Trail Angels Abound

Update: I noticed none of the photos seemed to work so added them in.

The last section of trail has been memorable for the non-trail things that have happened. There have been a bunch of cool places to stay in this section. There have also been a few different trail angel locations this last week that have been absolutely fantastic. It has worked out amazingly well! I needed to take some slower days to help my feet heal a bit and it has been very hot so hitting a cool place to hang out in the early afternoon has been perfect.

The first of the trail angel locations was Hiker Heaven in Agua Dulce. This is a spot owned by the Saufley family. They have built a huge setup just to help out hikers. They have showers, they do your laundry for you, there is a charging tent with laptops if those are needed, and they provide a ton of flat spots to camp. It is a great service that they provide to the hiker community, especially since there is not another option for places to stay in town. It seems like there are between 30-50 hikers that stay there everyday. It was crowded and most of the people I didn't know but it was a nice place to rest.

A day and a half after Agua Dulce, there is the town of Green Valley. In Green Valley, there is Casa de Luna run by the trail angels Terrie and Joe Anderson. They also have an awesome setup for hikers - they feed 30-60 hikers a day, both dinner and breakfast, provide a place to camp, and have a shower available. Having these two places only 24 trail miles apart seems almost too good to be true. In addition to the general perks, it was also a great atmosphere at Casa de Luna and I enjoyed multiple delicious meals there.

From Casa de Luna, it was two days to a place called Hiker Town. Instead of actually going there we noticed a sign at a road crossing for a ride to a market with good food. Sometimes you just have take a chance - we called the phone number and, 25 minutes later, a motor home pulled in to pick us up. At the WeeVill market I had a great burger and milkshake. Upon further investigation into Hiker Town, the group I am hiking around even decided to camp in the grassy spot beside that market. This random market on the side of route 138 has been the best place I have stayed yet.

One of the employees let us all hang out in her pool in the afternoon as we waited for the day to cool off. The market has wifi and a lot of outdoor outlets. The grassy spot even has tables and some shade. The next section of trail is across the desert floor of the Mojave desert. This market has proven to be a little oasis in the middle of a 95 degree desert. I don't believe any human should live here, as it is barely suitable for human visitation.

Of course, there were some nice mountain views over the last week. I've now made it to mile 517. Only about 200 miles to go until I am out of this silly desert and I will start hiking up into the snowy Sierras. I'm starting to get really excited for that section!

More Mostly Boring Desert

The last hundred miles have been pretty easy - if you ignore yesterday's 20 mile continuous climb back up to elevation, that is. The 80 miles leaving Big Bear featured a gradual downward slope. This sounds nice and pleasant for a walk but I have to say, four days of walking on fairly flat trails through the hot, sunny desert gets a bit old. Luckily, there were a few distractions throughout the days to break it up a little.

The first of those distractions were some nice natural hot springs. I am quite glad that I did not hit them on the weekend since they are apparently a popular place for locals to hang out and take a large amount of mind altering substances. Even mid-week there were some drugged out, naked people wandering around, but I was able to find a nice 106 degree spring with just some hikers hanging out.

After spending a few hours alternating between the hot pools and a nearby cool stream I continued the hot, flat trek through the desert. A few days after the pools, I hit a highway underpass, which happened to be half a mile from a McDonalds. To add to the excitement of that, a hiker named Squarepants had been inviting everyone he met to his birthday party at this fine establishment on the day I got there. It seems people got the message and showed up in full force. When I arrived, there were probably 40-50 hikers already there. Despite the smell and cramped space, the employees were incredibly pleasant and accepting of a bunch of functionally homeless people hanging out for hours.

The downside of the McDonalds stop was that the next 25 miles of trail was up a mountain. As boring as days of flat trail can be, full days of uphill are sometimes worse. For the entire day, I hiked uphill completely exposed to the sun. It was the hardest day on the trail yet. The whole process was made more difficult by the fact that there was no water for that 25 mile stretch, as well. I think it would have been easier to handle if most of this section had not been subject to wildfires in recent years and had more tree cover. There are sections of trail that have large tree trunks alongside but these trunks provide zero shade since they are just burned trunks now. Once I completed my 20 miles of uphill and hit camp, I got some more water and added plenty of electrolytes to it. I needed them badly.

The terrible day of uphill did make for an easy 5 mile day into the town of Wrightwood at mile 369. It is a nice little mountain town that is super friendly to hikers. The local grocery store has "Welcome PCT Hikers" signs all over the store to clearly show where items we care about are located. It definitely made it easier to find everything. To add to the greatness of the town, the bakery I was sitting in front of gave away all the left over donuts at the end of the day! I will be packing a bag of donuts out of town tomorrow. The last thing that made Wrightwood so great is Rosie drove up from Los Angeles to meet up with me and Zoom. It was great seeing her again! We had a nice afternoon of just catching up and reminiscing about our time on the AT. All in all, a good town experience made me feel ready to do the next 100 miles.

 
I think I've been on the trail long enough now to make some observations about the people that are on the trail. There are some interesting differences between PCT hikers and AT hikers that I've noticed.

