Day Seven

Today's miles: 9
Total miles: 86

I woke up when it was still dark, with my dreams still on the trail, and realized I was in bed. And warm. And clean. No early morning wake up, no aching feet and stiff muscles. I slept until the sun woke me, and the feel of it through the breeze of the trees outside made me remember how I used to love it so. It beckoned me to bask in the rays, its warmth a siren's call. But I resisted its lure and lay in bed enjoying the feel of heavy blankets on my legs.

For Katie and I, 7:30 was sleeping in by three hours, so we were awake and hungry for our Bed and Breakfast treat in the parlor. Homemade granola, fresh fruit, eggs florentine and homemade toast. We chatted with a few other hikers who had also stayed the night. It's easy to spot a hiker, even without their tell-tale pack. We all walk with what I call the "hiker hobble", the slow, careful movement of someone who has spent many days walking under weight and over blisters.

We checked out of our delightful B&B at noon and spent a few hours in the library, watching the sun track across the sky.

At 4:30 we caught a hitch back to Scissors Crossing from a lady who told us she tries to drive hikers back and forth to town each day. She told us she loves this time of year because hikers are "the friendliest people she's ever met." Katie and I think trail angels are the friendliest people we've ever met. Small kindnesses like these reaffirm our love of the human race and our natural tendency to help one another out, with no personal gain. It's very uplifting.

We began hiking up the San Felipe hills at dusk, when the weather turned pleasant and our legs were fresh from a night off. We made great time - we did nine miles in three hours, hiking in the dark with headlamps along the dry desert cliffs.

We passed many other hikers camping for the night and met some new ones: Julia and Giddyup, Nate and Games, TJ, Hitch, and Happy Hour. Our "old crew" is still a day ahead of us, and we think perhaps we've lost them for a while.

We decided to cowboy camp tonight, under the stars. It was 9pm and surprisingly mild outside, with no wind and no sound. Lights from the cars far below us flickered in the distance.

We spread our sleeping bags and pads out on our ground tarp and snuggled inside them, looking up. The sky stretched from one horizon to another, a giant bowl from our high perch on top of the mountain. The brilliant stars, satellites and meteors filled our eyes as we lay there in silence, contemplating our place in the world.

I could feel the dirt between my toes, the air against my skin, the stars in my eyes, and never had I felt so connected to the universe as in that moment.

Day Six

Today's miles: 10
Total miles: 77

Today was surprisingly difficult. The terrain not so much... I still maintain that if the SoCal section of the PCT was 70 degrees and you didn't have to carry a 30 pound pack on your back, it would be a very pleasant walk. But the mental battle is a constant game you play with yourself. Whether you should walk slow to conserve energy or fast to beat the heat. Whether you should breathe through your nose and suffer nose bleeds, or your mouth and suffer cracked lips. How long you can push yourself before the need for water overpowers the necessity to conserve it. How you daydream about cool breezes all day. How your thirst is like a deep, empty well, and no matter how you try to slack it, you're constantly craving the feel of water on your tongue and in your throat. How making light of ridiculous conditions makes it more bearable, so you laugh about the lengths you go through to fit yourself into pockets of shade, how the wind likes to beat your face with your sun hat until you have bruises, and how your blistered, dirty feet are starting to resemble tough slices of beef.

And your body grows tired. Some days the walking is easy, and you're feeling rested, and some days you haven't slept and each step feels like dragging heavy chains across the desert.

But there are always moments of peace. Though I didn't sleep last night, I got up at 4:30 and stood outside the tent, feeling the soft, morning breeze and looking up at the stars. There was a quiet sort of stillness in that moment, before the dawn. Before our daily dance with the sunlight began, always running one step ahead, but always losing the race. It is the mornings that I love best in the desert. The quiet stirring of hikers and birds, the soft dawn light hitting the hills and painting them pink. I remember how beautiful it is and how nice it would be to pause on those hillsides and reflect on the passage of time.

But we don't have time, because the race has started, and the sun is already winning.

We walk through the morning, skirting the landscape, but my feet feel heavy today. My eyelids close with exhaustion. The sun tries to lull me to sleep. I try not to give in, but the temptation is great. I am hungry, but can only stomach a few spoonfuls of peanut butter. I am thirsty, but can only allow myself a few precious sips of water. Our next water source is 30 miles away.

We cross dry desert land and find ourselves beneath an underpass at 9am, eight miles from where we started. Some wonderful trail angel has left 50 gallons of well water, carefully kept in old milk jugs and labeled for PCT hiker use. There are several other hikers already there, taking advantage of shade and water, and commenting on how something so simple can make us so incredibly happy.

We learn that we are only 12 miles from the town of Julian, an easy hitch and a tempting escape from the heat of the afternoon, which has climbed to 107 in a few short hours. Plus, the next section of trail promises to be a steep incline for many miles, on a rocky ridge with no shade, better done in late afternoon or evening.

Katie and I are lured into the promise of town comforts, and I would sell my soul for a glass of ice water at this point. So we walk up to the road, stick out our thumbs, and attempt to look adorable. The first van that passes by stops for us, with two older ladies eager to help. We become fast friends as they drop us off in town with the wise words, "never stop traveling, girls. You'll never regret it."

Town is adorable. We are immediately enamoured. The shops on Main Street look like merchantiles straight out of 1880. We stop into Mom's Pie Shop, where we find more of our hiker friends and receives huge slab of homemade apple crumble pie and cinnamon ice cream for free. We write in the trail register at the table, where someone else has written, "I've walked all this way just for mom's pie." It's amazing how wonderful a real building feels, and how real food tastes. We've known nothing but sand and dry creek beds for days.

