hike in more of a line, both are great

Sometimes we are tired and just want to make a face!

And suddenly we find ourselves in a volcanic landscape instead of granite

Taking a look at the storm rolling in

Snow is becoming more intermittent the further north we get but it definitely isn't gone

This was a rather precipitous location for the trail

Getting drinking water is beautiful when you get to see the reflection of these mountains in the lake!

Sometimes we are tired and it's time for a quick siesta... some of the guys carry umbrellas for sun and rain protection... usually I make fun of them but this was pretty nice!

In this picture you can see how trails tend to migrate over time. In a meadow the water table is just below the surface so as soon as the trail is worn down enough it becomes muddy and hikers move slightly to the left or right leaving the original tread to recover. Sometimes we can see five parallel scars telling the history of a trail!

We cross miles of suncups

And sometimes they are rather deep suncups!!!

Climbing up up up

And down down down

If you look closely you can tell I'm drinking water, not taking a picture, but both compete for the top priority!

We hitched a ride into the Whoa Nellie Deli at the Mobile with a wonderful trail angel named Brian. This has to be the most famous and gourmet gas station I've ever been to!

Early morning silhouette shot!

Recently we have found more sections of real trail instead of just route finding and off trail navigation all day... this makes us smile

Here I am looking out at Yosemite Valley again

Plenty of green meadows and lakes down in the valleys, some of them are ice free and others are not but we make sure to swim at least once a day regardless!

The wildflowers are glorious!

The wildflowers are out in full force!

Indian paintbrush makes me feel like I'm back in Washington

Sometimes we cross streams like this

But often we cross streams just like this!

When the bugs get bad everyone crawls in my tent for dinner

Scrambled up a granite dome driving into Yosemite and this is the view we were rewarded with

Scenery makes every dinner delicious!

Cathedral peak, a granite spire in Yosemite that my friend and Unger (the most experienced climber in our group) summited in a past trip in the Sierra

El Cap- arguably the most famous climb in Yosemite... later under the full moon we got to watch tiny pin pricks of light inch their way up the wall and teams continued their push to the top

Leaving Mammoth this is what we saw, it's always a good feeling to get back on the trail but especially when you get to walk along seeing this!

The Tuolumne Meadows post office was closed so I picked up packages in Yosemite Valley itself... so excited by the care packages from Galena and grandma and grandpa Kavanaugh... thank you!!!