7/11/14 Reunion at Hwy 3. 7/12/14 Lakes and Cow Bells.

7/11/14 Friday.  5.5 miles

Here's the ladies of the club (l-r)!

Me, Colleen (my hiking friend from home)

and Peggy.

I'm restarting the trail after 11 days R & R in Medford. 

Recap of Peggy's solo hike from 6/29/14

After I left Peggy in Burney, Ca 6/29/14 she spent that night and 6/30 resting and doing chores then got a ride back to the PCT with a local lady on Wednesday 7/1/14. She hiked solo for 130 miles from Burney Falls to Castella then to Hwy 3 where we resumed hiking together.  Along her way she encountered triple digit heat for 4.5 days, a thunder storm with hail while crossing a ridge, morning rain, 4 rattlesnakes in one day, and 3 sets of doe with tiny fawns. Not to mention " the llama boys" 2 young men  with 2 full grown llamas & one dog dreaming of walking to Peru. They'd laid out their sleeping bags and slept in the middle of the trail with all their "stuff" not to mention they'd built a campfire in the trail too. It took some doing getting around them and their animals. They were not PCT hikers but thought they could use the trail for a time on their way to Peru!!  Peggy also saw our friend Caty who she got to know in the first days of the trail,  the 3 of us camped together my first night on the PCT this year.  She's happy, hiking strong and seems to be quite trail wise after these three months on the PCT.

   Colleen's husband, Denver, drove Colleen & I to Hwy 3 on 7/11/14 to meet Peggy at 11am.  She'd hiked out to the highway and was waiting for us at the trailhead.  It had been raining pretty steadily that morning but it was just overcast by the time we met her.  We'd brought cold soda and tree ripened peaches as a snack before we started hiking and I had brought Peggy's new, smaller pack belt which she changed out on her backpack.  (She'd had back pain a few days before reaching Burney and she'd been using foam as padding for the last 11 days to relieve the pain.  We thought perhaps she might need a new belt after losing weight??  This has proved to be the case. No back pain after the replacement belt. Hooray!)

 Thank you Denver, for being our trail angel on this section of trail! 

Colleen will join Peggy and I for 3.5 days hiking to Etna, Ca.  It's fun to share the trail with friends and I'm looking forward to seeing the PCT again after my R&R at home. 

Waving goodbye to Denver, we hoisted our packs and took to the trail.  Peggy had laid out a plan to stop 5.5 miles in near a spring and that's what we did.  

We entered the Trinity Alps. 

White  granite peaks in the distance.

Colleen has been inducted into the Tree Sniffing Club... Ponderosa Pine really do smell like vanilla!

Today we celebrated Peggy's 3 month anniversary on the trail with a package of Twizzlers. A package all for her! (Earlier on the trail, I'd eaten an entire package by myself while reading, not noticing I'd finished it off without sharing any!)

Peggy had brought a deck of cards with tree identification on them,  we spent an hour playing cards under the trees at our campsite before dinner. 

7/12/14 Saturday 12.5 miles

We slept in until 6am so we were on the trail hiking by 7:10. There was a 4 mile climb up to alpine meadows, 7,300 ft elevation, with pretty views accompanied by the sound of cow bells.  There were some lakes below us looking inviting but we were too far above them to venture down. 

A pretty lake nestled in this valley below us.

Red colored granite trail.

The exposed trail contoured around this mountain offering long views.

This is Colleen on an overlook where we took a lunch break.  Three small lakes were tucked into this valley.

At a tiny spring across the trail we found the Darlingtonia or Pitcher Plant. (looks like a cobra's head) A carnivorous flower that digests insects who fall into it's watery "pitcher".  

Colleen and Peggy.

Some miles later we found a small spring and took a shaded lunch under a big tree, it was hot out and we all washed our faces, rinsed our bandanas to cool off & I waded in the cool water.  A thru hiker from Cambridge, England passed us, he must have been hiking solo because no one had given him a trail name yet!

Finally we reached a place to camp.  After setting up we played a game of cards,  the game went on longer than expected until all our stomaches were growling!  My dinner was one I'd dehydrated myself,  yellow curried lentils with dried pork roast and instant rice, one of my favorites. 

Tomorrow we'll get up at 5 to get miles in before it's too hot.  Today I had to take Aleve for painful hip and feet,  hopefully it's just the getting-back-on-the-trail discomforts.