Dehydration is one way to keep me from getting up through the night. Swarming mosquitoes appears to be another. I found a simple solution…just tell Bunny I spilled the nalgene water bottle and not to worry about the tent floor. In my mind, I helped to sterilize the tent floor. Bunny is always worried about how dirty the tent is. I’m just doing my part.
We were warned about bugs in Washington, but this is beyond ridiculous. At any given time, there was more than a hundred mosquitoes hanging out on each of the screen doors. Not to mention the thousands flying around in case backup was needed. The constant humming of the mosquitoes was an additional mind-fuck I wasn’t prepared for. It is so bad when we’re hiking that mouth breathing guarantees bugs in mouth. I suppose I should look on the positive side and say the trail is providing a free source of protein, but you do have to wonder who/what’s blood you are ingesting.
Stopping? Fagedaboudit. If you’re moving about 2mph, that’s generally fast enough that the mosquitoes will leave you alone, but then there’s the crane fly swarms. I’d be the first to say this isn’t enjoyable, but Bunny beat me to it with her backup chorus of “I want a house and my own bed…” A few other sobos have told us they have been setting up their tents when they want to take a break. That’s what we did today and it did work out. We were able to take off our boots, have a snack, and even get in a short nap. We’ve got our routine down to where we just have a few minutes of hell while we’re packing up the tent.
There are birds walking the trail with us. They appear to be some sort of flycatchers that eat mosquitoes. They are eating so much that they can’t even lift off the ground anymore. I heard one say “I wish I wore pants so I could loosen my belt.” Does this sound like fun to anyone? It snot. The last day and a half is the closest I’ve come to quitting since we started hiking. While we were relaxing in the tent at lunch, I imagined going back to work. In other words, I had a waking nightmare. In that scenario, I quit exercising and continued like I currently am on the trail so I could die from diabetes complications before I put in too many years. I did imagine one scenario where we moved to Portland, ME. Bunny dumbed down her career to a nurse and I went to work for LL Bean. It was/is plausible.
In the most ironic twist of the day, we stopped at Mosquito Creek to fill up with water. It was the first relief we had had from the little bitches (remember, only the female bites you, I am pronoun correct if nothing else) up until then. I was talking to another hiker lamenting about the mosquitoes and the general trail conditions that have put us here in Washington. This is not the way I wanted to hike the PCT. She said no one is hiking the trail they wanted to this year, but we are adapting the best we can. She also told me she moved out here from Ohio a few years ago, and, yes, this is how it will be all summer long in the mountains…if you camp near lakes. The trick is to not select campsites near water.
This realization that not just our hike is screwed up, almost everyone’s is. Of course, there will be a few diehards that battle straight through. A few of their bodies have been pulled out of the Sierra and some more have been rescued, but some are making it. The vast majority of us are changing/adapting. Misery loves company and we do have plenty of company, or are at least starting to run into other hikers to make us see it. At long as other people are miserable and having a lousy time, I’m okay with it.
We did meet another hiker, Chandler, who offered to share a ride with us into town in the morning. We’ve had phone battery issues and our phone is just about dead. We do have a battery pack, but it has failed. If we hike an extra couple of miles tonight, we’ll have a guaranteed ride into town and will no longer have to worry about the phone dying. Just a couple of small things and I’m feeling more optimistic already.
From that point on, we got away from standing lakes and the hiking was much better. Sure, mosquitoes and flies still found us when we stopped moving, but only in the tens not the tens of thousands that darken the skies around the mountain lakes. We filled up on water at Trout Creek and walked an additional 3 miles that we hadn’t planned on walking today. That means we hiked over 50 miles in 3 days. This is the pace we need to hike for the rest of the year. The pace Bunny has been pushing for us to hike. The pace we need to hike if we’re going to make Trail Days. The pace we clearly are capable of hiking. The pace that Bunny no longer wishes to hike.
One of the things we talked about at lunch, when we were lying in our tent, was that we are giving up on the idea of finishing our thru-hike of the PCT. We’re not quitting, just accepting the fact that at the end of the year, we will not be “thru-hikers”, but will be low-like section hikers—failed thru-hikers—that only hiked about 1800 miles. Not a bad amount, but still a fail for the goal we set out to do.
In the end, we camped in another mosquito meadow having passed up a mosquito-free zone by Trout Creek. The big difference is, we got our act together this time. We set up the tent and jumped in in less than 3 minutes. Only two mosquitoes made it in with us and they quickly became our favorite kind of mosquito…dead. We’ve decided we’d rather cook and eat in our tent to avoid the sure thing of being eaten by mosquitoes rather than dealing with the remote possibility of being eaten by a bear. I am a gallant husband. I sleep with the food on my side of the tent, but I Place Bunny’s dirty socks on the food bags. Anything willing to go through those smelly things for the food must be desperate enough to really need it.
EFG