Mount Laguna Campground to Sunrise Trailhead

On and off rain today. Slack packing again today with just water and a bit of food in the pack today. Left the tent at the campsite because we were going to stay there another night.

The hiking was pretty easy due to not having to carry much weight.

Along the way there was a section of old roadway that was blocked off from traffic, and now seemed to serve as a place for people to come put unauthorized memorial markers. Quite a few of them were at least a bit humorous.

However, my tent uses my hiking poles instead of separate tent poles and I needed them for the walk. So I flattened my tent and staked it out to keep the wind from blowing it away.

Sadly the rain found ways in to the tent and it was wet inside when we got back. Fortunately I had bundled things up in stuff sacks and put them on top of my air mattress so most things stayed dry apart from the air mattress and the tent and ground sheet.

Since things were wet - Tim and Mighty Mouse's big car camping tent leaked during the day - I went along with the consensus and we headed to Julian in the 4Runner.

Julian is a small mountain town here, known mostly for its apple pie restaurants. That might seem odd to people not from Southern California, but it's a thing, since there aren't all that many places here where apples and other fruits that need cold winters grow well.

Things are now drying out in a room at the Julian Gold Rush Hotel. Maybe that's not quite the name, cute place.

Heading out to look for dinner soon before cleaning up. Hunger comes first.

Photos from today: https://www.b-photo.com/Travel/PCT-2016-Day-by-Day/April/April-7/

Mighty Mouse's blog for today: http://www.timandgerri.com/blog---2016/day-6-7-april-mile-4754-5947

Rain this morning

Thursday morning

It started raining early this morning. Just light rain so if it keeps on like this the day shouldn't be bad.

The view through the roof of my tent.

Burned area near Mt. Laguna

Walked through an extensive area that burned a few years ago. Lots of new growth.

Mount Laguna to Mount Laguna Campground

Wednesday, April 6. 8:30pm

I am already in my tent. Warm under my down quilt. We are in a campground, so not really in the wilderness but it seems like only PCT hikers are here. No cars driving around, just hikers happy to use the shower.

Today was a short day of hiking, 6 miles after a late start from Mount Laguna. The post office opens at noon, so had to wait until then to send a package home.

Incidentally the backpacking shop in Mount Laguna has more lightweight gear in a couple hundred square feet than REI has in its flagship Seattle store. Great place and helpful people. Highly recommended.

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2021 update:

Short day today, only about 6 miles, maybe a little less, and today was another slack pack day, with Most of my gear riding in Tim's 4Runner again.

Sent out my package from the post office this morning.

Part of the hike today was through a burn area. We'll get to lots more later in the hike.

Pierce/007 from the UK hiked along with us for a while today. He's carrying a guitar along with his other gear. Somehow he also managed a grant from his school in the UK to help with hiking expenses.

We're camped in an organized campground, but it's nice and quiet.

Photos from today: https://www.b-photo.com/Travel/PCT-2016-Day-by-Day/April/April-6/

Mighty Mouse's blog for today: http://www.timandgerri.com/blog---2016/day-5-6-april-mile-4147-4754

First view down to the desert

007, Mighty Mouse and Me.

Windy lunch spot

Looking ahead across mountain ridges.

inReach message from Brad Wilson

Heading out for a short day.

View the location or send a reply to Brad Wilson: https://explore.delorme.com/textmessage/txtmsg?extId=0f965b3e-6929-4978-b0cb-701dc7a1d7ae&adr=brad1400.pct2016%40blogger.com

Brad Wilson sent this message from: Lat 32.866995 Lon -116.418879

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Kitchen Creek to Mount Laguna

About ten miles for the day. Quite a climb up to about 6000 feet.

Rented a cabin at Mount Laguna Lodge tonight. washed my clothes in a tub that the Lodge supplied. They do that so hikers don't stain the bathtub or sink in the cabin, quite smart.

Did some shopping at the gear store here, changed tents and mailed my heavier one home.

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2021 commentary:

Got up this morning and packed up. It's only about ten miles for the day and with a light pack at that.

Carrying less weight, and with cooler temperatures, the walk today was a breeze.

