04.06.18

We left Idyllwild after all the reloading was done. Last amenities of the town strung below us as we started climbing steep side streets to get to the trail head. We had four miles to go to reach San Jacinto’s summit and a climb of at least 3,000 feet. Once off the main roads we ascended to mammoth pines and what I thought were sequoia, only I didn’t expect them this far south. They don’t have pine needles but flat thick leaves like juniper. Where the trail picked up there were signs about the missing O’Sullivan man who disappeared somewhere around Idyllwild the year before. The strange thing was that they’d found his backpack left behind in pristine condition. It wasn’t difficult to imagine getting lost in the San Jacinto trails though. PCT signs and markers were woefully inadequate and we found ourselves turned around and consulting maps more than once. Of course, all trails led somewhere toward civilization so we could only guess the whereabouts of O’Sullivan. Maybe he had just dipped out. Idyllwild has probably offered that allure to hundreds of travelers over the years. Going was slow and the trail was full of giant granite steps that rose one after the other that you almost felt compelled to crawl over instead of walk. The whole ambience was turning very Lord of the Rings as a nearly full moon rose and we made our way to a small campsite overlooking the valley and Hammett Lake. I pitched the tent and we sat on logs just rehashing the day. After a day of hiking you can talk about anything or nothing. Sometimes silence is fine. Sometimes you or someone else opens up about topics they’d never consider back home. Nothing is off the table. Everyone listens. Everyone has fears, desires, hopes and reasons. We’re just out here right now. For some there’s a lot of processing going on. For others it’s just a pre-college party. Others have planned for years to get here. Another guy who goes by the trail name Hurricane is only here to train till mid-April when he jumps over to the CDT for his third ‘and final’ go. 

The next morning we tried to sleep in but it was a little chilly. It makes sleeping and dreaming choppy and strange but you get up and jam all your things into your pack and hit the trail. We only had 11 miles to go that day but we started hitting patches of snow on the other side of the mountain and the downhill grades were unbearable on the knees at times. Little seasonal streams popped up here and there and we’d stop and filter some water and have a light snack and keep going. At lunch we stopped at another water source and talked with a fellow that lived down the other side by I-10 who gave us advice about ticks and was meeting his wife down at the bottom of the mountain. He’d come from Campo too and like lots of people did 2-300 mile stretches of the PCT as time permitted. The ice got worse that day and my stomach was feeling off. Overall the elevation was getting to me. I was sluggish and slipped twice on the snow. Once onto my backpack, but the second time my elbow came down hard enough to make me check that everything was still in place and working before I got back up again. This was one day where the shoes I’d chosen to save me from blisters were not working at all. It was all sludge and snow and massive blocks to step down and blowdowns everywhere to navigate. By the time we got to camp we were exhausted. Only 11 miles but the terrain and grade dictated everything. We set up in a small area in a clearing past a site that was occupied by a family with other tents scattered around. A few guys we’d seen over a week before ambled in and set up in the periphery while I got to work digging a pit for a fire. I walked down and collected wood and we had a nice rock to sit while we ate dinner. Me and my pre-packed bars and whatnot and Hanna’s jet-boil deluxe with dried soups that I pretended not to smell. The moon came out again and when the fire rose the three guys came over and we welcomed them to the fire. Sometimes you can share a lot with people by just staring into a fire together for an hour. We talked about our experiences so far and how awful that snow had been. One guy had done the AT a couple years before. He’d been all smiles when I’d come up on him at a water source on day two. Now everyone was a bit more somber, myself included. It was going to be a lot of up and down every day for 2,300 more miles. Knees would hurt. Calves would hurt. You just had to try and get enough rest and foot in between the hiking to heal and walk on. They all returned to their tents and we soon fell asleep too. 

The next morning we geared up for another short run of 13 miles. All downhill still but I was full of energy and ready to go at around 9 am. I tore off down the trail and the day was punctuated only by a few new faces (a couple from Seattle) and a couple of guys that we leap-frogged with the whole day. I didn’t know I was going too fast...just feeling like I wanted to knock this day out and make camp early, but I pushed a little too hard. Downhills are more strenuous at the end of the day and once we hit camp I was wiped out again. You have to be on top of your pace, your breaks, water, food, and sleep every day and I’d let a couple things slide. By that time my knees had had it and I could do little more than hobble around collected wood for another fire. And this is how I got my trail name.

Just as we were getting ready to light our fire a young man with an African safari hat, pressed kakis, and a bright red whistle around his neck strolled into camp and informed of his of his intentions to camp-until he saw the firewood in a neat stack next to the pit I’d dug. He seemed to recoil in horror and stammered something about maybe looking for another site a few miles down. We said goodbye and laughed it off until a full 45 minutes later he returned with a full-prepared lecture about the perils and moral ineptitude of enjoying a campfire. I listened. Told him we had permits on federal land and that we were responsible adults but he kept persisting in an increasingly nasal tone until I just told him off. He disappeared into the night and we enjoyed our small responsible fire while little mice hopped around sniffing our food. The moon was now completely full and we knew we’d be off the steep grades the next day around noon. I fell asleep almost instantly. My trail name became Campfire two days later.

