July 12, 2021 PCT Miles 1866 - 1890.1 PCT miles 25.1 (0.8 off trail)

We left Maidu Lake and hiked back up to the PCT where we met Siesta and Bearbait. Siesta is hiking with a friendly dog named Vachi - cute 8 year old (looks much younger) Australian Shepherd mix. They are section hiking Oregon. Bearbait is going old-school with a 60 pound external frame pack full of everything one needs to live in the Alaskan wilderness!! Our packs are 20-30 pounds depending on food and water. Funny guy - about 20 years old.

The first 13 miles of today’s hike was through a burn zone that had no reliable water sources, but when we reached Windigo pass we found that trail angels had left hundreds of gallons of water, hand sanitizer and even charging bricks for our phones. Sweet and very thoughtful trail angels! Wow.

We took the old PCT to the Whitefish Horse camp. The trail was longer and more exposed than we expected. We decided to take this trail rather than a new route because of the awesome camp hosts (PCT hiker friendly) noted in Guthook. We arrived and saw no horses and learned from another hiker (Rabbi, not Rabbit) that the camp hosts had left for the store several hours away. They would not return until late. We set up our tent, cleaned feet, replenished our water and watched the birds at their bird feeder - for hours. A bird with the green beak was curious and quite comfortable around humans. Fun. The shade around their camp was nice and a cool breeze came up in the evening. Ahhh.

The hosts of the horse camp returned about 8:30 and we had a brief conversation with them before heading to bed. Bummed that we didn’t have more time with these nice folks, but we were beat. We confirmed that the pretty bird with the lime green beak is an Evening Grosbeak, as Rick had guessed.