Probably the most notable difference is the gender distribution. On the AT it was somewhere around 80 percent male. On the PCT, it seems much closer to 50/50. This is the difference that I have been having the hardest time figuring out. I can't figure out a reason that the PCT would be relatively more attractive to female hikers over the AT. There is a possibility that in the last three years the percentage of female hikers has risen on both trails, but that seems like it would be too quick of a change.

Some of the other differences make at least a little more sense to me. Overall, people are far more in shape at the beginning of the PCT. I've met less than five people who were noticeably out-of-shape on this trail. At the beginning of the AT, there were dozens of people in that state. The beginning of the PCT is less forgiving than the AT so it makes some sense that people would be in better condition. It ties in with the fact that people on the PCT seem more informed and better prepared all around. I think it s related that there are very few people with an excessive amount of weight in the pack or lots of useless items. I guess the fact that you have to start with decent mileage days in order to hit water sources forces people to do research and feel prepared for the trail in a way that the AT does not. Overall, I have been more impressed with the average PCT hiker in the first few hundred miles compared with the average AT hiker.

Seeing the Unexpected

The trip out of Idyllwild involved the largest vertical climb that I've done on the trail, so far. It started with a steep side trail to get back to the PCT and then continued with another steep side trail to get over the peak. While the PCT seems to be fairly gradual and not outrageously taxing per mile it doesn't always go exactly where you really want to go, especially near towns. The climb was definitely worth it when I finally got to the peak. At 10,834 feet it makes for the tallest peak I've ever done!

Luckily, the elevation didn't seem to bother me much. I think most of the time I was out of breath due to my fitness level and full food resupply, instead of the altitude. I had to trudge through some snow near the peak - I quickly learned that following footprints can sometimes be the opposite of the correct thing to do. All in all, the side trek to the peak was well worth it.

After the peak, the trail had 30 miles of downhill in store for me. It is an interesting experience to hike from a snowy peak down to flat desert in a day and a half. The low elevation, flat terrain, and strong sun drove home the fact that it does not have to actually be that hot in the desert to feel oppressive. I don't think the temperature was above 70, but all I could think about was shade. Unfortunately, the only thing around was a wind farm.

A few days after hiking past the wind farm, much to my surprise, along the side of the trail was a private zoo. Apparently, this zoo is a location that animals used in films get trained. The only animals I could see from outside were a grizzly bear and a lion. There is something deeply depressing about seeing these kinds of animals in small enclosures after spending two weeks walking through fairly remote mountains. Even in public zoos, one can argue that the education to the public is a net positive for the captivity of animals. This doesn't seem to be true for a private zoo. The zoo wasn't the end of surprises for the day though. Near the end of the day, I came upon a couch and dumpster filled with trail magic just sitting next to the trail. A free soda and a soft place to sit are always appreciated along the trail.

That trail magic was provided by Big Bear Hostel so it seemed appropriate to stay there once I got to Big Bear City. Big Bear is at mile 266, which is pretty good for two weeks into my journey. Ten percent of the way there! Later today, I'll be heading back to the trail with a full five days of food. My backpack is much heavier than I would prefer.

The Life in the Desert

After leaving Warner Springs I did a couple twenty mile days to get to highway 74, leading into Idyllwild. This is not the closest road into town, but a few miles past highway 74 there is a section of trail closed due to a wildfire a few years ago. There is an official alternate route that bypasses this closed section of trail but it looked decidedly uninteresting so I decided to hitch into Idyllwild from there and pick up the trail on the other side of the closed section at mile 177. The past few days have been full of lovely views and fairly easy trails. The PCT continues to be much more gradual on the elevation changes than the AT. There is also not much vegetation taller than I am to obstruct the views. It is kind of nice to feel like I am being rewarded with views, but not punished with grueling climbs, straight up mountains, like the trails back home. The following photos provide a fair representation of what I look at all day as I hike.

Water continues to be annoyingly sparse. There are specific locations that have it (some of them questionable, at best) but I don't know if I will ever get over the habits that much of the AT taught me. The AT has abundant water sources along the trail and thinking about the distance to the next reliable source of water never took up much of my mental energy. On this trail, water is always an event. Water sources are where hikers tend to gather for breaks during the day and socialize. So far my experience on the PCT has not been on of people clumping up to camp at night, which is the opposite of the AT. The trend of spreading out more to camp seems to drive people to hang out longer at water sources just to chat with the people around them on the trail.

When the water source is less than desirable such gatherings don't seem to happen. (There was a dead rat in this one.)

Besides hikers at water sources, I have also seen a plethora of other wildlife. I had not expected to see more wildlife in the desert than I did in the woodlands of the AT, but it feels like that's the case. Along the AT, I saw squirrels, chipmunks, and deer almost exclusively. So far on the PCT I have seen dozens of rabbits, countless lizards of multiple varieties, three rattlesnakes, a few other snakes I am not knowledgeable enough to identify, as well as the multitudes of small rodents that populate the desert. The plant life also seems to be more diverse with different kinds of cacti and bushes along the trail. I recognize that the variety of the flora and fauna probably stands out to me more since it is all things that exist outside my normal climate zone but it still surprises me to see so much life in the desert. 

