2MoreMiles…

Day 8: Zero at home

Epson salt bath for tired feet

Day 9: (16.3 miles)
mile 111 – 127.3 / 3030ft – 5090ft

So back at it.  Our son dropped us off early Monday near mile 111.  Even though there was a sign sorta pointing in the direction of the PCT, we again needed to get out and use the electric divining rod to get us reconnected to the trail.  It turned out to be a bit south of where we had pulled off adjacent to the bridge.  It was 0730 and the temperature was near 44 degrees so the jackets stayed on, but only for about an hour because it quickly warmed to near 70 degrees.  The terrain was similar to what we encountered in the last few miles before the community center. Oaks and sycamore trees lined the the sandy trail.  We paralleled and made several crossings of the Agua Caliente creek that was running fairly well.  If it had been later in the hike we would have taken the time to bathe and soak our feet in the cool water.  The wooded terrain and sandy soft trail quickly changed to what we refer to now as “ice cream”… Rocky Road ice cream, but absent the ice cream. Up. Up. Up we climbed. Shade becomes infrequent and sought after as the temperature climbs to just over 80 degrees and its only 10am.  It is in stark contrast from what we experienced last week.  So out of the freezer and into the oven we go.  We drink freely from our Camel backs knowing there’s a reliable water source ahead…even if it’s a little brown and tastes funny.  While at the watering hole at mile 120 we find yet another cache and drop our card into it.

Honestly we're not actively looking for these

We also see Alison, and catch up a bit as well as give her a surprise gift we got her at REI…her own titanium cup with a homemade cozy.  She is ecstatic. (She is 22 and recently out of college) We also meet up with Bipolar, and Ryan, a high school friend of our son’s girlfriend.  Since we had some background info on Ryan, Paul decides to “mess” with the kid a bit. When he walks up Paul greets him and says, “Hey aren’t you Ryan from Poway?” Ryan a little puzzled hesitantly replies, “…yes”. Paul continues, “you went to Santa Cruz right?”  Ryan’s friend turns to Ryan and give him a look like ‘this is getting weird’. Paul sensing they’re a little freaked out turns it up a notch and tells them not to “freak” it’s just a “mind thing”, “I kinda have this gift”, to which I decide to play along and add, ” ya, we rarely talk…its kind of annoying “. At this point Bipolar thinks its cool that Paul has this “gift” and Ryan and his buddy are visibly uncomfortable.  Recognizing this, Paul then let’s them in on the joke and tells him how we know of him.  Ryan and his friend laugh and let out a sigh of relief.  In addition to these encounters, and unbeknownst to all of them, I am writhing in horrific pain as my lower back has decided to grace me with uncontrollable muscle spasms.  It happened a little while after I had taken my pack off and while standing had turned and reached into my pack. BAM! I drop like a bag of rocks. Shit. Shit. Shit. Really? Here? Now? Shit. I tell Paul after they move on. ” What do you want to do? Can you walk?” I’m not really sure at this point. Lots of thoughts are racing through my head…mostly, ‘ Are you f#%#-+g kidding me?!’. Determined to “walk” this off, I pop a lone and last muscle relaxer I had squirreled away…just in case. Damn my intuition!  Its 9 miles back to Warner Springs and I’m not ready to surrender, and its only 4 miles to possible campsites and 7 miles to “hiker sanctuary” at Mike Herrera’s.  Were going to Mikes I decide, beside Alison heard there’d be pizza. Anything other than trail food is a great motivator.  After resting for 30 min or so I stand…hmm not so bad. Pack goes on.  This is doable. Grit the teeth. Breathe through the pain…which is remarkably similar to contractions with birthing a child. I can do this. There really are no options other than pushing the SOS button on our Delorme and that is NOT going to happen.  It’s only pain. No one is going to die.  Paul helps by taking my food and my liter bottle of water to reduce the weight of my pack.  It’s up hill most of the way…not surprised.  The scenery is inconsequential and ignored as I keep my eyes on the trail 3 feet ahead of me.  In between series of continuing spasms we march on.  What should of only taken 3 hours takes 5. In joyful agony we reach “Sanctuary”… And then the season finale of Walking Dead flashes through our heads.  Should we continue or walk on?  Peru arrives and raves about the place.  We join Peru.  What the hell, its only a TV show.  We stagger in…me because of my back and Paul because of his pack weight.  Sanctuary it was. We were greeted by Kush, Alison, Bipolar, Joel, Kathy, MaryAnn and Teddy.  We get lucky and don’t have to set up our tent and take refuge in the onsite motorhome. Ah yes a glorious bed, thigh high, so I don’t have to crawl into a tent and sleep on the ground. Dinner and vicodin are soup de jour (yes I have quite an ample stash of vicodin…left over from many of my other injuries from land based activities).  Hoping a rest works it magic.

