Day 88 – 10.8 km – Tuesday 23.07.2024
Since the store doesn’t open until 8 a.m., I’ll be left until 7 a.m. Then I pack my stuff and sit down in the hiker area. Since most hikers can’t really sleep longer either, many people soon sit around. I see many faces that I haven’t seen in a long time and so I’ll exchange ideas with them for a while.
Most of them eat a delicious breakfast burrito and have a coffee. When the shop opens, I am told that the package will not be picked up by the post office until 2 p.m. So I have to wait a while. While many people are gradually settling, I’m waiting with a few others who feel the same way. Hudini, a hiker I’ve met in the last few days, is also waiting for his shoes and Gonzo and Garrett are waiting with us. Most of the time we sit around and talk.
Later, Gonzo and I take a refreshing dip in the lake before eating a delicious burger for lunch. When I asked around 2 p.m. whether my package was there, I was told that unfortunately they couldn’t get it because the staff had too much to do. But I don’t want to wait for tomorrow either, so I’ll browse through the hiker’s box again and put together a meal plan for the next few days. A few more snacks are bought in the shop to round off the food.
Gonzo, Hudini, Garrett and I spontaneously decide to start the 24-hour challenge tomorrow. We try to cover as many miles as possible in 24 hours. Let’s see how many we’ll be able to do. When Hudini’s shoes arrive shortly after 5 p.m., we set off together to walk a few more miles to a hut. From there we want to start our challenge tomorrow.
Fortunately, the postbus takes us to the trail, which is a really unusual ride.
From there we walk the 6.5 miles to the hut pretty quickly. It goes uphill through the forest and we pass a lake before we reach the hut.
After a quick dinner, we’re already going to sleep to be well rested tomorrow.
Day 89 – 97.3 km – Wednesday 24.07.2024
I get up at 6 a.m. and pack my things up. Hudini and Gonzo have apparently already left and Garrett is on his way. Since I’m attacked directly by 30 mosquitoes at breakfast, I’ll be done with it quickly.
Then I’ll start running and start my 24-hour challenge. The aim of this challenge is to make as many kilometers as possible within 24 hours. I set myself 60 miles as a goal, which is about 96 kilometers.
To make a few miles straight away, I walk around the area very quickly. It’s pretty relaxed downhill in the forest. Today it is also a bit cloudy and windy, which, in contrast to the heat of the last few days, is perfect starting conditions.
In the morning, running is so easy for me that I was able to complete over 27 kilometers in the first three hours.
After the section in the forest, it goes through a lunar landscape of burned trees for a long time, which reminds me a little of a battlefield.
In order not to waste time, today we eat and drink while walking, with my diet for today mainly consisting of energy bars.
I only stop for filling and filtering water. So I manage to complete almost 30 kilometers in the first 5 hours, which is a pretty fast pace.
It continues along lakes through the forest and in between I also walk over smaller meadows.
After a few hours I meet Hudini, Gonzo and Garrett, who all broke up clearly in front of me. After almost nine hours on the road, I take a first real break. At this point I have already completed 50 km and so I have a good chance of getting the 96 kilometers full.
I eat a little something and do a 10 minute powernap. After that I’ll start running again, because I still have a lot of track ahead of me and probably won’t be able to keep up the high pace.
It continues for a long time through the forest and in between I meet the others from my group. We have dinner together and have a coffee before we continue again.
The rest of the hours in daylight I then continue to walk alone around.
At some point the 70 kilometers will fall and I think I should reach the goal.
In the setting sun I walk on and get a dreamlike sight of one of the mountains in front of me.
A little later I put on the headlamp so that I can continue to walk in the dark. When I’m filtering some water on a stream, the others who were just behind me came along. From here we walk on together through the darkness and only through the light of the headlamps, we see where we are walking. From time to time it goes through areas where fallen trees block the path. It’s not always easy to find the path around at night, but we make it every time.
Even though I had actually thought that we would lose speed significantly, we continue to run at high speed. We can’t see much in the dark, but at least occasionally marvel at the stars.