Tomorrow I will be leaving Idyllwild and summiting San Jacinto Peak. The summit is at elevation 10,834 feet, which will be the tallest of the hike so far (by quite a bit!). It is supposed to have some of the most spectacular views on the southern section of the PCT so I am looking forward to it. Hopefully the trail doesn't throw too many hurdles my way, or at least ones I can't make it over.

The Weather Actually Changed

After night hiking for 10 miles, I was convinced I had actually figured out how to handle the desert. It was quite lovely. The following morning I was up and moving fairly early to get to water before the day got really hot. It was the real desert, with some fairly long flat sections, just walking through the sand and cacti.

It wasn't actually too bad in the sun, but I could feel the heat in the sand through my shoes. To get out of the heat I went into town and had a piece of pie. It seemed like a great way to avoid the hot part of the day. After that day, the weather finally got cooler. Some clouds came in over the mountains and the oppressive sun was finally covered up.

Last night I woke up to some slushy snow covering my tarp. It has been rainy all day, but it made for a perfect day for me. I only had 8 miles to get into Warner Springs where I have a food drop waiting for me at the post office. The post office won't be open until Monday so I had to wait around no matter how many miles I did today. This allowed me to stay at camp until the afternoon while I watched the rain come down. Then I walked through some lovely prairie in the rain. At the end of it, I hit the very nice community of Warner Springs. The community center in town has a little resupply store in it and allows hikers to camp in the lawn behind the building. Many seem to be taking advantage of that, as there are probably 30-40 people here.

I learned that the donations from thru-hiker season forms the entire budget of the community center and allows it to remain open all year for the kids of the town. In the evening, the school across the street had a pasta dinner as a fundraiser. It is always nice when I get the impression that the hikers get enormous benefits from a small town but the town itself also gets a large benefit from the hikers. It seems like the perfect scenario.

So I am currently at mile 109.5 and tomorrow I'll get my food drop then head out of town. The following section has a section of trail that has been closed for a while due to a wildfire. There is a reroute but it doesn't look that interesting. I will have to decide if I want to take the pretty easy hitch into Idyllwild to skip past it or if I want to do the 15-20 mile reroute. I guess we'll see! Even though there aren't state lines to mark progress (like the AT) there are some small landmarks. 

So much Sun

I was able to hit the trail at roughly 2:30 in the afternoon on Sunday. Starting at that time of day was not the most ideal to begin my trek on the Pacific Crest Trail but I guess it did set the tone for the next few days. So far, California has been hot with perfectly blue (cloudless) skies, which is nice at first but the beating sun starts to wear on you quickly.

I immediately recognized that I was in a climate much different from what I have experienced before. There are occasional trees or large shrubs but much of the first part of the trail is dominated by small bushes and consequently, rather impressive views. Even though there is not a large drop in elevation like on the east coast, you can see so far when there is not much vegetation obstructing your view.

The unfortunate side effect of the openness of the trail is the fact that as you hike you are always in the sun. There are very few locations that actually allow for some shade. The sun really started to get to me on the second day. There was a relatively steep climb out from a stream crossing and the sun was directly overhead. The couple hours it took me to make the climb was brutal. By midday, I hit a small country store where I realized I was probably suffering from a mild case of heat exhaustion. Luckily the store had the perfect cure for that.

After three hours of hugging my bag of ice I was ready to move on down the trail. The following day right around midday I came across a beautiful little stream with a deep enough spot to go "swimming." I stayed there from 11am until 4pm just to avoid the worst of the heat and sun. I found the day to be much better when avoiding the worst of the heat.

The following day I was able to improve the heat situation even further by purchasing a hiking umbrella from a small outfitter in the first resupply location, Mount Laguna. After a little fiddling around, I was able to figure out a way to connect it to my pack and hike along in the shade for almost the entire day. If the wind is too strong it doesn't work that well but then the wind usually keeps the temperature down. All in all, it is a vast improvement and allows me enjoy the incredible views a bit more as I hike. The following is a sampling of those.

Today, I encountered quite the lovely trail angel by the name of Deb. She was walking south on the trail handing out fruit and ice cream bars. While chatting with her and enjoying the treats she suggested that since the next 40 miles are a rough stretch of desert I should take the afternoon off. She offered to give me and Zoom a ride to her house, let us shower and do laundry, feed us lunch and dinner, and then bring us back to the trail in the evening. It was already a hot day so it seemed like a no brainer to me. What some people do for hikers is absolutely amazing. It feels great to be clean and out of the heat. Later today we will get back on trail and do some miles. We should be just outside the town of Julian, at mile 77, tomorrow morning. This should allow me to make it through the next 40 miles, which doesn't have any natural water sources, without too much of a problem. Luckily, in the heat your standards for acceptable water go down a lot.

The weather report has the temperatures dropping dramatically, starting Saturday, and staying that way for a few days. I am thrilled with the concept of highs in the 50's. There are rumors it might even snow! I can only hope. I will just make sure to stay on trail.