My angels

Day 10:
Paul (25 miles)
mile 127.3 – 152/ 5090ft -4764ft
Dee (90+ miles via vehicle)
mile 127 – home / 5090ft – 66ft

I finally sleep warm and comfy but once morning breaks I’m unable to get up without debilitating back spasms. Shit.  A plan is hatched with the help of personal Trail Angel, Joel. Paul will continue on his own and we’ll meet up once I’m healed.  Joel will give me a ride back to “civilization” so my son can pick me up and take me home to get fixed. Even though in pain, I had the most enjoyable day with Joel and Teddy. (Teddy had a nasty blister on the bottom of her heel so she was sitting this leg out to allow it to heal properly.  Besides she has nothing to prove as she is the first woman to hike the PCT solo in 1976.  I believe she said she was 49 when she did it.  She had wonderful stories of how it was when she first did the PCT) Joel is an absolute keeper!  He has a heart of gold.  Hopefully I will have the opportunity to “pay it forward” as he has done.

The culprit bladder

…and one more thing. Things happen for a reason. Turns out that just before Paul headed out into the heat of the day, he discovered that his Camel Back bladder had sprung a debilitating leak.  As luck would have it , I wouldn’t be needing mine…and when I got home my Avacado tree was severely dehydrated. So in a convoluted way things worked out.  Better my back goes when nearby home at the beginning of this adventure than in the middle far from help.  God is great…a little quirky in His plan though, but all in all…Life is good.

Day 7: (7.9 miles)
mile 101.1 – 109 / 3455 ft – 4065 ft

So we left Barrel Springs and made our way to Warner Springs. It was a fairly “easy” walk, even for tired and battered feet. The scenery was refreshing and completely different from what we had already walked through.

The big meadows and majestic oak trees conjured up childhood memories of venturing out on my own, hiking in the nearby county park and “summiting” Coyote Peak on a regular basis. 

Along the way is Eagle Rock where we took in a photo op stacking our backpacks to steady our camera on the stick pic (an attachment to the base of our camera that allows us put our camera on the end of a hiking pole so as to take “selfies”) so everyone can be in the picture. 

One more gate, well actually two and we arrive at the Warner Springs Community Center. The community is awesome and they are doing a stellar job supporting the PCT thru-hikers. For a nominal fee you can shower, have breakfast and/or burgers, all the while providing free coffee, cookies (we threw money in the donation jar), access to the internet via onsite computers and power strips to charge your electronics.  Once our neighbors arrived to shuttle us home for a much needed Nero and Zero, we made our goodbyes, swapped contact info and wished each other “Happy Trails”… Until we meet again. 

And so began the ride home back to “reality”.

Day 6: (21.8 miles)
mile 79.3 – 101.1 / 2967 ft – 3455 ft

Go figure we have to go up to go “down” to Barrel Springs and our last night before a much needed Zero. We were lucky to have overcast skies for the majority of the climb, which allowed us to conserve our water and pass up the 1/4 mile down and back up to the trail water cache at 3rd Gate. Thank you Thayer for the half liter for a blast of G2. We climbed most of the morning leapfrogging with Leon from Long Beach all the way to 3rd Gate. The view of the valley below was breathtaking, so much so that I forgot to snap a picture, so you’ll have to just go find out for yourselves! We have coined a phrase as a result of wondering how far we’ve gone, and how much more UP we have…‘You can wonder all you want, or you can wander and find out.’, and so goes our motto that gets us 2 more miles at a time. We are averaging ironically 2 miles an hour. Sometimes we are faster, but with quick breaks, which are timed by playing the Rock Rolling game. (It’s a game we’ve developed to 1. Satiate Paul’s desire to see how far a rock will roll down the sheer cliffs, and 2. To make us not overstay a quick break or breather.) So we stop to rest, often we want to stay longer, so we pick a rock, generally one that is a poorly located loose rock on the trail…like one in the middle upon which one might trip over, and gently nudge it off the edge (Don’t worry there is no trail below when we do this and no Bunnies were harmed in the rolling of the rocks). Sometimes it comes to an abrupt stop, and other times it cascades its way down to the canyon below like pinball machine to our delight, hence more rest.

Not accurate.

We all plan on pushing to Barrel Springs and slowly disperse after lunch and a few stories.

Proof we made it!

On the way to Barrel Springs we pass the 100 mile mark, and take the obligatory picture, and push on, high on musical heroin to take our minds off our unhappy feet. Thanks to our friend John Sotter, his music made the last few miles much more enjoyable.

We made it to Barrel Springs with daylight to spare, and our highest mileage yet 21.8 miles. Pretty good for two fish out of water!