Walked in to Mount Laguna and decided to get a cabin.

Checked out the outfitters here, and decided to swap out tents to a lighter one. Less roomy, but quite a bit lighter.

The little outfitter had a better lightweight backpacking gear selection than REI does online, let alone in store. Sadly, it look like the outfitter has now closed down, probably difficult to keep a business open when almost all of your core customer base comes through town in just a two month or so portion of the year.

There is also a store run by the lodge here. a meager selection of food, but probably enough to get by if a hiker was relying on resupplying here.

A brief note on resupply: There are lots of ways of resupplying while on the trail, but for most people it boils down to either having someone back home send packages of food to pre-arranged drop points along the trail, and by drop points, this usually means post offices, although sometimes it's a business that will hold the package for the hiker.

Post offices will hold mail or packages for people if you send the package to General Delivery at the post office address. with the name of the recipient.

This can work great, but it is difficult to plan out menus for the entire trail ahead of time, factoring in how much to eat as well as changing preferences for flavor and whatnot.

The other extreme is to rely on what the hiker can find in shops along the way. The advantage here is that you can buy as much or as little as you feel like eating, and can adjust if you want something different.

The disadvantage is that not everywhere you are going to be able to access near the trail is necessarily going to have a great variety of choices. Some of the towns near the trail are small, and you might be resupplying out of a tiny general store, or a gas station, or a camp store like at Mount Laguna, where the food is more oriented toward car campers who don't care about weight.

Resupply on the fly is also much more difficult if you have specific dietary needs, like being vegan.

Many hikers end up adopting a hybrid system, getting some supplies sent to them and buying some locally. Some of the small stores in trail adjacent towns have noticed the hiker crowd and seem to stock their shelves accordingly.

 

I packaged up my tent and the bivy (which I had used once and decided it wasn't suited for this portion of the trail), and a couple other things that were just extra weight. It was past time for the post office to close, so that'll get sent out tomorrow.

I decided to check in and get a room, or cabin, at the lodge.

The lodge smartly provides hikers with a bucket or basin to do their laundry on the front steps of the cabins, rather than in the sink or tub in the room. The wash water from doing laundry was basically black.

After doing my laundry I cooked up my dinner and wandered over to the cabin that Mighty Mouse, Barbra and Tim had rented and ate and chatted with them.

Slept well on the bed, as I recall.

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Photos from today: https://www.b-photo.com/Travel/PCT-2016-Day-by-Day/April/April-5/

Mighty Mouse's blog from today: http://www.timandgerri.com/blog---2016/day-4-5-april-mile-3015-4147

inReach message from Brad Wilson

Heading out for day 4.

View the location or send a reply to Brad Wilson: https://explore.delorme.com/textmessage/txtmsg?extId=7e50b45c-a685-4a57-b1a8-8dcaff96eb19&adr=brad1400.pct2016%40blogger.com

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The wilderness spa treatment.

Monday 6:30pm

After 10 miles of hot uphill a cold stream feels great.

From Lake Morena to Kitchen Creek Roadside Camp

Hot day for a clump out of Lake Morena.

--------

Or a climb.

Leaving Lake Morena I felt like the trail was a sandy trough that just sapped my energy. But maybe that is just my memory playing up the difficulty. Or maybe I just wasn't in good trail shape.

Good to find a shaded resting spot under a bridge.

This is a bridge over Cottonwood Creek. Yes, the same creek that I got water from and camped next to. In between that point and this, there is a dam and the reservoir that is Lake Morena. On this side of the lake, Cottonwood Creek is rather dry.

And enjoy some flowers along the way.

At lunch I was sitting at a picnic table at Boulder Oaks Campground and was joined by Mighty Mouse and Barbra, and then soon by Mighty Mouse's husband, Tim, who drove up in their 4Runner, the same one that I had seen at the Lake Morena campground.

I came across Mighty Mouse and Barbra later and they convinced me to camp a bit off the trail where Tim had their camp set up. And also to slack pack the next section. For those that don't know, slack packing is hiking without having to carry all of your gear. In this case, made possible because Tim would take the gear, and we could hike with just the minimum, water, food, etc.

