Day Nineteen

Today's miles: 7
Total miles: 266

The five of us got an early start this morning. We were excited about town and that always puts us in a fast hiking mood. We were on the trail by 5 and made great time, covering 7 miles in 2.5 hours. When we got to the trailhead at the highway, there was a trail angel named Aloha waiting for us with his car and an armful of cold Gatorades. Aloha's story is an intriguing one: his wife, with the trail name of Toots Magoots, is thru-hiking the trail and he has been "thru-driving" the trail as her support. She hikes with a full backpack (no cheating by utilizing his car) but he is always there to meet her in each town, and in between stops he stays in town to shuttle other hikers back and forth from trailheads.

Honey Bunny, G-Dub and Sansei

We were ecstatic and piled into his car for a ride into town. Aloha said he liked shuttling hikers around because it was gratifying how delighted we got about small conveniences.

"Oh, here's this half-drunk bottle of water I was going to throw away, want it?" And hikers are SO happy to accept. Aloha said, "apparently all I have to do us show up at the trailhead with a cooler of ice and it would make everyone's day."
We completely concurred.

We requested to be dropped off at the nearest breakfast cafe, which happened to be Thelma's, a very hiker friendly establishment. We ordered huge platters of pancakes, eggs and sausages and relished in the simple joys of life.

After breakfast came errands. The unfortunate part of town is that we have such limited time to do everything we need to do, and yet all we really want to do us lounge around and enjoy not hiking. But alas, there was food to buy, lodging to secure, showers to get, laundry to do, and phone calls to make. Katie and I picked up our resupply boxes at the post office and then went to the local hiker hostel to get rooms for the night. We got a girl's dorm room with Rotisserie and Hitch and enjoyed eating half a bag of dried mangos that my mom had sent me in a care package. 

The hostel was full of old friends and hikers. When we walked in we were greeted by calls of "Bramble and Honey Bunny!" One of the things I love best about trail life is that no matter how many or how few days you've spent apart from someone, it's always a reunion when you see someone again. We never say goodbye, we say "see you down the trail." And inevitably, you do. It may take an hour, a day, a week, but we all see each other again, and it's a reunion every time. We're becoming like family.

We enjoyed the amenities of town all afternoon, and then rounded up a few hikers to get some pizza for dinner. Papa Bear spilled pizza sauce on himself halfway through his meal and exclaimed, "oh no, my best shirt!"
We laughed and I said, "Papa Bear, that's your only shirt."

We stayed up talking and enjoying each other's company until way past hiker bedtime... 9:30pm.

Day Eighteen

Today's miles: 21
Total miles: 259

I slept well last night, despite the cooler temps of the higher altitudes. The nice thing about long, hard hiking days is that you sleep like a rock, even though you go to bed at 8:30pm. My alarm went off at 4, but I was too tired to get up and my sleeping bag was warm, so we slept in until 5:30.

Fortunately, the daily temperatures at 8,000 feet are cooler than the desert, and with the high alpine pine trees to give shade, hiking wasn't too unpleasant. We hiked mostly rolling hills between 8,000 an 9,000 feet today and after 12 miles came across a bizarre sight: a personal zoo, located right on the trail. My guidebook said, "this will likely be the only time you will see a grizzly bear on the PCT."

The animals, mostly bears and lions and tigers, looked very forlorn in their little cages, and I felt very sorry for them.

Since we had gone 12 miles and it was almost midday, we decided to take our afternoon siesta. We napped for a bit before moving on, and soon came across a water cache with two sofa chairs! Papa Bear was there reclining, and we agreed that small, simple joys like a chair in the wilderness are things we really miss.

We stopped for dinner at a nice little campsite with some new and old friends: Wocka Wocka, Giddyup, Sweet Tooth, Sansei, G-Dub, and Mehap. I was in good spirits except for some new blisters on my heel, but I dressed them and felt better before we pushed on. Our next town, Big Bear, was only 10 miles away, but we wanted to get closer so we could arrive early tomorrow. Sansei, Mehap, G-Dub, Katie and I hiked another 4 miles to an abandoned jeep road on top of a mountain for the night. We decided to cowboy camp for the evening, and it was hilarious spending the evening with the boys, who all had quirky senses of humor. We ended up telling jokes about horny Horny Toads and other such shenanigans until we fell asleep laughing under the stars.