The morning after…

Day 5: (16.9 miles)
mile 62.4 – 79.3 / 4703 ft – 2259 ft

The sun shown brightly, as we slept soundly through the 0530 morning alarm. Me thinks we were just a bit tired. After a jolt of coffee (Starbucks VIA is the bomb!) and a healthy lathering of sunscreen, we set off on our next destination…Scissors Crossing at mile 77. It was as if yesterday’s weather never happened. No signs of snow, hail, or cold besides our wind chapped faces and lips.  It was later than we would normally prefer to start (0700) as it was nearly 0900 and in contrast to yesterday, it was actually warm…nearly 55 degrees.  It would later swing up to the mid 80’s by the time we reached Scissors Crossing.  As we went we discovered that we were less than 30 minutes from the spacious campsites at mile 64.  The Imaginary Friends had already left.  By chance we had wandered into another unscheduled cache of water, left by trail angels in early February.

Welcome surprise!

The desert is an amazing place. Not the stark moonscape that most would think. I can see where a Geologist and/or rock hound would go gonzo out here with all the diverse structures, rock formations and constant change in terrain as you descend into the “desert” floor.

Scissors Crossing behind us in the distance

We have decided that rocks are like snow flakes, no two are alike, and each has its own beauty. Some seemed woefully misplaced, and we wondered how it came to rest in the spot we discovered it. Ok, some of you are thinking the sun must have gotten waay too hot for us to be thinking that deeply. It wasn’t…we have lots of time to wonder. It helps pass the time and the mileage. It appears that it will be an early bloom, and we may be lucky enough to catch it just right, as signs of color was starting to emerge.

What is so striking is how small the colorful and intricate the flowers were in contrast to the drab green of most of the vegetation, and the brown and rust striations that weave through the terrain as well strolled through this complex ecosystem. We lunched at the Rodriguez Truck Spur and continued on. There we met another thru-hiker “Peru” who had completed the trail previously and was doing it again, this time with her boyfriend as her personal trail angel. As we began to descend onto the desert floor the temperature continued to rise and our feet began to “talk loudly at us. Finally 2 more miles and with any luck, cold beer and/or soda (notice we listed beer first. In fact if we had to choose between the creation of the wheel and beer as man’s greatest invention…BEER wins hands down!) Once on the sandy desert floor, in go the earphones, and on goes the music. The music is a great distraction and like morphine for the feet. We reach Scissors Crossing a little before 5pm and whom do we find, yet once again? The Imaginary Friends. We ask if its true. Is there beer here? “Why yes there is, and soda too.” We didn’t listen past their confirmation of beer.

The Holy Grail of Hiking

Off come the packs. Off come the boots. Down goes the beer. Downright best beer we’ve ever tasted. The beauty of it is that is was Coors, which for us evoked many past adventures in our younger years when Coors was the “cool” beer. As we rested, more hikers began to trickle in. One in particular had us rolling. “Shadowfax”, because as he went to sign into the registry, he saw ‘2MoreMiles” in the log. He asked, in a UK accent, “Who’s 2 more miles?”. ‘We are’, we cringe. He then exclaims while laughing, “Have I got a story for you!” and proceeds to tell us about two hikers that had come upon the water cache at Cibbets Flat where we had left the remainder of our 2.5 gallon jug for other hikers to use, and had written in sharpie “2Moremiles…enjoy”, meaning water courtesy of ‘2moremiles’. So the story goes something like this: Shadowfax is on the porch of the Mt. Laguna Lodge towards the evening, when two completely drained and sopping wet hikers appear. He asks them how they’re doing, and they reply exacerbated, “Some bastard at Cibbets Flat wrote on a water container that there was only 2 more miles! There weren’t…it was like 10!” Ooops! Not what we intended, as there is clearly well more than 2 miles from Cibbets Flat to Mt. Laguna. We all had a good laugh, and thinking we might need to skedaddle asked if they were just behind him. Luckily they were taking a day or so off, so we still had some time to relax before we made the push for 2 more miles and a campsite at mile 79.3, and a sweet one at that!

Before set up

Nite. Nite.

No wind and as flat as you can get. Another good day. We were glad we made the 2 mile climb out of Scissors, and the beer definitely helped!

Looking down at Scissors Crossing from mile 79ish

Next stop Barrel Springs!

And so it begins…

Day4: (19.8 miles)
mile 42.6 – 62.4 / 5942 ft – 4703 ft

My, my what a day. In short it went like this:
Snow, heavy (blizzard like) snow, wind and snow, gusty wind (enough to knock you over) with a “touch” of snow, bit O’ sunshine, more snow and gusty wind, bit O’ sunshine, HAIL (the size of little bean bag balls), hail @ 45 degrees, hail @ 90 degrees, bit O’ sunshine, super gusty gale force (enough to knock you off balance) winds and finally just WIND at a constant 25 mph or so, of which we now affectionately refer to as a “breeze”. Set up tent on dirt road at mile 62.4 and call it a day. Now for the long overdue details.

