I walked 500 miles, then I walked 500 more

We passed the PCT midpoint last week! It wasn’t our midpoint since we skipped a section, but it was still a neat milestone. We’ll pass our actual midpoint within the next 3 days. Halfway done. How are we only halfway done?! Haaa.

Walking into the Tahoe National Forest reminded me of how close I am to Oakland. How weird it feels to have walked most of the way home.

The cooler weather we’ve been having lately has been very welcome, except for when I have to get out of my warm sleeping bag in the morning. It’s been so nice to carry less water and to not feel like I’m going to melt. The cool temps should stick around since we’ll be hovering at higher elevations for the next few weeks. We’ll hit 8,000 feet for the first time on the trail within a couple of days.

We’re pretty lucky to have made it about 2.5 months into the hike without having been affected by any forest fires. We still haven’t been in harm’s way, but we did end up with a view of billowing smoke from the Walker Fire. At the time it was about 2,000 acres, but last I read it was up to 47,000 acres. We could smell the smoke here in Sierra City this morning.

The past 40ish miles have been some of the most beautiful miles we’ve had in a while. We are closing in on the Sierras, which means we’ll be seeing the biggest mountains we’ve seen since Washington. Hello again, mountains!