First off, we must deal with some serious business today. An important milestone has been crossed and there can be no turning back. Bunny’s favorite daughter has joined the “quarter century club.” Yes, Miss Sarah has finished her youth. She is currently enrolled in a nursing program well on her way to following in Bunny’s footsteps. I think she might even carry one of her mother’s feet on a keychain (at least that would explain Bunny’s trail pace). We are very proud of Sarah and wish her many more happy birthdays.
We are embarking on the longest dry stretch of trail we have encountered so far—27 miles to Wrightwood with no streams or reliable water sources. There might be a few water caches, but it is risky to count on them as part of your planning. We tend to carry the minimum we need to make such a crossing, and if we run into a full water cache, we might add in an extra like coffee in the morning or hot tea at night. Today, I thought I might try something different. In addition to the 5.5 liters of water Bunny and I were carrying, I wanted to carry an additional gallon of iced tea from McDonalds. To save pack weight, I tried carrying it internally. Things didn’t go according to plan.
In the first 4 miles of trail, I helped to create at least a dozen clear water streams. Since this is the desert, the water was quite warm, but, crystal clear. I wanted to fill the CNOC bag, but Bunny had mixed feelings and tried to persuade me not to. I think her exact words were “put that damn thing away.” I’m not sure which “thing” she meant but this did lead to an uncomfortable 20 minutes of walking with wet shorts for me.
McDonalds was a low point for us. Not the food or iced tea, I loved those. I’m talking about elevation. Our walk for today was almost 5000’ up and 1000’ down for us to end up at about 6500’ above sea level. Tomorrow, we’ll finish the climb into Wrightwood reaching a height of 8400’ before dropping into town for “Mile High Pizza.”
By the time we had breakfast, packed, checked out, went to McDonalds for my tea trial, and got reservations a place in Wrightwood, it was past 10 before we even began the walk back to the trail. With our plans of making it more than halfway today, an all uphill trail, and Bunny’s lack of herbal remedies (she ran out of CBD oil in Big Bear and every step is painful for her bad hip), it’s going to be a late day or possibly dark before we stop.
It didn’t seem like we were making much headway on the climb. The grade for the day is just a little over 300’/mile, so it takes a lot of walking to notice big elevation changes. We had to go up and over one ridge before we could get to the massive ridge we were going to be spending the rest of today and all of tomorrow on. Once we got on the big ridge, we could see back in time for a few days. We could see all of Cajon Pass in its glory. This is a major transportation intersection with multiple rail lines, and I-15 passing through. You won’t see a train less than a couple miles long sporting any less than 6 locomotives. This area is the easiest access to the high desert from LA.
We didn’t see very many people today even though we know they are out here. We were hiking in the middle of about 30 people. Eventually, 3 nobos did pass us in the late afternoon and we did pass a sobo couple out doing a training hike. The husband is starting his thru-hike in a few weeks and is doing his conditioning hikes on the trail so he can skip these sections when he gets to them. I noticed, from his descriptions, that he is doing southbound sections that are downhill which means he will be skipping large uphill sections as a nobo. In the past, I probably would have considered this cheating, but all my notions of purity are right out the window this year.
I did post a comment on the “PCT class of 19” page asking for suggestions of where to jump to next. The results were not what I was hoping for. The consensus seems to be either take 6 weeks off or go hike another 1000 mile long trail for 6 weeks. IF we were capable of hiking 1000 miles in 6 weeks, we wouldn’t have started so early or be worried about finishing in a single season. We’re just going to slow down even more and go with our most recent plan of jumping to Southern Oregon. We may just camp on the trail for extended periods or take some side trips or visit some friends living near the trail.
We chose our spot for the night for two reasons: 1) it was a half mile further than a campsite which will make tomorrow shorter for us, and 2) there was a small water cache at the road crossing a couple days ago. When we got there just before dark, we saw the water cache was empty but there was a cooler that had melted ice water and dirt in it. I decided I could salvage enough water out of it so that we can have coffee in the morning. We already had enough water for supper with hot tea because I hadn’t drank anything all day. After I had peed so much early on, I just didn’t feel like repeating the cycle. I was slightly dehydrated by supper.
There was one other tent by the road, but we couldn’t tell who it was. We set up our tent and both of us crawled inside. Normally, I let Bunny have the first half hour of tent time to herself, but it was getting cold and dark and I was completely beat. We unpacked and organized our beds before cooking supper. The wind was blowing pretty hard, but, for once, we had chosen a fairly open spot with just a few bushes to one side that actually protected us. With the extra effort we put in today, we should have an easy stroll into Wrightwood tomorrow.
EFG
I like your blog it’s a master piece!
Thank you. I hope you get some laughs.