5th May 2025

It rained throughout the night. Droplets noisily fell on the tin roof, the sound accompanied by the odd, out of sync rooster and the horn of the freight train. I was grateful for the sturdy shelter after the flimsy cover of the tent. 

Nitsy kindly made us breakfast and we helped ourselves to coffee. As our package hadn’t arrived yet we joined another hiker on a trip to Walmart where we brought new adaptors which were half the size and weight of our old ones. On returning to Nitsy’s we found our box had been delivered and we set about packing up and readying to return to trail.

Our first stop was the Whitewater Preserve. A pretty camping site off the PCT with green ponds and yellow flowering cactus in the garden beds. Here, despite being broad daylight, we saw a bat flying around before hanging upside down by the ranger station. 

The trail was beautiful and easy going today. We walked by the river bed before successfully completing our first river crossing, then ascending over a ridge and into the next valley. This section of the PCT has been known to cause navigational challenges, as back in 2023, a hurricane washed away large chunks of the trail. Manoeuvring along the river bed is slow going and if you were to ascend from trail too early you could get trapped on a ridge. Therefore, we took our time on this section, checking regularly we were heading in the right  direction on Far Out. 

We pitched our tent on a sandy ridge on the river bed and cooked dinner for the night. This was the first time we were camping alone with no one around us. Just us and the wild.