Day 52: It is Official…

Mile 982.3 to mile 1006.8 (24.5 miles, 39.4 km)

….Sierra mozzies are a worse annoyance that NZ sand flies. They take number one place as most annoying insect of all time in my opinion. They are horrible!!!

You sort of get warned about the mozzies. Advice is always to carry a bug net and Deet.

What you don’t get warned about in planning for the PCT is that after the snows have melted the place turns into a bog heap.

Huge swathes of track are mud pits at the moment, particularly across meadows and the numerous pools of standing water are havens for the industrial mozzie. And your shoes will be coated in said mud and smell absolutely putrid – wet stream crossings are good for one thing at least.

The mosquitos are so annoying. The constant high pitched brrrr… around the ears is enough to drive one mad; and constantly slapping any exposed skin. I have some 100% Deet and although I hate using the stuff, was forced to, at least around my ears. In addition to wearing a bug net across the meadows where huge clouds of the blood suckers form.

I was unable to eat lunch properly today due to swarming cloud mass around me. I had pictured a lazy lunch by Lake Dorothy (I think that’s what it was called) but it wasn’t to be. Not just at lunch but whenever I stopped or sat down for longer than 30 seconds. Lunch was basically a 15 minute affair. Enough time to take off my pack, pull out my bear can, get items necessary for a few wraps, make wraps and smash them down before death my a million bites.

But I sense a shift. The terrain, soil and vegetation changed again this afternoon around the 1000 mile marker. That’s right 4 figures and 1000 miles in!! It looks like we are back in the dry pines with no understory, certainly no meadows anyway, and it’s a relief to be through the worst of the mosquitoes.

I’m 10 miles out from Hwy 108 and Sonora Pass, hoping to get and early start and a resupply at Kennedy Meadows Resort, not to be confused with the Kennedy Meadows at the southern end of the Sierra.