Mighty Mouse and Tim had hiked part of the PCT in 2014, so Mighty Mouse knew this part of the trail, and knew where camping and water were to be had.

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2021 Commentary:

Woke up in the Lake Morena campground, and there was a flock of wild turkeys wandering around, visible from my tent. A very cool sight to wake up to.

After a bite to eat, I got packed up and headed out.

Interestingly, the trail crossed Cottonwood Creek once or twice today. This is the same creek that I was able to get water from at the end of my miscalculated first day. In between there and here, is the dam that creates Lake Morena. Upstream, the creek is dry. Maybe if you dug enough you might find dampness, but on the surface, it's all sand.

The first portion of the trail was a bit of a slog through soft sand, and it was pretty effective at draining away my energy.

I stopped for a break at some point and got talking to a man who had stopped in the same place. He was carrying some pretty heavy looking gear and was feeling a little discouraged. He said his daughter was planning on meeting him the next day and he was thinking of how he was going to continue his hike. I encouraged him to look into getting some lighter gear to make the walking easier. I don't recall if I ever saw him again, but I hope that he was able to have a hike that satisfied what he was looking for.

One of the things that hikers become obsessed with are places to sit and relax and especially eat.

I know this was early in the hike, but even so, a picnic table is always a welcome change from sitting in the dirt while resting or eating.

One of the interesting aspects of the PCT is that it was designed from the start as a trail not just for hikers, like the Appalachian Trail, but also for equestrians (and non horse pack animals as well).

So, in some places, you can come across camps or other facilities aimed at horse riders. Also, the trail is supposedly graded to allow horses to cope with it, although there are some portions that I wouldn't like to ride a horse alone, due to side slope and particularly loose rocky bits, but those come later.

At any rate, I came to one of these horse camps, Boulder Oaks Campground. It'd serve hikers fine, but it also had corrals for horses, and it was road accessible. There weren't any horses in residence, but it did have picnic tables and a working water faucet.

I set up for lunch, and I was joined by a few other hikers. As I said, picnic tables and benches are a draw for hikers.

Two women who were hiking together introduced themselves as Mighty Mouse and Meta or Barbra. Mighty Mouse was on her second try at the PCT, having completed most of the Southern California portion a couple years before.

Mighty Mouse's husband, Tim, drove into the camp in their 4Runner, which I recognized from the Lake Morena campground. They were, of course, the three people trying to wrestle the big air bed into their car camping tent.

We got to talking. Tim was supporting Mighty Mouse along the trail. Barbra was hiking along for a couple weeks, and Mighty Mouse was planning on going the entire way, with continuous footsteps from Mexico to Canada.

Mighty Mouse, having hiked this section before, had in mind a campsite which was by a creek, although not quite on the trail.

After lunch I hiked on, and eventually ran into Mighty Mouse and Barbra again, and they invited me to camp where they were camping, and said that Tim could slack pack us the next day if I camped by them.

To explain, slack packing is basically when you are able to hike without your full load of gear and food. This might sound like cheating, and some people won't do it, but mostly people adhere to the "hike your own hike" rule, and there's pretty much no negative feelings either way, after all, there is no race or competition, everyone on the trail is there for their own reasons.

At any rate, to slack pack, I put most of my gear and food into a one of the garbage bags that I used as a pack liner and left that with Tim to carry along in the 4Runner.

A couple ladies that Mighty Mouse and Barbra had met earlier also took them up on their offer.

Hiking with a minimal load, just snacks for the day and water and a jacket or such in the pack, makes it feel like you're not carrying anything, and the miles fly by much easier. But that's tomorrow.

In the mean time, I hiked along near Mighty Mouse and Barbra until we came to Kitchen Creek Road, then turned off the trail and walked on the side of the road for a short distance to an area with a few nice tent sites and a flowing creek.

I set up my tent then went down to the creek and soaked my feet in the cool, flowing, water for a few minutes.

Dinner and a little conversation, then in the tent for sleep.

---

Photos from today: https://www.b-photo.com/Travel/PCT-2016-Day-by-Day/April/April-4/

Mighty Mouse's blog for today: http://www.timandgerri.com/blog---2016/day-3-4-april-mile-1996-3015

What was I thinking?