Wring out your wet…

So the night before while we dried out at Mt. Laguna we met some other PCT hikers (Big Easy – cause he’s from New Orleans and his wife “Bulldog II”, cause her mom was “Bulldog I”, Thayer (no trial name yet), Alison (no trail name yet however “Little Miss Sunshine” would work on account of her constant optimism and cheery disposition), and “Paint” as in “Paint your wagon”, cause he looks like one of the characters from the movie…and he was, quite the character, and an absolute treat. He had some hilarious stories that involved found single M&Ms and a Bottle of Vodka. Paint is on his third thru-hiking attempt. It was nice to finally talk with some other thru-hikers and get their take on the trail and what motivated them to do this “thing”. Each had their own motivation, which were of equal value and made sense. As the hour reached hiker “midnight” (9 pm) we dispersed back to our respective hovels in preparation for the next days’ venture. We had decided based upon the extended forecast that we would pack our bags fully, and be prepared to leave at first light, as we had not seen glimpse of snow or even rain after we got our room…go figure. The sun actually came out and the wind stopped! This however, was the calm before the NEXT storm. Somewhere about 0300 in the morning the wind began to gust, but still no sign of rain or snow. Good so far. Beep. Beep. Beep. The alarm goes off at 0530, there’s a “light” dusting of snow (translation, 1-2 inches). We get up and begin to dress…warmly, and prepare for battle with good old Mother Nature. We take our time ensuring everything is secured and water tight. We check the weather forecast on the “smart phone” (Android), because the local new is saying diddily squat. Per Accuweather on the Android, it should clear up by 1100 and start to subside by 0900. We think, how bad can it be? It’s not like it’s raining, and besides we’ve skied in snow storms worse than this. The plan is to “walk” our way out of the storm as we, in theory, will be mostly descending in elevation, thus out of the wrathful weather. Hoods on and pulled tight, gloved up, packs secured and off into a winter wonderland we go. We drop off our room key in the night drop box and make our way down the road to join the PCT. As we pass by the Mt. Laguna store, the shop keeper is out front smoking a cigarette. We ask if anyone else has left yet (it’s 0730 in the morning). He shakes his head, flicks the embers off his cigarette and says, “Nope. You guys heading out?” ‘Yep’, we reply cheerfully. He then wishes us a safe journey, saying gruffly, “Give ’em Hell”, then takes another long drag of his cigarette shaking his head like we are crazy or something. It’s 28 degrees and the wind chill makes it more like 14 degrees. Walk yourself warm became the days’ motto. As we pass by the store, we see a San Diego Channel 10 news van. We figure they’re up here to catch some snow pictures. As we pass by the van, a female newscaster (Hannah Mullins) and her cameraman leap out of the van and yell to us, “What are you doing? Where are you going?” Paul responds matter of factly”, ‘We’re walking to Canada’. Mullens is obviously perplexed, and it’s obvious that she has no idea that the PCT hiking season is upon her, or frankly what the PCT is. She yells at us (cause the wind is gusting wildly) “Will you talk to us for a few minutes?” We look at each other, shrug our shoulders…why not, and reply ‘sure but it’s got to be quick, we don’t want to get cold’. Again Mullens makes a puzzled look. The cameraman chuckles. We do a quick interview about what we are doing, hiking obviously, and the why…bucket list, and the how far/long…2650 miles/5 months, what states the PCT goes through, and that’s we’re not bothered by the snow as we have skied in worse conditions (mainly cause we are cheap and dog gone it we’re gonna get our monies worth out of those overpriced lift tickets if we have to freeze to death to do it…and we nearly have on more than one occasion). Mullens looks to me, as Paul has done most of the talking, and asks something to the effect of what do I think of all this, to which I reply and finish the interview with ‘It’s good to play outside’. (Unfortunately none of this makes the morning or evening news as apparently icicles on the fender of their news van is more interesting. (see http://www.10news.com/news/pacific-storm-system-brings-rain-snow-to-san-diego-county) Now begins the “fun”. First order of business. Find the trail. Per Halfmile’s maps, the trail should be right off a road, just past the store. Before we take that road, we check the app on the Android. The PCT is 378 feet from our location. We walk holding it like a divining rod as we plod closer and closure to the PCT. We spy what looks like a trail in the snow, and the app says we are now 78 feet from the trial. We walk to what we think IS the trail. We are now 178 feet from the PCT! Argh! What is the matter? The arrow is now pointing in the direction we are NOT traveling. Hmmm. It appears we can not get there from here unless we bushwhack. Bushwhack it is. What the hell, we’re hiking in a blizzard, why not increased the degree of difficultly. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Bushwhacking works. We are on the PCT and heading in the right direction…towards Canada. The scenery is glorious, childhood memories of frolicking in the snow rush over us. The trail is literally carpeted in snow. It was truly like walking on new Berber carpeting. Snow is now falling in large flakes as we wind our way through the pines. We are almost too warm and start to sweat. We vent our jackets to let out some heat. As the trees thin, the wind gusts from our left to our right. We put our heads down and lean toward the wind. We keep our eyes ahead surveying overhanging branches in hopes of avoiding a widow-maker (branch that falls suddenly). We are sparred. Ours are the only tracks in the snow as our boots sink 2-4 inches with each step. Our pace is brisk, our spirits are high and we revel in the fact that we have this beautiful experience all to ourselves, and that yes, it is a fact…we are truly crazy.

