PCT 2026 Day 133 – CA Section P – Wait… what?

We interrupt the updating of old posts to bring you…

Day 133 (back) on the PCT!!!

One thing that happens when you leave the trail after a long through-hike is that you want to go back to the trail.

Sometimes you can’t, sometimes you can.

(More photos when bandwidth allows)

My first week off the trail was mostly letting my body rest and heal. Also having to deal with my apartment, go get groceries, play with my cats, let my cats lay all over on top of me 😹 and generally get used to being back in the real world.

I also took the time to trim my beard and get a haircut. Although the long beard was a sign of the long track and took 5 1/2 months to grow, I didn’t particularly like having it.

Before:

Last beard pic from the trail;

During beard trim (just call me half beard):

After the beard trim:

And after a haircut:

My second week was mostly spent kicking myself for leaving the trail and thinking that the real world sucks. 😊

With my body feeling better, my thoughts started to go back to the trail. I knew I couldn’t finish the entire PCT, but not being able to complete California still nagged at me.

I had done some cleaning of my equipment, some repairs, and even bought some replacement parts that I knew I would need next year. Why would I buy them so early?

Because part of my mind wanted to go back to the trail THIS year. Or even a backpacking trip somewhere else.

So, as a third week back in civilization approached, I started making plans to go back to Mount Shasta and restart my PCT hike from mile 1528.

I even had a passing thought about driving all the way up to Washington and starting from Harts Pass and going the 30 miles to the Canadian border and the Northern Terminus. This thought was mostly because they had just reopened that that section of the trail after the fires. Didn’t take me long to decide not to do this.

And of course, some real world issues started popping up that prevented me from restarting my hike on the PCT. Finding someone to take care of my cats again, work issues, and trying to get myself off the couch (I had been catching up on a lot of TV shows and videos that I had not been able to watch over the past six months 😛).

But finally everything came together, and I drove the five hours up to Mount Shasta, parked my Jeep at a friendly Trail Angel’s house, then got a ride up to the trailhead where I had left the PCT 19 days earlier.

Unfortunately, this was gonna bump my zero day count up to 49 total zero days during the hikes on the PCT this year. Without any context, it sounds like a LOT of zero days. And it was.😯

That meant my goal was:

Hike all the way to the Canadian, Washington, or Oregon border!!! Whichever comes first. 🤣🤣🤣

Not that much different than my goal when I left that Mexican border. 😜

So I started at the Gumboot junction and hiked two-thirds of a mile to mile 1528 and then restarted my northbound PCT hike.

Within a mile, of course, I found some great campsites with even better views of Mount Shasta than I had that last night on the trail. Figures.🤣

Since I started midday, I was only planning to go about 8 miles or so. In the end, that’s pretty much exactly what I ended up doing.

And yet again, I did find a great view of Mount Shasta. It was a small site and a little slanted, but was a very nice campsite to start off this restart of my hike.

Fortunately, I didn’t really have any knee pain on either leg. I did have some pain in my left hip. Usually when backpacking and I get pain in my hips, either my pack is too heavy or it’s not balanced right.

Or both. I did some adjustments on the trail and I will be extra careful when I pack it up in the morning. So, hopefully I can clear that problem up tomorrow.

Definitely a great sunset view of Mount Shasta and also some shots of the moon.