Note that the text of this post is actually from April 3, when I had to camp by Cottonwood Creek.

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It is 9:44 pm. I am settling in for bed, serenaded by a chorus of frogs who are resident at the creek that I am camped near.

So, all is well on the PCT, right?

Well, I am a mile and a half or so off the trail. And I could have finished my water at mile 10. I am that one and a half miles off mile 15.4 or thereabouts.

Lesson learned, bring more water and less food. And pay attention to the distances between water. And especially pay attention to the water report.

In the end a good day, but my first day on the trail could have been less of a death march to this creek if I had thought ahead a bit more.

Camp invaders

A flock of turkeys wandered through camp this morning

Cottonwood Creek to Lake Morena

Camping at Lake Morena campground. Warm shower and a burger at the town store. Beautiful sunset behind a mountain.

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Met a few other hikers in Lake Morena. This is the first organized campground along the PCT, and it mostly serves car campers, but with a designated area for hikers.

Two guys camped in the tent area with me had already been here for a couple days. I can't remember their names, but one of them was from Australia and was already sidelined with bad blisters. This is only 20 miles into the trail. I don't recall seeing him again, but hopefully his hike didn't come to an end here at Lake Morena.

My first night on the trail I spent on a rock next to a creek about a mile and a half off the PCT.

The good part was this as my morning view.

A little use of the stove for breakfast, with the tracker in the background hopefully sending and receiving messages.

Walking up the side of a steep valley in the sun I found this little cave. Had to stop for a while to enjoy the cool shade.

Most of the day was spent hiking without shade. It's something that is just a part of the PCT. People think it's a hike in the woods, but the reality is that there just aren't that many canopy trees in Southern California. We have lots of chaparral though.

Nice sunset for the second day of my hike.

------

2021 Update:

Woke up after my first night on the PCT to beautiful blue skies. But it's Southern California, what else would one expect?

I don't remember what I had for breakfast, I must have had some oatmeal or something, since I have a photo of my stove set up this morning.

I'm not a particularly early riser, and especially when I'm getting up from sleeping on a couple inch thick air mattress under a couple inches of down wrapped in nylon fabric nearly thin enough to see through, I'm not too quick to get moving in the morning.

On this morning though, it didn't matter. I had plenty of water available, and I knew that in seven moles or so, I'd be at my objective for the day, Lake Morena.

So, back to cooking...

There are lots of different things that people on the trail do for food.

Some people eat everything cold, no stoves. Some carry things that don't need cooking, and some rehydrate their food while they are still walking at the end of the day.

Some people bring enough cooking gear to equip a kitchen, they can simmer and create a gourmet meal every evening.

I chose to use my stove only to heat water, thus eliminating the need to clean its pot. The stove I have is pretty specifically designed to boil water, heck, it's even called "JetBoil"

So, boil water, then what?

Well, I took a disposable leftover storage jar, one of those things that are sold in grocery stores in three packs and have a screw-on lid and hold a quart or so, and I created, with bubble wrap pieces from a windshield reflector and duct tape, a coozy with lid to keep the thing warm.

It's called coozy cooking.

Basically, you put your meal that don't need extended boiling into the coozy wrapped container.

This limits you to things like: Instant rice, cous-cous, some noodles, instant mashed potatoes.

Then you add the appropriate amount of water that just boiled in the stove.

Then seal the lid and put the top of the coozy on, and let the thing sit for ten to fifteen minutes, then open it up and stir up the ingredients and there you have your meal.

The problem is that in a grocery store, or gas station, or whatever you've got available to shop at on the trail, there are a limited number of choices that fit with this cooking style.

Certainly this would be perfect if you were carrying freeze dried meals, and this is sort of the image of backpackers, isn't it? But, I met very few thru hikers that actually relied on freeze dried foods for a significant number of their meals.

Well, except for one guy who bought a whole pallet of meals from Mountain House, one of the big freeze dried food companies. His trail name, predictably, became Mountain House, we'll meet him down the trail a bit.

But back to that grocery store.

