Jackson's Flat Group Campground to Cloudburst Sumit, 26,5 miles

Today we summited Mt. Baden-Powell. The PCT goes just below the summit so we went up. We met Giddy-up again and were happy to see him nd chat with him.

He had some very sad and terrible news for us. He told us about a deadly accident of a fellow hiker we knew. No Way Ray seems to have slipped and fallen off the trail on the stretch between the Steel Bridge and the hot springs along the Deep Creek. His wife Alice called the sheriff but there was nothing to be done. We are very shocked and feel very sorry. He had section hiked the PCT before and wanted to thruhike it with his wife.

After the summit we still had patches of snow then gravel and scree trail all along, tiring for the feet soles.

On one stretch we again had to deal with a rattler, this time an almost black one (# 7 already and I don't get accustomed!!) which was right on the trail at high altitude and which didn't rattle before I got to see it. Hhhm.

One piece of trail called Rattlesnake Trail (where Carsten said oh, it's probably named so because there's plenty of them and not because the trail bends so much-so very relieving for me...) was indeed closed due to some frog migration and I was not unhappy about it, as you might imagine. (It also makes sense, where there are frogs there might be more rattlers who feed on them and therefor the trail name.)

So we had to walk long on the closed highway 2. On a close campground they charged 12 $ for the campsite and didn't even have hot showers so we decided to keep walking although we were ready to call it quitts for the day. On the road Giddy-up joined us and finally we found a flat space to camp together. Oh, inbetween we had rain, we were lucky though the really black clouds spared us.

Giddy-up is an interesting person, born in Ohio, moved to Alaska, has a college degree in horsemanship (just imagine, this would't be possible in Germany unfortunately), moves really fast and takes three Vit. I every night to keep the level up.

Good night everybody, it is already dark.

¶ 15:30