After 12 p.m., at least 17.5 hours on the road, running slowly becomes more strenuous and we long for our goal to be achieved.
So the last few kilometers are strenuous uphill, but the motivation is still retained in the group. When we actually reached the 60-mile mark after less than 20 hours, we’re going to the next camp to stay there. Actually, I would have more than 4 hours to continue the distance. The 97 kilometers then made me so hard that I decide to camp with the others. We have reached our destination and until the next camp it would go up again. After more than 2500 meters of climbing, I no longer have any strength for it.
I took the picture later:
All in all, we are all glad that we have achieved the goal. None of us have ever completed 60 miles in 24 hours before, so we congratulate ourselves on this achievement. Since I left last, I had to step on the gas quite a bit to catch up with the others. In the end I completed over 97 kilometers in less than 20 hours. Despite two breaks and a few interruptions to fill up water and to go to the toilet, I still have an average of 5 km/h, which I’m a little proud of.
Finished, but happy, I then go straight to sleep to recover from this mammoth task.
Day 90 – 34.1 km – Thursday 25.07.2024
Today we all stay a little longer because the last night was longer. We’ll start again around 8 a.m. anyway.
Today I’m pretty broken and actually have blisters from yesterday. Accordingly, it is difficult for me to walk today. At first it goes straight uphill and I get a fantastic view of some mountains that rise out of the clouds in front of me.
After that, it’s easy to continue, but I’m still only making progress. The blisters slow me down a lot and in general I don’t feel fit, which is not particularly surprising after the 97 km yesterday and the lack of sleep.
I trot around and my feet hurt with every step.
After a while it gets even worse, as it suddenly continues over lava rock, which is very uncomfortable for the feet. Apparently, Garett has just as much problems as I am and we both walk badly through this landscape. Even if the surroundings look nice, running here is a real agony. Unfortunately, it’s several miles over the hard scree and everything hurts.
Only after a few hours does it get better and we drag ourselves to a youth camp, where we can stay overnight as a PCT hiker and even get dinner for free. Together with other hikers, we eat large quantities to catch up with yesterday’s calorie deficit. After all, yesterday we apparently burned over 8000 calories, which we somehow have to consume again.
After the meal, we finally go to bed.
Day 91 – 7.61 km – Friday 26.07.2024
Although I could have slept longer today, I wake up again at 6 a.m. Since Hudini was apparently able to organize a trip to Bend, we skip breakfast and walk straight to the road, which is only 5 miles away.
Unfortunately, my left Achilles tendon hurts a lot when I start walking and so I walk around like an old man for the first few minutes. After about half an hour it gradually gets better and I can finally increase the pace a bit.
Punctually at 9:30 a.m. we reach a hiking car park, where a nice trail angel by car collects us. He drives us to Bend, about 40 minutes away.
There he lets us out in a café and we have breakfast in a relaxed manner. After that we walk a few meters to an outdoor shop, where everyone can refresh their equipment again. From here we continue on foot to a friend of Gonzo who is so friendly and takes us in for the night. There is enough space in his garden and we can stay there. We can also shower and even wash our clothes.
In the afternoon we go out to eat in a German restaurant. The Jägerschnitzel tastes really delicious and there has been German beer for a long time, which is a nice change.
Shortly after 5 p.m. we make our way to a concert that takes place not far from here. After the entrance we all eat something and then sit on the lawn.
Even if I don’t really know the bands, it’s really fun to listen to the music and it’s a good change from everyday trail life.
Here is a picture of us. From left to right: Garett, I, Hudini, Gonzo.
When I get something to eat during the break and one of the waitresses asks me where I come from and what I’m doing here, all the staff at the food stand are happy that I’m running the PCT. The daughter of one of the women apparently did the section in the Sierra this year and because people all think it’s so cool, I quickly get a dessert on the house. It’s always interesting for me to see how much the people here appreciate the PCT hikers and how friendly they are to them that you can get food as a gift at a food stand at a concert.
After that I go back to my seat and we enjoy the rest of the time at the concert.
After the concert we all buy a big ice cream in the supermarket and return to the garden to spend the night there before we go back to the trail tomorrow.
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