You could put all the easily prepared, coozy cooking compatible, food into a very small section of the store. Knorr noodle or rice dishes (mostly noodle, most rices needs too much simmering), Instant mashed potatoes (Idahoan in all their flavor varieties), cous-cous.

Plus, you need some protein. What to do about that? Mostly I carried tuna in foil pouch packaging. I'm not sure what my plan was at the beginning of the trail, but Mighty Mouse was doing tuna, so that's what I settled on after a while.

I did make a couple bulk purchases of meals that had been designed with coozy cooking and backpacking in mind. And those were great, but they also cost more, and to tell the truth, at some points it was more about just getting enough calories in some form that was just edible enough to be able to eat quickly before falling asleep.

I did carry olive oil, salt and pepper and some ground chili pepper to flavor things a bit. Later in the hike I'd add extra olive oil to things, just to get more calories.

So, back to the hiking...

I got up, ate while waiting for the bivy to dry off (it was wet from dew on the outside, and condensation on the inside), then packed up and headed out.

The route today headed up the first decent climb of the PCT. It's nothing compared to what would come later, but this was just the second day for me.

Again, it was hot, and since this is in the chaparral part of Southern California, shape is at a premium.

Part way up the climb I found a small rock overhang to sit in for a bit, but that was about it for shade until I was up and over the top of the climb and looking down at Lake Morena.

I did actually stop and take a break within sight of the park. Just sat under a big tree and rested before walking the last couple hundred yards to the camp office.

So, at the office I was able to quickly pay to camp in the hiker section. There's an area of the camping that they designate for hikers, no cars, but further from the bathrooms, and basically free form, set up your tent where ever you like.

I met a couple other hikers who were either in their tens or lounging at the picnic table nearest my tent. I can't remember names at this point and I don't think many people yet have their memorable trail names this close to the start of the trail. My closest neighbor was an Australian who already had bad blisters and had been at the campground for a couple days already. I hope he was able to eventually get moving again, but I don't recall seeing him again, so who knows.

I eventually got my tent set up and then walked down to the store in town for a burger and to buy some snacks and some gatorade.

Mostly the afternoon was spent relaxing and rehydrating.

I did briefly talk with a woman who had set up her tent not too far away. She had covered the first twenty miles that day, I never saw her again either, and I'd guess that she probably finished the trail a month ahead of me since she was that fast at the start of the trail. Everyone has their own speed on the trail.

I did notice with amusement, in the car camping area just across from where I pitched my tent, two women and a man who had set up an enormous tent, and then inflated a queen size air mattress outside the tent and were wrestling with the thing to get it into the tent.

Had a nice sunset, then went to bed.

Got up several times in the night thanks to earlier hydration routine. It was quite cold.

Lesson learned, hydrate earlier in the day so you don't have to get out of your warm sleeping bag in the middle of the night.

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Photos from today: https://www.b-photo.com/Travel/PCT-2016-Day-by-Day/April/April-3/

Amusingly, I saw these three crazy people inflating a big queen size air mattress and then wrestling it into their large car camping tent. Little did I know then...

Mighty Mouse's blog entry for today: http://www.timandgerri.com/blog---2016/day-2-3-april-mile-1082-1996

I am here.

Soon to be moving along the trail.

PCT southern terminus to Cottonwood Creek

The journey begins.

My mom drove me down in her Smart car and took a few pictures at the Southern Terminus memorial.

So clean!

Mom posing with the border wall/road in the background.

Mom and the Smart car departing.

Just have to get a picture of the first mile marker, probably the most photographed mile marker since I imagine that pretty much everyone gets this far. It's also one of the few mile markers of significance that isn't hiker created.

Crossed these tracks along the way. My path won't be as nice and flat.

The first segment of the PCT is about 20 miles from the border to Lake Moreno. I was planning on doing ten miles a day, camping someplace along the way.

However, the day turned out to be quite hot, and by the time I got to the ten mile mark I could tell that if I stopped and cooked I'd be seriously short on water for the following day.

I had looked at the maps and water report for this section and I knew that around the 15 mile mark, at the bottom of a valley that we had to hike down into and then up the other side, there was a creek. But the creek was a mile and a half off the trail.