We woke early and kept heading down. Winds were howling. 50 mph gusts pushing us every which way on shale and granite cliff edges that wound down to grassy fields where morning clouds were racing furiously and evaporation just as fast at eye level. We passed a group of PCT volunteers and chatted briefly. They were busy cutting weeds on the sides of the trail. By 10 am we’d made to the bottom where the trail met a long water pipe that descended directly from a holding tank and straight to a fountain. To the left of the fountain was a shadow and as we walked further a safari hat came into view. What can you do...we spoke again and he apologized and we exchanged info and got our water and took off across the flat desert and creosote and washes to Interstate 10. We’d heard rumor of an In n Out Burger down the road so when we hit the underpass we called an Uber and got dropped off. This is a big stop before LA for lots of people. It was right around noon and the place was packed. We claimed some seats and foisted the packs up while children stared and others asked questions and wished us luck. Everything’s surreal when you come out of three days in the forest smelling like a campfire with burnt noses and crazy hair. But we downed those burgers like they were the last burgers on earth. Hanne avoided fast food at all costs and had most meals meticulously planned but neither of us could’ve cared less just then. I had two double-doubles animal style and fries. We got another Uber back to the same spot and were back on the trail within an hour. We still had 8 miles to go. It would take us behind windmills and up and down more maddening sets of switchbacks until we came over a grassy plane than wound down to the campsite at Whitewater Preserve. We could hear the hoots and hollers of hikers basking in one of the pools that had been made from stream water and we soaked our feet and relaxed. Sweet relief. The campsite was wide and grassy and we had a bench to set our things on. A stranger told us the ropes and gave me a free Mtn Dew. It was gone in 30 seconds. The winds picked up and we staked the tents tight and sat on the benches talking about childhood, previous adventures, anything that came to mind. There was a sign about a mountain lion spotted recently but that could mean anything in these hills. That’s as good as spotting a raven. Who knows where animals go after they’re ‘spotted’. 

The next morning was HOT. Immediate uphills. Dusty dirty bits of ground granite. I was trying to keep a good pace but I kept feeling winded. It was a 17.5 mile day and my calves were already burnt by 11 am. I hid by a bush and put on pants which just kind of clung to the leg hair and stung for a good hour. We lunched by a stream and carried little water because we criss-crossed the same stream all day. It was pretty mucky. Lots of mud despite being in the middle of the high desert and lots of calculated hops and soaked shoes. We took a wrong turn that looked taken by lots of others and got off into some muddy reeds a good 1/4 mile off the trail till we stopped and realized it went nowhere. We consulted the maps again and I dropped my pack to scale a small ledge and get a better look. The trail was directly at the top of the ledge so we lugged the packs straight up and over and got back on course. The heat wouldn’t let up and we both went through 4-5 liters of water each. At the end of the day we finally hit camp. Our older Asian couple who magically seemed to be faster than everyone were there making tea and humming away having the time of their lives still while we collapsed and tried to come to our senses. We found out that they just did much shorter lengths and didn’t stop in towns for more than a few hours. Another older man from England with an impeccable Attenborough quality to him idly perused a paperback while lying on a tarp in his old sleeping bag. He’d ask a few questions and go back to his business, nothing but amused at our answers. We sat with our backs against a rock and layer out a plan. The plan boiled down to more protein. The carbs and fats were good but we needed more protein to rebuild muscles with all the constant up and downs. We decided to sleep in as much as possible to heal up and hit the last stretch to Big Bear around 8-9 am. 

The first 3 miles had me out of breath with grades I’d never hiked before. Nowhere close. Right out of camp it went straight up for a gain of around 3,000 ft in about 3.5 miles. Then it leveled out. It swept through burned forests. Old horse pastures and soft layers of pine needles. For the first time in about a week we weren’t going up or down. My legs began to feel normal again and the rest of the day went along a decent clip with a few rolling hills. We’d come across more hikers resting then they’d pass us when we rested. All day long. A few new names and new stories. Hurricane passed us just before nightfall and told us some stories in his thick New Zealand accent. He didn’t like carrying water. No one likes carrying anything out here but he just didn’t. He had a one-liter bottle with him and just filled up when he found it and drank from streams. He never filtered his water and he never got sick. This level of trust gave me pause. He’d been doing thru-hikes for years and when I asked him what his advice was for first-timers he just shrugged: "Ya wheel...som days ah hahdeh then othas. Ya jos keep hoyken ya?" And that’s basically all you can do. If you overthink or complicate the reality of a thru-hike with conjecture, gadgets, and hubris...these are all ultimately unreliable tools to get you down the trail when the going gets tough. 

So, we did a good steady 18 miles to Onyx Pass with the lure of beds, showers, and hot food pulling us into Big Bear. The lure is real. Six days in the wilderness leaves you feeling like a wild animal in some ways. Dirt and salt clinging to everything. All your clothes are mangled and smelly. You’ve eaten all the ‘good’ food from your supply. Your feet are swollen and you’re just ready for a little break. These are called Zero Days by hikers and are part of the whole process. A zero day just means you’re not lugging around a 35-40 lb pack. You find a cheap place to shower, peruse the PCT hiker discounts, run to laundromats, buy something at a convenience store to get dollar bills to get change for the bus to the other side of town to pick up your resupplies at the post office and try to furiously update social media with pictures and blogs while cramming down the biggest meals imaginable and planning some sort of strategy for the next stretch. And now...that’s all done. That’s one week on the trail and I’m fed, resupplied, and even got some good coffee. Tomorrow morning we set out for another 6 days to do the same thing all over again. Goodnight!