The snow continues as do we. We apparently both have our jobs to do, and neither will stopped or disuaded. Snot runs freely as our nostrils work overtime to stay moist and warm the frigid air. We notice bobcat and coyote tracks in the snow, and an occasional rabbit (which would account for the bobcat and coyote). It appears that we are not the only ones out and about this morning. The snow dissipates slightly and the wind stays a steady 25 mph with 30-40 mph gusts that cause us to walk like drunken sailors (or lifeguards…take your pick) as we slog through wind blown drifts of snow in the trail. We walk just below an observation deck and a man who is surveying the view, hails us exclaiming, “You gotta really love nature, to be out in weather like this. Most people wouldn’t even think to do what you are doing. They’d think you’re crazy”. ‘Yes were are’ was our reply. ‘We’re on an adventure. We’re walking to Canada’. “Good for you”, the man says heartily. “Good for you!” We continue on. At times the sun peeks out, which makes us giddy. We decide to play a game of ‘sing a sunshine song’ every time the sun comes out. We sucked at that game, as 1. we can’t really sing and 2. we don’t know the words to most of the songs, we recalled that had something to do with sunshine or sun in it. Finally it stopped snowing, but the wind was relentless to the point it became not annoying or even challenging, but just plain funny…stupid funny, and so began trail delirium. Maybe we weren’t really on the PCT at all. Maybe, just maybe we had entered a time warp, walked waaay tooo far and were now on the Yukon trail. Or, maybe we had traveled back in time to Robert Falcon Scott’s ill fated expedition to Antarctica. The possibilities were endless and a perfect distraction as we marched ever onward, determined to walk ourselves OUT of the weather. At one point we saw tracks in the snow ahead of us. How could that be? We honestly didn’t recall anyone passing us, but then we did think we were in the Yukon at one point. We saw several sets of prints, one consistent with a female and another of two different males (it’s a man-tracker thing). It would not be until the next evening that we were able to solve that mystery. Once we reached Pioneer Mail campground, we stopped for a break and lunch. Cars would drive in and out of the campground, yet no one was camping. We half, no strike that, we fervently hoped the cars were arriving to lavish us with trail magic, like a hot drink or whiskey. Reality check…NO. No sooner had we taken our boots off and broken out lunch which comprised of some salami, BBQ chips and cheese all rolled up into a tortilla we began to be pelted by bean bag sized hail. It started off slowly, almost teasingly, then the flood gates opened and we were peppered like losers in a paint ball game. Hurriedly boots were re-applied, and whom should appear just as we were about to shove off, but Eng-Shien and Erhhung the two guys we met day one at Lake Morena, and now dubbed the “Imaginary Friends”. They earned the trail name of “Imaginary Friends” as they were always talking about their “friends” who were ALWAYS ahead of them, but no one ever saw. Yes that’s right Eng, no one, not even sweet Alison could confirm said friends existed. Ha! (inside trail humor). They had let out an hour after us and were now stopping for lunch. Good luck with that guys. Next stop, and to water up would be Sunrise Trailhead where we had stashed some water nearby the cache already there. Off into the wild white yonder we leaned. The trail out of Pioneer Mail follows what appears to be the old route for the Sunrise Hwy.

Edge of Old Sunrise Hwy

It heralded fabulous views of the desert below, devoid of cold and snow. Windier than the end of an automatic car wash though, which would explain why it’s a popular launch site for hang gliders. (and not very successful ones I might add as there were all these “In Memory Of…” plaques pasted to the stone edifices. Note to self…do not take up hang gliding.) We trudged past a happy couple and their dog who were enjoying the view and cajoled them into taking our picture. (while we are often seen together, there is little photographic proof that we are in fact together) As the “Imaginary Friends” are younger and hike much faster than either of us, they quickly caught up and passed us, however we ran into them once more at the Sunrise trailhead water cache. There we attempted to take a picture of the four of us as we really didn’t expect to see them again except maybe for the Kick-Off.

Erhhung, Eng-Shien and us

We laughed and lamented about the snow, wind and hail, and how many times we nearly got blown over (the edge). We were glad we were out of the snow, but unfortunately not the wind.

Peaceful you think? NO! It was gusting over 40mph. It was everything I could do to stay upright while taking this photo.