Day Seventeen

Today's miles: 20
Total miles: 238

We were up before the stars faded at 4 am and on the trail at 5, leaving behind our sleeping hiker friends. We walked along the Whitewater Creek for a few miles and then pushed up and over some big hills in the early morning sunlight. I was thankful we had gotten up wary today, because as warm as it was at 7am, I didn't want to be climbing these desert hills in the heat of the day.

We took a few snack breaks, and just a it was starting to get hot (like, 9 am) we hit 10 miles and came across another water source - Mission Creek. After so long in the desert with barely a glimpse of water, it was very odd seeing two small creeks in one day. According to our maps, we would be following Mission Creek for most of the afternoon, so we'd have a steady supply of water. This was a huge gift in such a simple package.

Wocka and Giddyup were already at the stream, taking a break to fill up water and stick their feet in. That sounded so wonderful that we couldn't resist, either. We took off our shirts, doused then in the cold creek, and then put them back on, feeling the cool breeze touch our skin.

We hiked on, and as the day wore on, the sun grew hotter. At every creek crossing we re-soaked our shirts and dumped hats full of water on our heads. But despite our best efforts, the hot, dry desert sun dried our clothes completely in 20 minutes. It was a continual effort to try and stay cool.

The presence of water was a God-send. My heart was fairly singing all day, so glad was I to be near a running river. There was no better sound in the world than that of a steady water flow when you have been without for so long. My soul yearns for water - river, lake, ocean - and being so far from it has been a personal challenge for me, slowly wearing me down to dry dust. But today I feel renewed and sad beyond measure at the same time, for though I am glad to have water nearby, I know I can't keep it.

When I felt I could go no further in the heat without jumping fully into the creek itself, we decided to take our afternoon siesta in the shade of a tree by the water. It was the first time in a while that we have taken such a quiet siesta, for often we are at a trail angel's house, or surrounded by other hikers. But today we stretched our sleeping pads out an lay listening to the sound of the water, watching the world turn around us.

We spent a few hours there, and I came to realize how precious those hours were. It gave me a chance to think, which is something I don't often have time for on the trail. This sounds counter intuitive, for what else could there be to do on the trail besides walk and think? But this journey has been very mentally taxing, and not just because of the miles or the heat. It's because the trail demands your attention at every moment.

When you're in your cubicle at work, or at home in the evening, or going about your daily routine, your mind is constantly in three places at once: past, present, future. 
"What do I need to finish from yesterday?"
"What's on my to do list for today?"
"What do I need to do before the weekend?"
Or even more existential: "Who do I want to become? Where is this journey of life taking me?"

I am a person who thinks about these things a lot. I like to see my place in the world, to see where I've come from, to understand where it is I want to go. I thought that hiking the PCT would give me plenty of time to figure out Who I Am and Who I Want to Be.

But I was wrong.

The trail doesn't care about the past. It doesn't care about the future. It only cares about Now.
My feet hurt Now.
I need a snack break Now.
The sun is very hot Now.
I need more water Now.

Sometimes you think into the future, but only to see your next water stop, your next campsite, your next day's elevation gain. Think too far in the future, and you're too overwhelmed. No, I'm not going to Canada. I'm going five miles to a water spigot. Then I'm going five more to a shady spot. After that, we'll see. One day at a time. One footstep at a time.

And it's exhausting. Because who these days understands what it means to live in the Now at every moment? I certainly didn't before I came out here. I was too preoccupied with my life as it used to be, or how I wanted it to be, or how I would make it someday.

Here, there is only Now. There is only this moment, this footstep, this hour of heat and thirst and simple, driving need. You are who you are in this moment alone, and it's all you have. It forces you to give all of yourself. Emotions are stronger, hurt is more painful, sorrow is heavier, joys are greater. The next moment might be better. Or it might be worse. The trail doesn't judge, or decide, or tell you what kind of person you are. It just forces you to live. Now. Simple as that. How often have you done that? Been present in every waking moment and only that moment? It's mentally exhausting.

But today we had a few hours reflection beside the water before we moved on, always on. We only had eight more miles to go for the day, but they turned out to be the most difficult. We were climbing again from 6,000 to 9,000 feet, and every step we took was upward. It was difficult, and exhausting, and every hill seemed to have another hill behind it, until I thought I could climb no more. But at last weary footsteps landed us at a tent site near a small stream crossing, where our friends were already waiting. We joined them and camped in the shade of pine trees, falling asleep thinking of tomorrow but no further.

