Memories from May 18

The Anderson’s served pancakes and coffee in the morning which caused a lot of dawdling but eventually we started off down the road. Due to a trail closure north of the Anderson’s, we spent most of the day walking road, not trail. The downside is that road is hard on your feet. There were some advantages though.

We found a car for about $10,000 to drive us to Canada.

We saw interesting wildlife.

And stopped for lunch at the Rock Inn which kept a pitcher of Coke full for several hours while we rested from the heat of the day. They also had milkshakes which meant that I stayed back with Sven who had left the Anderson’s after Team Bizzle, Tupac, and myself to order a second round. Gluttony may be a deadly sin in normal life but in trail life, no such thing exists.

Sven and I left the Rock Inn around 5pm and walked the 4.5 miles to where Terrie Anderson had painted the posts at an otherwise unmarked trail so hikers wouldn’t miss them.

We found team Bizzle a mile or so down the trail just before the PCT at the Upper Shake Campground which looks moderately abandoned. The sites had fire rings so I made my first campfire of the trip.

Memories from May 17

I woke up and pretty much just booked it the 11ish miles to the road by 10:45am then waited for Team Jimmy Bizzle as Terminator, Splitter, Fruit Cup, Gargamel, and Texas Tracker have taken to calling themselves.

Despite hiking fast and passing a bunch of people before having them pass me while I was wanting my the road, I took the time to enjoy the morning sun highlighting the valley above which I was walking.

I also almost made a wrong turn. As with many things I get tunnel vision at times and almost missed the PCT sign (right) because I only saw the more prominent and unambiguous sign to the left.

A little before that was my favorite trail marker yet – a PCT sign posted on shovel. Any PCT hiker sees enough trail signs to be a connoisseur.

Despite having only left the Saufley’s the evening before, we were already at another well know trail angel’s: the Anderson’s.

The Anderson’s (the wonderful Terrie Anderson, who welcomes all hikers with a hug and slaps you with a stick if you put your plate over a serving dish at the nightly Taco Salad dinner, is sitting on the porch) proudly display a sign, “Hippie Day Care” which accurately describes the atmosphere as well as the rigor of their operation. I took a GI shower in the stall in their back yard, washed clothes in a bucket by the spigot on the side if the house, and painted a rock at the activity table out front (I’m not an artist so I’m not posting a picture if it). Living up to my trail name, I bought a gallon of milk and more than a half dozen ice cream sandwiches at the gas station instead of the 18packs of PBR fancied my most hikers.

Memories from May 16

That e-mail checking from yesterday notified me that I had some financial matters to resolve and so I couldn’t depart the Saufley’s in the cool early morning as would have been my preference. My credit card has been canceled due to suspected fraud and I arranged for a new one to be sent to Hikertown in four days. I should have said three days but I miscounted and it’ll force me to go slow for a few days which isn’t really a bad thing.

After waiting out the heat of the day, I hit the trail with Terminator, Splitter, Gargamel, and Texas Tracker, around 4:30pm. Fruit Cup was left at the liquor store to finish his ice cream. The trail is initially a road walk out of Agua Dulce which passes by the forward section of a large aircraft.

The trail climbed for a while and we passed a lot of people. The golden hours were beautiful, giving the fields of dry fox foxtails flaxen halos.

I was walking fast and missed the last water supply for 15 miles and had to backtrack a quarter mile.

We camped in a flatish open area just off the trail with a beautiful view.

Memories from May 15

The Saufley’s are a family if trail angel’s who host up to 50 hikers at a time. They go all out. They have a trailer home for hiker use with a shower (sign up list for the shower can run 20 deep), kitchen, 5 porta-poties, a computer/internet tent, a packaging tent (Gatorade and Snickers also available for $1), a mailing center with scale, and racks of storage to hold packages for hikers. The water for the trailer has to be trucked in because the Saufley’s well is on for their house.

The Saufley’s say they have a 50 hiker per night limit. Given that things got a lot busier after this photo, I’m not convinced it’s a strict limit.

I wrote some blog entries, got a new pair of underwear from REI (the Saufley’s rent a van and shuttle hikers to REI twice a day for a recommended $10 donation), checked e-mail, and napped in the shade. It was overcast in the morning which made me want to hike because in this semi-arid environment the shade of clouds makes hiking much easier. My body was really happy for the day off however. I think higher mileage days put more stress on you per mile than shorter mileage days. I guess that sounds obvious in hind sight.

Memories from May 14

I broke camp with Terminator and Co and headed out. The terrain rolled generally downhill. I was feeling like a kid and used a quick shuffle step on the downhills which felt like skiing. The views were pretty standard for this section.

We got to the Acton KOA, and I bought a half gallon of milk and a pair of microwave pizzas. Part way through a sip from the milk jug, Terminator mentioned that they’d noticed I liked milk and thought I should be called Dairy Queen. I doubled over and almost spat milk though my nostrils. With that I was rechristened DQ.