The wind had blown so hard that it had ripped Erhhung’s newly purchased pack cover right off his back without him knowing it…until stopping to get water. We discussed what our final destinations were for the day. Goal #1, to get to lower elevation and out of the wind, as for us, there would be no way in hell that we would be able to erect our tent in the current blusterfest. Mile 64 would be the goal as “Imaginary Friend”, Eng’s imaginary friends told him they were at mile 64 and setting up camp. (we later found out their “friends” weren’t there but had moved on, thus further solidifying the trail name…in our book). By mile 60 we were more than beat and not confident that we would make it to 64 before darkness had set in. We decided to invoke the “2 more miles” rule and gut it out all the while looking for a flat piece of real-estate, out of the wind. This was kind of hard to find and generally non-existent in low lying chaparell…but we kept a watchful eye out for the right spot. Soon (as in 2 more miles) we spied a dirt road off to our right. We considered its plausibility. It would be out of the wind. It appeared relatively flat, although definitely slanted downhill. It appeared well maintained. We then envisioned us being run over by some drunk off-roading teenagers in the middle of the night because they didn’t see our tent set up in the middle of the road until it was too late. Like hell we were going to have survived walking nearly 20 miles through a fricken blizzard, hail and wind storm only to be taken out by some pimply-faced wing-nuts who were off joy riding in Earl’s POS 4×4. NO WAY! So on we walked resigned to push till mile 64 and our “Imaginary Friends”. But wait, what’s that we see off in the near distance? Is that a structure? Could it be an area out of the blusterfest? Were we now truly delirious and seeing things that weren’t there? Not a chance! Low and behold, at mile 62.4, we came upon the most glorious site EVER. It was flat, out of the wind, had a pre-made rock campfire ring, and even large wooden (moveable) stumps upon which to sit comfortably, and a view.

The morning after…peaceful

SCORE! We settled in quickly and reflected on the day. For all it’s hardship and challenges, the beauty and sense of accomplishment made for the BEST DAY EVER! All things being equal, would we do it again? Absolutely! And based on our “luck” we will probably have to do it again…or at least something similar. Bring It!

Just a quick update with LOTS more to follow late Saturday as we will Nero and Zero at home.  We passed mile 100 and have made it to Barrel Springs. As such we figure based on accumulative PCT trail length, to include additional miles for walks into town and when we miss the trail and have to walk back to it or bushwack toward it (already did that in the snow…story to follow tomorrow) that adds another 50+ miles to make it an even 2700. Thus we are 1/27th done. Booya!  A quick primer for today with more to follow tomorrow and again on Sunday.  Today was a 21 miler, and wonderfully overcast from just 2 miles past scissors crossing.  We head to Warner Springs at the crack of dawn…maybe not exactly the crack of dawn but more like when we wake up and have our coffee… for our ride home tomorrow. A resupply, a little clean up…Jacuzzi and a trip to REI for some stuff…new gaiters and a warmer sleeping bag for Dee.  We will also try and figure out how to better use our whizbang camera so we can take some cool nighttime photos, and better, not so washed out, daytime ones as well.  We realize this post is a little dry, but then so was today.  Our egress from Mt. Laguna…NOT dry in way, shape, or form.  Only photos and the full story will suffice.  Now if we could just get these damn frogs to shut up and the military helicopters to go home…maybe we could get some much needed sleep…oh wait Paul’s already out.  Come on ear plugs!

So here we are beginning at the border all fresh and full of spunk…three days later how quickly things change!

Wondering what happened in between? Have we got a few stories for you! 

Day one: (20 miles)
mile 0.0 – 20.0 / 2621ft – 3038ft
We left from the monument (8am)”a bit” later than we had intended. It was a brisk 45 degrees, so maybe not starting at 6 or 7 was not so bad.  And off we went to hike ourselves warm. Travel along the trail was relatively “easy”, with flashbacks of our soft sand running days, which then turned into familiar what we call ” back country ” hiking trails we have been training on at home.  The temperature neared 70 which made us wonder if the 5 liters of water we were carrying was really that necessary. After a few sock changes (3), a snack or two, Paul recovering his cup after it rolled over the side of the trail (hiking poles are not just for hiking)

a tick removal, and several miles of “whose idea was that to make the trail take that route?” we made it to Hauser Creek (without a single snake sighting). And what to our surprise did we find there?…our first encounter with Trail Magic!  A group of local boar hunters were just breaking camp and treated us to the best food ever. After a short conversation and finally convincing them we really are hiking to Canada, they offered us freshly cooked wild boar, chicken sandwiches, water, tea and beer.  We passed on the tea and beer but devoured the wild boar as seen by tray below.