So, instead of stopping at ten miles, I kept going. I ended up walking in the dark for the last couple miles of trail, plus the dirt road that led away from the trail. I finally found the water source, a nicely flowing creek with lots of frogs somewhere making noise.

My first day on the trail and I was beat. 15 miles of trail plus my mile and a half detour.

I filtered water, made something for dinner and camped on bare rock without bothering with the tent, since I couldn't be bothered to hunt around for a camp site in the dark.

Photos from today: https://www.b-photo.com/Travel/PCT-2016-Day-by-Day/April/April-2/

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Back in 2016 I, along with most of the people I worked with, was laid off when our employer decided that the way to recover from a massive accounting scandal at the home office overseas was to shut down our division.

At any rate, it left me suddenly with time on my hands, and some severance money.

Since I was young, I had wanted to go on a long hike. I was probably most influenced by the National Geographic books on the Appalachian trail and the Pacific Crest Trail that came out in the 70's. When we lived out east, there was the Appalachian Trail, and then when we moved west, the "local" trail became the Pacific Crest Trail.

Now, up to this point I had not done an extended backpacking trip. When we lived back east, we used to go for week long canoe trips, but those were luxury outings, and the longest portages where we had to carry out gear were maybe a couple kilometers. We always made two trips on each portage. In the local mountains here in Southern California I had done a few one or two night backpacking trips, but again, only tangentially similar to the extended trip I was contemplating.

I did have camping gear, lots of it, but once I decided to attempt this journey, I mostly got newer, lighter, gear. The trend for long distance backpacking is to go light, and then go lighter still.

One of the planning constraints for hiking the PCT is that there is a permit system. The non-profit, non-government body that does a lot of work for the trail, is the Pacific Crest Trail Association. This group coordinates with all the parks and national forests and other bodies along the trail. One of the things this accomplishes is that you can get a Thru-hiking permit that eliminates the need to apply for hiking and camping permits from every individual park or forest division along the way. The downside is that the permits are limited. Only a certain number of permits are issued each day. Mid April is the typical starting time for the trail, mostly because hikers are planning to get to the Sierra mountains at the proper time when snow levels have dropped enough to get through, but with enough time to still get the miles in after that to be able to finish the trail before the snow closes out the northern end. I wasn't able to get a start date in mid April, but I did get a start date of April 2, 2016.

Along with the PCTA hiking permit, I had to get a campfire permit for California. Now, I wasn't planning on making any fires, but the permit is required for backcountry use of stoves, and I did carry one of those.

There was also a permit to climb Mount Whitney, the highest peak in the Lower 48. Whitney has a quota system, a little like the PCT permit. There's a lottery, and it's hard to get a specific date. But, that's for climbing Whitney from Whitney Portal, the "normal" route for people just hiking Whitney as a day trip or an overnight. When hiking the PCT, we approach Whitney from the other side, and thanks to the PCTA, the PCT permit allows thru hikers to do a day hike up Whitney and back to the PCT. Of note, the PCT permit through the PCTA is free.

The last permit I needed was one to enter Canada at the end of the trail. The PCT officially goes from border to border, and although the US/Mexican border terminus is very much car accessible, the Canada/US end of the trail is in the middle of a wilderness area and miles away from roads. Most hikers continue on from the border crossing into Canada and end their hike in Manning Provincial Park in Canada. Legally, you need the border crossing permit. Applying for and receiving that was easy, thanks Canada! Interestingly, people who do the trail south bound, and there are a lot less going south, do not have a corresponding permit available from the US. If they want to be legal, they have to hike north to the border on the US side, and then turn around and start south. Or they can be scofflaws and ignore the law and start from Canada anyway. Or be creative and hike on the Pacific Northwest Trail and join the PCT Near the border then start south. But that's out of the scope of my hike...

So, for a couple moths I prepared, buying gear, doing some daily walking near my house, which was at least on a moderated hill with some dirt roads nearby.

I wasn't in great shape, more typical office worker shape. I was a cyclist, but not a runner, and I was a few pounds overweight.

My date to start came, and my mom drove me down to the Southern Terminus.

