It’s been raining on and off all day long, so the tall, omnipresent underbrush is completely wet — which means your pants get soaking wet as you push past it. The trail’s overgrown, so you have to fight your way through said underbrush all the time. It’s warm enough out that putting on your raingear will just make you equally wet with sweat, so you leave it off…but this means your shirt gets wet as you brush past all the foliage, too. It apparently has been five years since a trail crew came through here, and there are trees down across the trail with increasing frequency — sometimes meaning you have to step over them carefully, but sometimes causing a dangerous detour up or down a steep slope. The slopes are really steep, and the trail’s impressively narrow — sometimes barely wide enough for your two feet if they’re pressed tight together. Of course, you’re also always either ascending or descending sharply, making you hard at work no matter what. Also, your toes are in blistering pain because your feet are soaking wet, and this makes your toes chafe hard against your shoes.
Oh, yeah: it’s getting dark, really dark, and the rain has come back.
Hiking the PCT is not always all beautiful views and …