7/6/13 mile 1537 Porcupine Lake to 1552.2 just beyond Chilcoot Creek.

Porcupine Lake is at 7194 elev and I could feel the cold last night. I don't usually sleep inside my bag but I did last night. We got on the trail by 6:50, Judith had already left and Dave was just getting up. We rounded a corner and walked into a completely different world. This one has red soil and big red boulders that are black inside when they break open.  Ponderosa Pine trees grow tall here or they cram their roots into rock crevases and hang on for dear life! Not much grows easily in this red soil. Dave passed us hiking north and then we met our first thru hikers; Juice, Snickers and Deer Hunter. Nice guys, Snickers is from Portland and Deer Hunter from Missouri. Juice didn't stop to talk.  We hiked over a saddle and into another valley along the shady west side of the mountains. Here there are more granite boulders and rock strewn trail as we came to Deadfall Lakes at 10:00. There are many tents and dogs here on the 4th of July weekend since it's an easy 3 mile hike from the trailhead.

DeadFall Lake

 We rested by the lake, filtered water, which we were not happy about since dogs and people are using it and hiked back onto the PCT.  Not 1/4 mi down trail and we found a spring gushing from a rock across the trail!  We dumped all our water and refilled from the spring without bothering with the filter. It was good water! Hiking from Deadfall Lakes to the trail head was only 3 miles and we must have seen 70 people with maybe 20 dogs day hiking or backpacking into the lake today (which is Saturday).  These beautiful lakes really get high use because they're very accessible, at the trailhead we counted 30 cars!  We crossed the access road and moved on down the trail away from civilization and cars.  2 miles and around a corner we were in red soil and boulders again. Colleen took my photo against the deep red rock and blue of the sky.

The trail takes a big U curve going 4 miles around this valley coming out at  Cement Bluff, boulders held together by soil that looks like it could all disintegrate in a hard rain. 

We took a break at the trail top where it met this bluff but didn't feel comfortable hiking onto it.  We could see people down in the valley riding 4 wheelers to the little lake below.  Continuing on we knew we were camping by Chilcoot Creek, 2 more miles.  Wow, mosquitoes were terrible at Chilcoot Creek, we didn't even stop until we got to the top of the ridge .2 miles beyond it. At the top was a viewpoint that we scouted for a camp spot. We found one spot and expanded it to fit 2 tents, moving rocks and smoothing the dirt.  

Looking out over the view we could see 6.5 miles back to the trailhead, even see the shine of cars parked there! It was 4:30 and hot in the sun so we unpacked and made dinner. I fixed mashed potatoes and opened a Spam single... I don't like Spam but have to admit it tasted really good that night!  Clouds are rolling in so we did a walk through of a storm scenario. What to do if lightening strikes close by.  We selected a low spot away from our tents which are underneath the tallest trees on the point. We agreed to leave all things having a metal part, only taking our sleeping bags with us and squatting down making ourselves small (I've since learned that I should cover my ears).  Luckily, during the night the clouds went away with no rain or thunder. This was a really beautiful campsite.