Day 170 (2 July)

Miles 1325.1 to 1345.8 (20.7 Miles) Soldier Creek camp to Last PCT camp

I slept really well last night, but Dario kept waking up and hearing animals. Since the first night on the PCT in May 2018 I have been sleeping with earplugs and an eyemask. I figure that if we were disturbed by a wild animal I wouldn't really need the anticipation. I'd rather just wake up and deal with it right then and there. I used the silk liner last night in addition to the down sleeping bag and will definitely be doing that again tonight as it still gets really cold at night. And despite the cold we no longer put the rainfly on our tent as it's way better to sleep directly under the starts, protected by the mosquito net of the inner tent.

It's another 6.6 miles to reach the first high point of today, but first: the HALFWAY marker at SOBO mile 1329. Finally we will reach it, even though to us it really doesn't represent the halfway point of our PCT thruhike, but almost the very end of the trail. But still, it is a big deal, we have spent a lot of time dreaming of this moment. 

We reach it after about 2.5 hours and eat our breakfast there in the sun. This is beautiful! Even though we are almost out of breakfast food we are enjoying sitting here with this stunning view, in the sun. Our second last day on the PCT. It's getting real.

When we reach the top we are once again rewarded with the most amazing views on both sides. We keep hiking on that ridge throughout most of the day and keep seeing Mt Lassen, which we've left way behind. 

As our breakfast this morning was rather poor and we still have some hot meals left we decide to stop for a real lunch for a change. Unfortunately water here is sparse and we have to yet again collect it 0.3 miles off trail. While Dario hikes down to get the water I start making lunch. It's really windy up here and I use a lot of fuel. I don't have much water to cook with and end up completely burning the pasta. By adding a lot of parmesan cheese and pepperoni sausage it tastes a tiny bit better, actually tastes a bit like "Älplermakrone" from Switzerland. ;-) Unfortunately now we are out of fuel. It looks like on our last night on the PCT we will have to cold soak tonight's couscous dinner. It's common trail practice, but we've never done it. We were always glad to have a hot meal at the end of every day. But I guess this one last time we can eat cold couscous, especially knowing that tomorrow night we can have a nice celebratory meal in Belden.

The remaining afternoon we are still offered plentiful views, NorCal's beauty is showing all around us. Views, flowers, blue skies.

We finally reach camp at 7.30pm after having walked through some more, this time unexpected snow. Will the campsite be snowfree? We are in luck, there are snowfree patches on the top where we can pitch our tent and are soon joined by three NOBO tents.

Tomorrow we will reach Belden, the end of our PCT thruhike. It's so hard to imagine that we will finish tomorrow. And be in San Francisco for the Fourth of July celebrations in less than 48 hours. And fly back home in a week!