If this is what Trail Magic is all about we could very well GAIN weight over these 2600 some odd miles!  After eating waaay too much we lumbered our way up out of Hauser Creek all 7 steepish switchbacks and into Lake Morena in time to get chocolate milk (Dee’s favorite) and a Coke (Paul’s favorite). We encountered two other PCT hikers who were packing up and moving on to meet friends at the Boulder Oaks campground. Not us. We parked our asses in a campsite near the restroom ( and what later turned out to be a family of crying kids…give the kid a damn cookie! Its spring break for heaven’s sake!…we mumbled under our breath).  So…camping by a lake…even if most of the water is gone…not so good an idea.  We (I mean I) froze our butts off.  Seems we were too tired to eat dinner (and still full from our trail magic)and wouldn’t get up and pee in the middle of night…cause it was cold…bad idea.  Needless to say, lesson learned… Eat, Pee, Sleep…good.  It didn’t actually get down to freezing, but for beachy SoCal people 38 is close enough!  We awoke to frost on our tent which created a softball sized snowball when we went to pack the tent.

Day 2:  (16.1 miles)
mile 20 – 36.1 / 3038 ft – 5282 ft

We hiked ourselves warm again as we made our way out of Lake Morena… again via soft sand and a blinding sunrise with sunglasses that wouldn’t unfog toward the Boulder Oaks campground 6 miles away. Here we would break for breakfast and to fix a nagging insole issue.

The trek was beautiful and the greenest we’d seen the area in a LONG time…awesome turkey hunting area BTW.

Once there I discovered that my overachieving feet decided to reward me with an awesome blister. Best one I’ve had in a long time.

Fixed that sucker, and off again switching from being annoyed by the packed blister on my foot and/or the tag of my hiking pants in the small of my back (that I forgot to remind myself to cut out for this very reason). This was actually good because what followed was nothing but UP and thus was a good distraction.

It was a sunny and balmy 70 degrees… perfect hiking conditions. Clear blue skies and gusty breezes that would turn into a stiff wind, but thankfully at our backs.  We made it to Cibbets Flat for more water and a break.

Water left by trail angels in lieu of hiking down to the campground

While there, we discovered a Geo cache.

We signed the log and added our “2moremiles” card, and once again headed UP! We walked for what seemed like forever looking for the “large oak tree” per Halfmile’s maps as the wind gusted harder, the air temperature began to drop significantly and clouds began to form on the horizon.  Without a moment to lose we reached mile 36.1 (where the large oak tree lived) and quickly pitched our tent, dove inside, and before we did anything else…cooked and ATE a hot meal.  As we finished organizing the interior and planning for another cold, if not colder, night (we put just about every piece of clothing we had, on) we settled in for one of the noisiest nights ever…get your minds out of the gutter.

Day 3: (6.5 miles)
mile 36.1 – 42.6 / 5282 ft – 5942 ft

Sleep was fitful as the walls of our tent thumped at us with every blast of wind that was later followed by of course…Rain.  Well, we wanted to beat the heat. An unintended consequence.  Needless to say the tent and namely us made it through the night.  On goes the rain gear, thick gloves and pack covers (and to think we debated on whether to bring them, but then Murphy’s Law is alive and well with us) and off we slogged…UP…again, but only for a little bit, then the trail rolled along as we bowed our heads watching our feet thinking happy thoughts.

And what to our surprise do we find, again?…another Geo cache!

(I’ll fix the photos when we zero at home in a week…can’t seem to figure it out on my phone)

More slogging and more slogging, and happy we don’t wear trail runners so our feet stayed dry, we found our favorite sign…

"2 More Miles"

…which led us to the Mt. Laguna Lodge  and store (mile 42.6) where we had dropped a resupply box. Considering we were cold and soaking wet for the most part and it was still raining (and the forecast calls for snow), we opted for a room to dry and thaw ourselves out as did several other PCT hikers we met at the lodge. Some had already done 20 miles ahead of us but called for a ride back to the lodge as they too were soaked to the bone.  So here we sit, catching up on our blog, the news, drying our gear and getting a steaming HOT shower and a beer.  If it hasn’t snowed by morning we’re out a here… dry and ready for the next curve ball Ol’ Murphy throws at us.

So this is what we have so far. We’re pretty sure we will jetison some things as we go and or add some things. It appears it will rain on us and possibly snow…go figure.  Ironically we are watching Frozen tonight.  Not sure there’ll be much sleep as tomorrow will come all too soon in the first of many early morning starts.  Once at the monument and the obligatory photo op, we’ll sign the registry before we begin the first of over 2600 miles…2 miles at a time.  We’ll try and post everyday as to our progress and our adventures (depending on cell service and how tired we are). 

Many thanks to our friends who have tried to “fatten” us up before our departure…last meal(s)? …and to those who have offered kind words of encouragement. We’re as ready as we’re going to be.  Here goes nothin.

