Day 30 – Trying to be nocturnal
Originally published on Mason Hikes the PCT 2017.
Mileage: 36 to Willow Spring
Last night, I truly night hiked for the first time. I started at 6 PM and ended at 4 AM after replenishing my water. My body was pretty exhausted during the later portions of the hike, but otherwise, it was great! Instead of 100°+, it was only 75°, which is basically the hottest it gets in Seattle during the summer. I found a covered camping spot to sleep away the day and quickly set up my tent. I was exhausted!
I slept for only about three hours before the sun and the heat woke me up and would not let me fall back asleep. It turns out that the camping spot seemed a lot more covered at night, but during the day it was letting in WAY too much sun to sleep. I packed up my bag and begrudgingly pressed on looking for shade and a breeze.
It was 9 AM and it was already so hot. I thought about trying to make it to the next water source, but 19 miles would force me to hike through the hottest part of the day, which seemed like a bad idea. Instead, I was looking for anything where I could lay in the shade and hopefully stop sweating out all my precious water. A few miles up, I found a nice tree, rolled out my sleeping pad, and went to sleep for about ten minutes. I quickly realized that the bugs were not going to let me sleep if they were crawling inside my nose, so I threw on my headnet and tried again. Success!
My tree!
One of the bad boys
Throughout the day, I woke up various times a sweaty mess because the sun had moved and was beating down on me, but despite the flies and the heat, I was able to sleep reasonably well. Realistically, I hope to never do this again because it’s just far too hot out to sleep, but I guess it’s either sleep or hike and neither sound nice when it’s 110°. I can’t wait for the third option (SWIM!!) to come back. So soon! 🛀
My second sleeping spot
The way we are forced to hike this section of the trail is not my favorite, though it is a nice challenge. Since water is incredibly scarce, hiking has turned into a fun game of “How can I get enough water to survive this heat?”, which requires a lot more planning than I would like. I’m certainly looking forward to the days where I carry a liter of water and stop at the plentiful streams every few miles to get as much or as little as my heart desires.
After sleeping from 11 AM to 4 PM and then sitting around waiting for the heat to die down, I started hiking to the next water at about 6 PM. I had 3 liters of water for 14 miles, so just barely enough, or so I thought. I then began my march of misery.
As it turns out, sleeping in a sauna and sweating for an entire day will dehydrate you. This meant that I was starting my hike with barely enough water for a hydrated person, but I already needed a lot of that water. Have you ever been really thirsty while exercising but there’s no water to drink? That’s basically how I felt for 5 hours, but I was carrying a ton of water on my back! It was agonizing to take a tiny stop when all I wanted to do was finish the bottle. It was a tough mental challenge to ration water like that and I hope that I won’t have to make that choice again anytime soon.
With one mile to go (and after mpassing ile 600), I finally gave in and finished every last drop of water I was carrying and basically ran to the spring to drink even more. I vowed to never leave a desert water source without “cameling up” and drinking a few liters before I left ever again.
After hydrating, it was back to hiking, where I encountered my fifth and sixth skunk of the night. Out of this six, only ONE did not motion threateningly, so not cool skunks! I did learn a new word to describe them though, so that’s fun: crepuscular – active primarily during twilight. I’m not sure why they were all out at 3AM, but I’m pretty sure that’s not twilight. I don’t have any pictures of the skunks because as soon as I saw them and their tail was raised, I ran as fast as I could in the other direction.
I hiked, I hiked, I hiked some more, until the sun came up and I was ready to fall asleep standing up. Around this time, I saw some pretty awesome early morning nature.
For the final two hours, I allowed myself a 2.5 Hour Energy (1/2 of a 5 Hour Energy) and was ready to hike! Caffeine certainly is powerful if you don’t drink it often! I made it down to Willow Spring for water and had some sleepy time under a willow tree.
Also, again: the people that maintain water caches in the desert are awesome!