After lunch the Acton KOA we came  across the “golden spike” where the PCT was officially declared finished.

Shortly before Agua Dulce, we walked through the Vasquez Rocks.

Just before the outskirts of Agua Dulce, Terminator tried to brush a cactus out of the way like a normal bush. Fruit Cup and I help pick the spines out of his arm.

After that we made it to the Saufley’s. They have a very well run operation given how many hikers they host and how many services they provide. I’ll write about it tomorrow because we plan to zero there. I got a shower and put my clothes in for laundry which was returned to me before I went to sleep.

Memories from May 13

Last night I realized that I had the distance to Acton and Agua Dulce backwards. I’d been planning on resupplying in Agua Dulce and staying there with a family if trail angels named The Saufley’s who are famous for hosting many hikers and having an incredibility well organized operation. Unfortunately, instead of 44 miles away, they’re 54 miles away. I got up as the sky was just lightening, went on a tear and had 13 miles by 9am, 17 miles by 11:30am where I refilled water (there hadn’t been any since the boyscout camp where I stayed last night), 29 miles around 3:30pm when I stopped for an afternoon break, and made it to the next water source, a ranger station 35 miles away by 6:30pm. When I pulled into the small camp by the station, I recognized a bunch of friends eating dinner. It was a huge emotional high. I even arrived in time to get a soda which a volunteer was selling to hikers to supplement the water a local organization cached for free. I know it is a particularly dry year but it seems that the PCT would be a much more difficult undertaking without so many people supporting hikers out of their own means.

Here are a bunch of views from the day.

Pine cone men.

And you though haunted forests were imaginary.

And a bunch of really nice views across the local hills.

I was out of camp as fast as I’ve ever been this morning and hiked the last bit to the peak of Mt Baden-Powell. The view is fantastic but the light doesn’t lend itself to photos. I think this is the first time that I’ve seen a mountain cast a shadow on a cloud.

I only have a half liter if water that I collected from snow and melted overnight. Next water is in six or seven miles so after a brief and beautiful respite, I have to go.

The rest of the day was hot and hilly. The PCT overlaps with the Silver Moccasin Trail created, according to one sign by Lord Baden-Powell (founder of the Boy Scouts) himself. Since it’s not required to support horses like the PCT, it can have normal hills, not the long shallow climbs I can eat for breakfast. I was pretty well beaten by days end but here’s a picture from the top of one particular ridge

Today’s other main event was bypassing a trail closure put in place to allow an endangered species to recover.

The bypass was a several miles if road walk to the Buckhorn campground. Shrewd hikers who correctly read their notes would have gone in the campground’s exit, saving them almost a mile walk to the entrance. I managed to walk past the entrance even a little farther to a day use area also called Buckhorn.

After getting back to the PCT and finding water at the Cooper Canyon Trail Camp, I flopped down to rest under a tree where Eddie and Christine (now Nine Toes), and a few others were also recovering from the day’s hike. Eventually, most decided to see if they could drag themselves a few more miles up trail and so did I.

I caught up with Eddie and Nine Toes again just before mile 400.

Also, I have a trail name now. The green backpack, blue bandana, and two hiking poles are sufficiently reminiscent of Leonardo the Ninja Turtle that a kid I passed yesterday said I looked like him (and that was before the headband). Eddie decided it was a good one. From what I remember of the TMNT movie which constitutes my entire knowledge of the Ninja Turtles, I share a number of character defects with Leo and so somehow find it enjoyable to identify with him. Now I just have to get used to introducing myself as Leo.

Memories from May 11

I got a late start out if Wrightwood today because I tried to get a few more blog entries written over breakfast at a coffee shop called The Village Grind which notably has free Wi-Fi. However, instead of using the Wi-Fi to upload more than a post or two I used it to download a 568MB audiobook for today’s experiment: hiking while listening. I’m pretty new to the concept of consuming media while doing something else. Growing up, I didn’t watch TV while doing homework and don’t usually listen to music while exercising or doing housework.

My headphone cord isn’t long enough for me to put my phone anywhere except my bag’s shoulder pocket. This pocket, while having been designed for a phone (I assume), is tight and so makes it hard to pause the audio when you pass someone and want to talk to them or take out the phone for a picture. I’ve also been trying to carry my backpack without a hip belt to strengthen my shoulders and perhaps prepare for getting a frameless pack. This makes the shoulder pocket even tighter. By the end of the day, the jury was still out in the audiobook while hiking thing. I really need headphones with a longer cord or different attachment mechanism for the phone before trying again.

At the Village Grind a local named Reuben who had a counseling practice next door chatted me up, another reason I didn’t get so far on the blog posts. As I left, he chased after me and offered a ride to the trailhead which I accepted. The Acorn trail is short and steep enough to break a sweat and so not breaking sweat on the steep road up to it seemed fine as it didn’t count has forward progress.