So today we took a drive out to Lake Morena and down Hauser Creek Rd in an attempt to stash some water at Hauser Creek so as to reduce the amount of water we will carry from the southern terminus. Luckily, or unluckily we timed it so as to be directly behind a Border Patrol truck and the agent who was opening what we discovered to be locked gate posted “Private Property”. We told the agent what we were trying to do. He didn’t really dissuade us from stashing water, he just told us, “No, I can’t let you drive in”, even though google earth show vehicles on that road all the way to where the PCT and Hauser Creek cross paths. (Now that we look closer the vehicles are all white trucks of the Border Patrol variety…darn) We considered for a fraction of a second (but then thought back to our pre-retirement days and questions we loathed) and thought better of asking him for a ride and/or to “be a dear” and drop the water for us. The real issue would be the 6 mile or so walk with no pack to carry it “easily”, and frankly we weren’t really up for what would be 12 mile hike (in the rain), as we had other stashes to make.

So…we, albeit reluctantly, accepted the fact that on day one we will have to hump 5 liters of water to Lake Morena, and turned around…argh! We made our way to Cibbets Flat campground, stashed some water, cause NO WAY IN HELL were we (maybe he) going to walk down the hill and back up for water when you can drive your big ass 4×4 truck up the hill and drop several gallons to use and share. While there we met 3 other PCT hikers (only remembered one guy, John Car…like Johnny Carson without “nny” or the “son”) who mentioned they saw a guy get “airlifted” out at around mile 6 of the PCT because he ran out of water and food. We thought maybe they were trying to scare us off from hiking the trail thinking maybe we were not serious hiker types (we weren’t driving a Subaru, we weren’t in our “hiker uniforms”, and I (Dee) had my bluetooth in my ear, and a small dog roaming nearby in a matching collar and harness), but they weren’t. It was true! (Check out the PCTA.org website for the full story) So getting back to today’s outing…we made our way to Mt. Laguna Store/Lodge where we dropped off our first resupply package. It was FREEZING or at least close to it. While there we spoke with John (name of the day) who was running the store and discussed the current and upcoming weather (warmer Sunday with another front moving in on Tuesday…just in time for us to arrive at Mt. Laguna) and might we think about spending a night or two at the lodge. One half says “no” the other half (the one that gets cold) says “we’ll see, but YES if it’s snowing”. I guess we’ll find out when we find out. John did mention the other places that are fairly easy to stash water near the trial, and an odd fact (we thought at the time) that it’s really windy up around the “Lucky 5 Ranch”. Really windy was an understatement, we nearly lost the lid on the back of our truck. It took some quick action, understanding of aerodynamics, brute force (aka body mass), and a bit of rope to keep the lid from becoming an installation art piece somewhere in the Anza Borrego Desert. Once we were able to reseat the lid and further lock it down, we continued along the Sunrise Hwy (once we thawed) for two more stashes and finally to Scissors Crossing to add to the water already stashed/cached there. It was cool (as in neat, but it was also cool as in cold) to view the trail off in the near distance from the roadway knowing that we will be tiny figures (as seen from afar) on that same trail in T minus 4 days! OMG!

In an article written by Adrianne Wadewitz, PhD (The Gendered forest: Women Relax, Men Mountaineer, The Society Pages Nov 22, 2013) she notes that the men to women backpacker ratio seems to be 5:1, and equates it with the industry’s marketing strategy and product design/availability. She theorizes that hiking/backpacking is marketed toward women as “an escape from their stressful lives, not a sport to challenge their physical ability.”. I agree to some extent, but I think that the onus is more on consumer to shift their paradigm of thinking and to drive the market. For what is a backpack but a big ass purse in which to carry stuff you deem necessary. As with “fashion” purses, backpacks come in varying sizes, styles and brands…some more pricey than others, and depending on the crowd you run with more “status” evoking. If you like, and can afford it, you can have one for any and every type of excursion you go on. And let’s not forget the THOUSANDS of accessories and SHOES you can “pair” with said “purse”. The combinations are endless, and ever evolving with the next “best”and “newest”evolution of gear. Alas, the ratio still seems to be 5:1. Yet I still don’t think its all about the gear and marketing. The issue…the REAL issue is…PEEING, and well let’s be honest, monthly visits from “aunt Edna”. Subtract those, and you’d see the forest teaming with women, cause really when you examine the world of nature who’s tougher?… not to be confused with physically stronger (Think pregnancy, childbirth, child rearing, ability to function (for YEARS) on very little sleep, and the fact that we can be so mean to each-other.) Therefore it is my contention that if women could successfully pee without having to drop their drawers (and even then be assured she wouldn’t pee on herself), and could tell Aunt Edna she couldn’t visit anymore, unless invited (her stays would be limited…very limited) that 5:1 ratio would change dramatically!…don’t ya think? Now where’s my purse?..ah, I mean backpack…it’s time to go for a walk.