On July 3rd, I passed the 2/3 mark on the trail. I was exactly three months in and 66% done. Plus I was hiking over 30 miles per day so the miles were starting to fly by.
So far the trail in Oregon has been marked extremely well. At every road and intersection, there are signs for the PCT so getting lost is harder and you don’t need to refer to the maps as much, which is nice.
The scenery is a bit monotonous though: it has mostly been hiking through woods with few views. But sometimes you come to a section like this:
I also passed a nice looking shelter that was just off trail, but didn’t stay there because it was too early to camp.
At one point I got a great sight of a mountain in the distance.
Most of the day passed pretty slowly since I was by myself and didn’t see many people. I listened to an audio book for a few hours in the afternoon.
In the evening the mosquitoes started getting bad. I finally stopped to put on some bug spray and in the brief time it took to apply I got several bites. There wasn’t even water around to attract them.
Around the time I started looking for a campsite, the mosquitoes were at their worst so I decided to keep moving, hoping they would let up.
But they never did.
I cursed them up and down, nearly yelling in frustration. They drove me to distraction. Finally, after hiking nearly 40 miles, I set up my tent on a flat place as quickly as possible and dived in to avoid too many bites. I fell asleep to the sound of buzzing all around me.