hazen's notch camp to corliss camp

miles: 20.2

woke up at dawn, packed my tent and made breakfast. over breakfast i thought i’d check the plan for the day. i should have something like 15 miles to johnson hardware.

checking guthook i realized that’s way off. it tells me it’s 17.4 miles from me, but the nearest trail is 32.1 miles. not good. need to submit a bug report to guthook when i get back.

the online way i could make that kind of mileage is if i had left hours ago and over essentially flat terrain. i didn’t have dinner, though i did have a couple extra breakfasts. i guess i’m having oatmeal for dinner. ugh.

so i get on trail. it was a pretty foggy morning, so i just concentrated on hiking. i spent quite a lot of time thinking about home, and my family. i got a really nice note from my brother outlaw (because i’m not married to his sister) about the fact that he missed me. it was a small gesture, but it meant a ton to me.

i stopped at tillitson camp for my morning break. had an rx bar and kept moving.

i passed lockwood pond again. beautiful as ever, it think i took almost an identical shot from when i passed it a few days ago.

at eden crossing i stopped for lunch at the parking lot just before the road. two NOBO hikers, “data” and “the frenchman” were also lunching.

back through devil’s gulch, i got some shots this time.

a few miles later i was back at spruce ledge camp. i had to brown blaze, and spruce ledge has a privy, so i took the .3 mile trail up. i did my business, and then realized there were two other hikers there. i walked toward their backpacks and realized a chipmunk was in one of them! i told it off and suddenly the hikers appeared. i had met them earlier on the trail in passing. they had been wondering what happened to the guy who was doing the yo-yo, so we caught up.

i mentioned my woes re guthook and my resupply, and one of them said she actually had extra food and would i like some! cheesy mashed potatoes with sour cream for dinner! (and maybe oatmeal too, my hiker hunger is kicking in.)

i still had 6.7 miles to go. again it was 15:00hr or so. my left ankle has started to hurt, so i walked a bit slower so i would have more control of my footfalls.

i arrived at corliss camp sometime after 17:30hr. it was deserted. despite a note about mice, i opted to stay in the shelter. i set up my sleeping stuff and made dinner.

about halfway through dinner, a woman showed up, waved at me through the window and set up her tent. then suddenly there was an older man sitting at the table across the camp. then the person he was hiking with showed up. thankfully everyone opted to tent. suddenly the door to the shelter opened and lemon and chai walked in!

they decided to stay in the shelter. i wasn’t thrilled about that, but at least i know they’ve been on trail for some time. we caught up. they’ve been having a good hike, but knees are the big problem.

at almost 20:00, even more people showed up, “unzipped”, his dad, and their dog. i met dad when i had tea on the beach under the suspension bridge the morning i resupplied in richmond. thankfully they’re tenting.

it turns out the first hiker to arrive was “fern” who planned to walk the PCT this year, but was asked not to by the pacific crest trail association (PCTA). (PCT hikers usually start in april, so she never made it to the trail.) she had the same idea as me. being from philly, she could get a relatively easy bail if COVID required it.

some additional photos from today: