Miles hiked: 30.8.
Slept better last night but still did a bit of a snooze when the alarm went off. The first 10 miles of trail this morning crossed through a series of black, bouldery lava flows (not active) streaming down of off Brown Mountain, with the tread made of that red lava you sometimes see in landscaping, hauled in from who knows how far away. In between the flows were bands of fir with chinquapin and scrub oak understory. The land dropped away off to the west in rolling forested hills under a smokey and overcast sky. This was a stunning landscape to walk through, but as with anything that stays the same for several hours, it eventually got a bit repetitive and the rocky trail was starting to make some pretty sore feet.
Finally the trail came to hwy 140 which crosses the mountains between Medford and Klamath Falls, and got water for the next 10 mile dry stretch. I wasn't quite ready for brunch yet so hiked a few more miles into thick forest and gradually up the eastern side of Mt. McLoughlin, which seems to be the first of the big, classically cone-shaped peaks of the Cascades.
With brunch in a little patch of sun in the forest over, I continued what turned out to be a very long walk through miles and miles and miles of trees. Like somewhere around 15 miles of pretty much the same view step after step after step. During the first part while it was still sort of morning, there were at least quite a few birds cruising around in mixed species flocks: tanager, lots of Hermit Warblers, Golden-crowned Kinglets and Brown Creepers with their high little fluting, and hatch year Juncos EVERYWHERE. But eventually the forest too got a bit monotonous and my feet started feeling pretty bad with a new burning pain on the inside-ball of my left foot that my or may not be related to the planar fasciitis I've had for several hundred miles now.
And I stopped having fun. And started wondering again why I'm doing this. And for the first time of the trip I had real thoughts of quitting and going home and doing everything I spend most of every day thinking about now. But I kept coming back to a vision of how it will feel to reach the border and see that monument that's the twin of the one at the Mexico border. Life is made richer by having lofty goals and achieving them. Walking the entire PCT has been a goal of mine for many years, and even if it isn't fun every day, I know that there will be great reward when I finish.
And so I pushed on through the foot pain and the boredom and had siesta near a little spring. I ate my dinner here because it was 15 miles to the next water and I was already 20 in to the day and knew I didn't have a big 3-5 in me. I napped and stretched and used my water filter as a roller for the bottom of my feet and drank a bunch of water and when I started hiking again I the feet felt much better. And as has been the case every time so far on this trip, when the pain goes away, the hiking gets fun again.
The trail dropped slightly then rode the 6,000 foot contour line for 4-5 miles through more forest (I think they might be spruce or maybe larch). But now it was fun fast walking and there were the first blueberries of the trip, pretty thick in places.
As the sun dipped down into the cloud/smoke along the horizon I climbed up out of the forest onto a light, shaley ridge and finally there were long views back south at McLoughlin and east at what I eventually figured out was Upper Klamath Lake, and west out over all those green hills. I made camp along this ridge on a rocky flat in a burned section of forest. The sun peaked out below the smoke once more before setting, sort of candy apple red with some orange mixed in.
Birds:
Northern Flicker
American Robin
Brown Creeper
Western Tanager
Steller's Jay
Mountain Chickadee
Hermit Warbler
Gray Jay
Red-breasted Nuthatch
Orange-crowned Warbler
Golden-crowned Kinglet
Warbling Vireo- hatch year
Hermit Thrush
Black-backed Woodpecker
Clark's Nutcracker
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