The townspeople are so friendly. All of them are eager to talk to us, and though we are embarrassed about our dirty feet and the streaks of salt on our clothes, they welcome us with open arms. We find a little Bed and Breakfast called the Julian Gold Rush Hotel, and the receptionist gives us a discount and free laundry service. We are ecstatic and decide to stay the night. Our bodies are wrecked with sand and sun and miles and we need the rest.

The B&B is adorable, and we enjoy showers, clean clothes, tea in the parlor and a burger dinner down the road. The trees in town create a gentle breeze and a calming shade. I wish I could take them with me to the trail.

We fall asleep in a cloudy heaven of pillows at 9pm, excited at the prospect of sleeping in tomorrow.

Day Five

Today's miles: 20
Total miles: 68

Since yesterday was a "short" hiking day at only 11 miles, we decided to try and pound out a higher mileage day today. To do this in the desert requires a fair amount of planning. Between the hours of 8 and 5, the desert is a miserable place to be. There is no heat like that kind of heat - you spend the whole day obsessing about shade, breeze, and your next water source. To make it through the day with your sanity intact requires getting up at 5 am, packing up and hitting the trail by 6 (or preferably earlier). Then you hike until eleven, ideally walking about 10 miles (less if it's really hot or steep), take a break in whatever shade you can find, and continue hiking in late afternoon when the sun is "less intense" (that's sarcasm, folks. The sun is never less intense.)

That's what our plan was for today, anyway. Well rested from last night, we were feeling good and skirted the 4,000 foot hills for five hours in the rising sun.

By then it was too hot to continue, so we checked our water report for the next source and found that it was a horse water trough (yummy). As we drew closer I chanted, "please let there be shade, and water, and a breeze... please let there be shade, and water, and a breeze..." (Sometimes the water sources are dry, which really puts a kink in your day).

When we arrived, there was water, but no shade. And the trough was full of skummy green horse water, so we had to filter it carefully in order to make it potable. As for shade... We were in a large, dry field, marked only by a horse trough, a tall water tank, and a wrecking ball. There were fifteen hikers already crammed into the five inches of shade the water tank provided, looking pretty hilarious in that vast expanse. 

"There's no shade around the wrecking ball, don't bother" a hiker named Casey said. "It's been circled."

Katie and I crammed into the shade with everyone else, having to scoot in circles around the tank as the sun moved. Casey put on a show for our benefit: he had hung his sleeping pad on a wire fence to create a "wall" of shade for himself, and was now acting like it was a puppet show stage. He hid behind it, put his dirty sock on his hand and squeaked, "why do you all look so glum? It's only 98 fucking degrees outside!"
We were cracking up.
More hilarity followed when we heard Jesse shouting, "dude! Pay attention!" at Zachary, who was chasing his tent across the field. They had set it up to create shade, and now it was rolling end over end in the wind, with Zachary close behind, his wild red hit flying.
"We should make him Tumbleweed," Katie said.
Everyone laughed and Casey said, "his hair even looks like a tumbleweed!"
"DONE!" It was decided. A new trail name was born.

We hovered in the bit of shade until 2, then hiked on until we found a larger path to take a nap in. We were soon visited by many of the other hikers as they caught up with us, and we relaxed until 4:30 before pushing on.

We arrived at our destination, Rodriguez Spur Road, late in the day, having covered 20 miles. All my bones and muscles were aching, but it felt good to cover so much ground. Even better? We had a beautiful view of the valley below and a water spigot to rinse off the black dirt (actually, it never comes off...) and fill our empty water bladders. I can't believe how much water I go through in a day, and how precious it is. I dream about ice cubes and cold showers and swimming.

There were a good number of hikers at this campsite, too, old friends and new. Don was there, having been given the trail name "Papa Bear" today by a friend of his. It was perfect for him and we told him so. He was shyly pleased.

Katie and I pitched the tent, enjoyed the view, made a quick pot of dinner (which I couldn't finish... I still have no appetite out here) and turned in at hiker bedtime - 8pm. The evening was warm and I had a hard time falling asleep.

Day Four

Today's miles: 11
Total miles: 47

After yesterday's mental challenge, today was much better. Katie and I got up at 5 am and we were on the trail by 6. We spent the day leapfrogging with four hikers we've been hiking with recently: Tony the Canadian, Don, and brothers Jesse and Zachary.

By 9 am we made it the six miles into Mt Laguna, at 6,000 feet. It was glorious to be near civilization: we ate breakfast at a diner, bought resupply dinners for the next few days, and spent the hottest part of the afternoon in the shade of the general store porch. Everyone in town is so hiker friendly, and it's fun meeting and greeting everyone. Katie and I hung out with Tony, Jesse and Zachary on the porch, airing our hurting feet and eating a whole jar of Nutella in 20 minutes while the boys had farting contests.

We spent the hottest part of the day in the shade, then hiked another five miles to a campground just past Mt Laguna. The views along the way were stunning, looking down at vast, open stretches of desert from our perch at the top of the rolling mountains. Tony, Zachary and Jesse caught up to us, and we took pictures of the view, commenting on how menacing the impending desert looked.
"Like Mordor," I suggested.
"Except less inviting," agreed Tony.

We were feeling good enough to hike another five miles, but we were wary about the availability of camp spots, and the campground looked so inviting. So we opted to stay, which turned out to be a good choice because there were 20 other friendly hikers there, and free showers to enjoy. After being constantly covered in dust and dirt from the trail, a shower was glorious.