Day 3: The Lilly pond

 Day 3: 24 miles

    We woke up to another beautiful day on the PCT. It was going to be another scorcher without many water sources so getting up early was really advantageous. The terrain was really varied today. We weaved through lava fields and burnt out forests. It was a bit smoky today. Not the kind of smoke that you can taste but the type of smoke that prevents you from seeing all the layers of mountains in the distance. Peter was continuously impressed by how smoothed out the trail was in rocky/lava sections. The amount of work that has been put into this trail is quite something. 

    Peter's chafing was still very much a problem for him and after realizing that the liner of his shorts was a major source of discomfort I made a recommendation. I suggested he go commando in his wind pants. By doing this he would get some air flow and hopefully his wounds would start to heal. This technique seemed to work pretty good and he was able to hike without too much pain. His wind pants are a very pale blue and thankfully are tinted enough that they aren't see-through...until he started to sweat. This was a bit of a source of amusement for me since I often walked behind him. If you see him, ask him to sing you the "Swass" song that he so cleverly made up. 

Proof of Swass

    We ended up stopping a bit earlier today because of the lack of water sources and unfortunately the best water source that we would hit for the evening was in a lilly pond. Now, the picture below doesn't make it look all that bad but it was badder than bad. We had to walk out on this log to get to water that was deep enough to scoop out of. There were snakes swimming in the water and tadpoles. The water looked black and it really clogged up our filters. I think the worst part about it was that the water filtered yellow. We made sure to also pristine this water too. 

I cold soaked some ramen noodles this night but there was a weird tang to them, which I'm assuming came from the water so I skipped dinner. Peter wasn't feeling so good and it seemed like he was coming down with heat stroke. The lack of water sources was starting to take it's toll on him. Let's just say that we weren't drinking to our hearts content this night. I believe he may have had his first puke here. 

The infamous "Lilly Pond"

On day 4 we get to one of the biggest highlights of the trip - Crater Lake :) 

Marathon and Pole Vault