After a week off the trail to slow down my pace and let Mighty Mouse make up some miles I got back on the trail.
A note on pace. Sure, you can hike fast or slow, but much of the time miles are limited by available camping sites or more usually, water availability. There are quite a few stretches where water sources might be ten or more miles apart, so you either end up with dry camps, which are a pain, or you hike from water to water on a given day. That makes it difficult to do a set number of miles each day, so you end with short mile days and long ones.
Started today in Agua Dulce at the grocery store parking lot where I left off last Wednesday.
After a brief road walk out of town the trail resumed. There is a 15 mile waterless stretch after Bear Spring, but it was nice and cool, so I didn't feel I needed to carry and extreme amount of water.
While at the spring, watched a hummingbird take a bath and drink from the spring.
Found a water cache that some nice people are maintaining, but had enough already, so just stopped to chat with Sherpa and Dr. Doolittle, an Irish couple who live in San Francisco for a little while and enjoy the shade.
Cowboy camped (didn't put up a tent) despite some threatening clouds in the sky. No rain, so it worked out.
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2021 Update:
Whew, nearly a week off the trail, and the corresponding week off writing (or re-writing) this five years later felt like a lot of time.
After a week off the trail to slow down my pace and let Mighty Mouse make up some miles I got back on the trail.
A note on pace. Sure, you can hike fast or slow, but much of the time miles are limited by available camping sites or more usually, water availability. There are quite a few stretches where water sources might be ten or more miles apart, so you either end up with dry camps, which are a pain, or you hike from water to water on a given day. That makes it difficult to do a set number of miles each day, so you end with short mile days and long ones. So, even though in theory I wanted to go slow, some times that just wasn't possible.
Started today in Agua Dulce at the grocery store parking lot where I left off last Wednesday.
After a brief road walk out of town the trail resumed.
Nice hiking today, and in just a few miles I came to Bear Spring.
There is a 15 mile waterless stretch after Bear Spring, but the weather was nice and cool, so I didn't feel I needed to carry an extreme amount of water.
While at the spring, I watched a hummingbird take a bath and drink from the spring.
Found a water cache that some nice people are maintaining, but had enough already, so just stopped to chat with Sherpa and Dr. Doolittle, an Irish couple who live in San Francisco for a little while and enjoy the shade.
I ended up hiking in the vicinity of Sherpa and Dr. Doolittle for the rest of the day, and camped near them. We just kind of walked off the trail into the bushes, finding spots clear enough to set up in.
I cowboy camped (didn't put up a tent) despite some threatening clouds in the sky. No rain, so it worked out. My camp was next to a neat old water tank. At some point in the past, someone thought it was worth the effort and expense of hauling in the concrete and steel plates to put this thing together. I'm not sure what they were doing with all that water, but the remnants of their efforts are still there, years later.
Photos from today: https://www.b-photo.com/Travel/PCT-2016-Day-by-Day/May/May-24/
Mighty Mouse got back on the trail yesterday (May 23) and is at mile 353.89. At that point I was at mile 454.5, so almost exactly 100 miles ahead. Her entry for leaving Agua Dolce was on June 2, so just a week and a half behind me.
Mighty Mouse's blog entry for this area: http://www.timandgerri.com/blog---2016/day-43-mile-45450-46823
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