I heard Jeff rummaging around at about 6:15 so I thought I’d go ahead and get the coffee going. At 6:20 I had the water going strong and the rest of breakfast laid out. I was proud of my early start until Jeff walked by our tent and said goodbye. What I had heard was him finishing up packing and not the early waking up. Even so, we were still on an early trajectory for us and actually hit the trail before 8 (7:57), a fete we managed less than a dozen times on the AT last year.
Whether it was the 4th day on the trail for us, or the change in trail diet (athletic greens and coconut oil enhanced coffee), or the overcast day with drizzle in the air, or the lack of sunshine, or the fact that we are overweight and carrying too much weight, or that we are just frigging old (older than I ever thought I’d see when I was 12 years old), or some combination of the above, Bunny and I were both dragging something terrible this morning. I think Bunny zeroed in on her malaise when she dropped her pack, grabbed the trowel, and ran into the shrubs. She didn’t even consider that one of the 6000 mountain lions might be lying in wait. I suppose she was expecting professional courtesy—one cougar to another.
This did lead to a surprisingly pleasant conversation concerning trail bowel movements. We compared consistencies and frequencies in a very tasteful manner. Nonetheless, I think this might be a sign that our honeymoon is over and we are connected for life in a comfortable yet twisted way. I didn’t even bother to bring up my anal die inserts and stool coloring food additives out of respect for the solemnity of the conversation. More personal growth for me!
This is not our first rodeo (the PCT I mean). From experience, we tend to bottom out physically on day 3 or 4. It’s after this that our bodies accept the fact that this walking and carrying a lot of shit is not going to stop anytime soon, so it’s time to adapt. By day 6, we should start feeling a little bit better. For us, we don’t see noticeable improvements until about the 6th week of our hike. Yes, Virginia, there are old people on the trail.
On the AT, we didn’t climb above 6000’ until we had been on the trail nearly a month. In spite of the heading listing this as day 7, this is really only our 4th day hiking and we are already above 6000’. And like our Appalachian Trail experience, we hit snow. Massive amounts of snow. Actually way more snow in the desert than we did in the Smokies. A big difference, though, was the temperature. We ended up trudging through over 2 miles of foot deep snow with an air temperature of over 50 deg F.
We had received a heads up from a couple we met heading south on the trail. This was Andy and Jayne who live in San Diego and are starting to section hike the PCT. In fact, this was their first 4 day outing. They had started on Monday, the same day we did, but they were always ahead of us so we hadn’t met them until they turned back about 3 miles shy of Mt Laguna. Andy wasn’t certain, but he thought the elevation change might be getting to them so they turned back to known trail rather than continuing on into unknown trail. They had run across Jeff and he had told them to keep an eye out for us.
We met Andy and Jayne during the crappy part of our day when visibility was low and it was rainy with strong winds. Bunny had already exorcised her morning demons but I was still dragging. I thought I was slightly dehydrated. I hadn’t really drank anything from our last water spot yesterday afternoon until my cup of coffee this morning and I had a strong headache. We had a 5 mile walk from our camp to the first water source this morning. Not too long after we passed Andy and Jane, we stopped for water.
When we stopped, it was foggy, cold, no sun, and a little drizzly. I filled our water bag, filtered the first liter of water, and added Mio flavoring. As we drank that first liter, the sun started to break through the clouds. I filtered another liter and we drank it. The clouds dissipated more. We drank one more liter of water, my headache disappeared and the sky completely cleared off. We have found the secret to creating great trail days…drink lots of Mio.
We have made the same mistake we make at the start of every hike, we overpacked. Ridiculously overpacked. We had close to two weeks of food and too many clothes. We did send about 8 pounds of food ahead to Julián, CA, but that probably wasn’t far enough with the amount of food we still have. We’ll be there in another 3 days and I’ve still got 15 pounds of food on me now. What makes it worse is that there are lots of resupply options early on in this trail. From Campo to Lake Mareno is only 20 miles. Worst case, carry 4 meals to get there, grab a pizza, and grab 4 more meals to Mt Laguna. Look at the maps and don’t make the same mistakes we’ve made. Scout and Frodo have great information on their trail angel page.
The final 4 miles today were total snow walking. However, it wasn’t bad because the temperature was so warm and we knew we had a place to stay inside tonight. Even if we didn’t have a cabin waiting, I’d still take the bit of snow and lots of water to the popular starting times in April and May when water is scarce and temperatures are way too hot.
The one disappointment we had was getting into Mt Laguna and seeing that the restaurant is closed today and tomorrow. Bunny and I had been talking all day about how good a salad was going to be for supper tonight. Instead, we headed to the Lodge where Jeff had already gotten us a cabin. The store was open, so we were able to get some much needed junk food to supplement our healthy trail diet. I supped on Chili Cheese Fritos, a ham and cheese Hot Pocket, a half a package of Oreos, and a Coke. The benefit of thru-hiking is the guilt free food options.
EFG