Day Sixteen

Today's miles: 17
Total miles: 218

We have been so used to hiking in the cooler temperatures of the 8,000 foot mountains that we have become lazy about our desert hiking schedule. That was today's first mistake. Instead of waking up at "desert time" - 4 am - we slept in until 6:30 and realized our error when the sun shone in our tent and woke us up with the heat.

We finished our descent down Fuller Ridge this morning, the desert valley slowly rising up toward us. It was a long trek, made even more frustrating by the fact that we could see the desert floor far below us, but it never seemed to get any closer. We were like lazy airplanes slowly circling and never landing. But we eventually descended from 8,000 feet to nearly sea level, the heat slowly sinking in.

There was a water spigot at the bottom of Fuller Ridge, so we filled up our water containers and expected an easy five mile hike to Ziggy and the Bear's trail angel's house where we hoped to take our afternoon siesta (something else we had been forsaking while in the mountains). Unfortunately for us, that five mile trek was hell warmed over. We had become so complacent with the mountains that we forgot how terrible the desert can be, and this was terrible. Five miles of flat, tree-less, sun baked earth stretched out before us. And the sand. Oh, the sand. Soft, silty, white mushy sand like the kind you find on the beach. The kind that makes your feet sink as you step in it. The kind that makes you feel like you're running in slow motion, and not going anywhere. Imagine walking in that... for five miles... in 95 degrees at 10 am. It was the closest to heat exhaustion and hallucination that I've been thus far. When we found an overpass with a bit of shade and a cooler full of ice, it was heaven. When we finally reached Ziggy and the Bear's, it wasn't a moment too soon.

Ziggy and the Bear have an impressive set up. They have been trail angels for a number of years, and they have it down to a science. They even had two hikers from last year volunteering this week to help with the onslaught of hikers coming through. We were led into their backyard, where awnings for shade were set up, port-a-potties rented for us (a big deal when you're used to pooping in the dirt), a shed turned into a shower with towels and shampoo, bins full of cold drinks and snacks to buy, and a sink and clothesline for washing clothes. My favorite part, though, we're all the little signs they put up to label the junk in their yard. Old scrap metal was labeled "brackets from the Eiffel Tower." An old bike was labeled "Lance Armstrong's next ride." A pile of stones labeled "leftovers from the Great Wall." And my personal favorite: a few bowling balls with a note that said: "please return to Canada. Limit one per hiker, please."

We signed our names in the register (I was hiker #475 this year to come through!!) and immediately were given a hot foot bath and an explanation of the amenities. It was heaven sent, and so good to see 30 of our closest friends already resting in the shade. Having walked over 200 miles, I can honestly say I am still overcome by the generosity of the human spirit, and what some people will do out of the goodness of their own hearts. Ziggy and the Bear are two such people, who took care of us when we needed them most and asked nothing in return. God bless small kindnesses.

Chris and Hitch

Feeling refreshed from a shower and foot soak, I played cards with Wocka Wocka, Giddyup, and the two Aussies, and swapped stories with other hikers I hadn't seen in a few days. Apparently 70 hikers had stayed the night here last night, though many left this morning. Katie and I didn't plan to spend the night, but an afternoon siesta was just what we needed. The thermometer read 98 degrees, and we had no intention of moving until later in the evening.

At noon the Bear passed around Burger King to go bags, and told everyone to write down their name, order, and throw in money for lunch. Then he collected all the bags, made a Burger King food run, and came back with 30 bags of fast food to go around. I never thought a fried chicken sandwich could taste so magical. Even the Aussies were taking "selfie" photos of their first American fast food experience.

We stayed until 5:00 and then reluctantly left the shade for the sun blasted hills. We had only 8 miles left to go, and the hike was a pretty one, through hills and canyons reminiscent of the Deschutes in Oregon. We hiked through dusk, my favorite hour, and arrived at the bottom of the canyon at Whitewater Preserve at 8pm. It was a magical campground with a beautiful stream running through it, dark hills surrounding it, and cold Trout pools that we were allowed to wade in. The Aussies, Katie and I set up our tents and then Katie and I took a sleeve of Oreos and our bare feet to the wading pools and sat looking up at the stars.