I passed through a ski resort. I felt smug ignoring the warning even though I was safely on a trail.

This resort seems to have lined some if its ponds with plastic to keep the water.

I ran across another software engineer named Dillon from the San Fransisco Bay Area near where I grew up. We hiked together for a bit a talked about the industry, mostly how fortunate we are to have the opportunity to do things we enjoy, get paid for it, then take some time away, and still expect to have a job after trail. A lot of people on the trail are at a transition point in their lives or careers and some are even in intentionally leaving something behind.

At the Grassy Hollow Visitor Center, I was trying to find a water spigot which the water report said was on. A field trip was there and a kid came over and told me I looked like a Ninja Turtle, then he and his friend disagreed over which one. While I was poking around, a guy in a Forest Service vehicle pulled up and asked me what I was doing. Hoping I wasn’t in trouble, I told him I was looking for water. He asked if I could help him with something and he’d give me water. His name was Ron and I helped lift the cover over the center’s water pump and then read the dials to measure gallons per minute. In return he have me a gallon if bottled water and asked me to leave whatever I didn’t use by the trail.

The trail had a few sweeping views of the nearby plains occupied by outposts of civilization. Such views are frequent in this first section and make the trail feel tame and safe.

I ended the day part way up Mount Baden-Powell. I’d intended to sleep on the top but ran into Sven and Julie at a perfect campsite about a mile before. I was low on water and so put some snow into a bottle to melt overnight.

Memories from May 21

I got a late start out if Wrightwood today because I tried to get a few more blog entries written over breakfast at a coffee shop called The Village Grind which notably has free Wi-Fi. However, instead of using the Wi-Fi to upload more than a post or two I used it to download a 568MB audiobook for today’s experiment: hiking while listening. I’m pretty new to the concept of consuming media while doing something else. Growing up, I didn’t watch TV while doing homework and don’t usually listen to music while exercising or doing housework.

My headphone cord isn’t long enough for me to put my phone anywhere except my bag’s shoulder pocket. This pocket, while having been designed for a phone (I assume), is tight and so makes it hard to pause the audio when you pass someone and want to talk to them or take out the phone for a picture. I’ve also been trying to carry my backpack without a hip belt to strengthen my shoulders and perhaps prepare for getting a frameless pack. This makes the shoulder pocket even tighter. By the end of the day, the jury was still out in the audiobook while hiking thing. I really need headphones with a longer cord or different attachment mechanism for the phone before trying again.

At the Village Grind a local named Reuben who had a counseling practice next door chatted me up, another reason I didn’t get so far on the blog posts. As I left, he chased after me and offered a ride to the trailhead which I accepted. The Acorn trail is short and steep enough to break a sweat and so not breaking sweat on the steep road up to it seemed fine as it didn’t count has forward progress.

I passed through a ski resort. I felt smug ignoring the warning even though I was safely on a trail.

This resort seems to have lined some if its ponds with plastic to keep the water.

I ran across another software engineer named Dillon from the San Fransisco Bay Area near where I grew up. We hiked together for a bit a talked about the industry, mostly how fortunate we are to have the opportunity to do things we enjoy, get paid for it, then take some time away, and still expect to have a job after trail. A lot of people on the trail are at a transition point in their lives or careers and some are even in intentionally leaving something behind.

At the Grassy Hollow Visitor Center, I was trying to find a water spigot which the water report said was on. A field trip was there and a kid came over and told me I looked like a Ninja Turtle, then he and his friend disagreed over which one. While I was poking around, a guy in a Forest Service vehicle pulled up and asked me what I was doing. Hoping I wasn’t in trouble, I told him I was looking for water. He asked if I could help him with something and he’d give me water. His name was Ron and I helped lift the cover over the center’s water pump and then read the dials to measure gallons per minute. In return he have me a gallon if bottled water and asked me to leave whatever I didn’t use by the trail.

The trail had a few sweeping views of the nearby plains occupied by outposts of civilization. Such views are frequent in this first section and make the trail feel tame and safe.

I ended the day part way up Mount Baden-Powell. I’d intended to sleep on the top but ran into Sven and Julie at a perfect campsite about a mile before. I was low on water and so put some snow into a bottle to melt overnight.

Memories from May 10

From last night’s shakedown I decided to send home my beanie (I haven’t used it because of the hood on my jacket), sleeping bag liner (I won’t need the warmth and if I can sleep in other clothes if my hiking clothes are dirty), and the phone whose replacement showed up in Big Bear but I hadn’t had a chance to get rid of. I stopped by the post office to send those home and dropped by water filter in the hiker box at the hardware store and picked up a set of water purification drops.

For dinner, we made burgers and brats as a thank you for Jeff.

I didn’t get caught up in blog entries. Oh well.