Day 51: mile 1172.3-1181.8
I woke up to two nice surprises and one not so nice surprise this morning…
The sun was out and it was warming us up for the day, nice surprise.
My hiking partner is the best and dug me a cathole when he dug his last night in an attempt to get us on the trail that much earlier. …we still left after 9, but it’s the that’s not the point. 😂 Nice surprise.
Something chewed up part of my very expensive sandals, not so nice surprise. Grrr! We wanted to blame Chester the mouse from the Peter Grubb Hut, but the fur tells me it happened last night.
We were off to an easy start for the day, following the forest road for half a mile or so. Then as usual we disagreed on the best route. Ring Master and I discovered early on in our snow adventures we don’t communicate very well when it comes to direction. The issue is we both think we’re right, of course I always am. 😂 Once we started our ascent we saw our first set of bear tracks for the day.
We continued up the mountain, the view was gorgeous in every direction. The clouds were sparse (although they don’t look it in the photos 😂), so we could see for miles. I took my time crossing the first ridge line, enjoying every moment.
Most of the day was nice and sunny, but in the afternoon the clouds rolled in and It was obvious rain was coming. A few sprinkles started, but nothing too heavy. Just enough rain to make me have to pull over and put away the socks I was attempting to dry on the outside of my pack.
Around that time we got to the first patch of dirt we’d seen in days, so exciting! I took my snowshoes off to walk across and felt how I imagine a baby cow feels when it walks for the first time. 😂 My legs got so used to carrying around a few extra pounds, they forgot how to walk without them. It was like a weightless wobble.
More tracks 
From here we split ways and descended down the mountain to camp. I had a blast “skiing” or sliding down on my butt. If I was going to end up on my butt anyway, I might as well do it on purpose. I arrived before Ring Master, but he arrived with much needed water, he wins! Well, I guess we both won because we found a nice DIRT spot to camp on for the night. So excited to not be sleeping on top of cold snow! No stomping required for our campsite tonight, yessss! What a great day! Still tough of course, but nowhere near yesterday. Makes me wonder what will tomorrow throw at us…
First PCT signs we’ve seen 
Goodnight!
XOXO Becks
😊✌️