6th May 2025

I slept better in our tent than the two nights I had just spent in actual beds. A big claim from someone who doesn’t like camping. We broke camp early and set off up the notorious Mission Creek. The going was slow with no path to follow and with uneven terrain of rocks, stones, water and sand. Each step required immense concentration and by midday we were shattered. 

Unbeknownst to us we had missed the turning onto the PCT having travelled on the left side of the river bed, not seeing the signs. We continued on for almost 3 miles gaining about 3000 feet of elevation. The river bed became smaller full of felled trees, large stones boulders and waterfalls. We climbed up and over all of the above, still oblivious we were going the wrong way. It was during a sketchy waterfall climb when I almost fell, physically pulling my body over a log suspended above a waterfall did we question whether we had gone astray. 

No navigational tool was helpful in this situation seeing as the path had been obliterated. We decided the best bet was to scramble back down again, retracing our steps to the last cairn which was embarrassingly far away. We did see a bobcat though, trotting through the river bed with its cropped tail.

Once on the correct path we crashed to the floor to have a large lunch before beginning the actual trail ascent. I felt broken climbing up after all the intense climbing we had done earlier today, which turned out to be an utter waste of energy. Even on this path there were steep sections where the trail had been washed out and blown over, which we had to once again climb over.

We arrived at camp feeling downtrodden, as if part of us had been left on Mission Creek basin. We were back in a pine forest again, not that we could really tell, we were just both so obsessed with eating as much food as possible to fully take in our surroundings. I guess that hiker hunger had started to hit!