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Water is one of the governing factors in a PCT hiker's routine.

How much to carry, where to find more, how to filter it. All these things are vital. A little short on food, you can get along okay. Maybe miserable, but okay. A little short on water and you're in trouble.

Fortunately there are resources available online that help with the "where to find water" question. pctwater.com is a primary source, and I was using an app on my phone that along with a GPS navigable map of the trail had potential water sources marked and also supported some user comments, which helps when trying to determine if a water source was actually viable (a real concern since California is perpetually in drought conditions and springs can dry up any old time.)

So, with the importance of water in mind, you'd think that I would have started the trail with a surplus of water, right?

Wrong.

Why? Well, I guess I was excited at the prospect of beginning this adventure and didn't think through the water situation.

Plus, water is heavy.

I started off carrying four liters of water. By definition a liter of water weighs one kilogram. Convert that to pounds and you've got 8.8 pounds of water. Add that to my base gear weight plus food (And I was carrying food for a few days) and it all adds up.

On some later stretches I carried over 12 liters of water, plus made sure I drank a couple liters before I left whatever water source I was at.

Now, the first stretch of trail is 20 miles from Campo, at the border, to Lake Morena where there's a campground and a tiny town with a store and possibility to pick up a limited variety of food stuff.

What I had planned for the first day was to hike maybe ten miles, overnight, and then hike the remaining ten miles to Lake Morena.

However, the day started hot and got hotter, and by the time I stopped for lunch I had drunk half my water, and I could see that I wouldn't have enough to drink then cook dinner and for the hike the following day.

I definitely didn't want to end up like the couple that I came across after only about three miles who were under a bush asking passing hikers for water, as they had already run out. I think I suggested that they might want to head back to Campo and see if anyone there had water available since they were only a couple miles away.

So, faced with a lack of water I made a decision. I had looked at the maps and other data for this section and I knew there was water at the 15 mile point. However, it was almost two miles off the trail.

I hiked on past the ten mile point where I had intended to stop for the night. By the time I got to the major valley of this stretch, it was late in the day and starting to get dark. Descending a rutted, rocky trail by headlamp was lots of fun.

By the time I got to the bottom of the climb I was out of water, and it was full dark. There was a tent pitched along side of the trail at the bottom of the valley and I had a brief conversation with the guy in the tent. He offered water, but he only had a liter himself. I told him that he'd need it for himself, and that I was going to go down the dirt road a the bottom of the valley to the creek that was on the map and water report.

Trudging along in the dark with only a small pool of light from the headlamp is an interesting experience. Since the light is near the axis of your eyes, you don't have a lot of contrast or shadows to make things stand out.

Eventually I heard a loud chorus of frogs, and ran into a nicely flowing creek.

I shrugged out of my pack, hauled out my water filtering apparatus and got to work. I think I drank a couple liters of water right there before filtering enough to cook with and also for tomorrow's hike back to the trail and then up the first decent climb of the trail to Lake Morena.

After cooking something, I can't remember what, I inflated my sleeping pad, pulled my sleeping bag/quilt out of its stuff sack and put it all in a bivy sack.

For whatever reason I was carrying both a tent and a bivy at this point. A bivy sack is basically a micro tent that only has room for your sleeping bag. I have a very light weight one, but after this decided it wasn't worth carrying, I'd rather use a tent in almost every case, and the rare times I didn't, I didn't need the bivy, I'd just used my quilt alone.

I didn't bother with the tent, mostly because I was too tired to try to find a place to pitch it in the dark. The area around the creek was all bare stone, so there wasn't a way to set up my tent where I was.

I fell asleep to the chorus of happy frogs all around.

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Just a note, if anyone looks at this in the future. I'm writing this in 2020, finally adding a few more photos that were taken along the way. I might add some extra text, but even just four years later, memory fades. Frankly, even on the hike, some days were a blur and ran together.

I'll try to link Mighty Mouse's blog entries for each day, she wrote a whole lot more than I did.

Amazingly, we started on the same day, although at different times.

Here's her first day entry: http://www.timandgerri.com/blog---2016/day-1-2-april-mile-0-1089

One day to departure for my hike of the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT).

For years I've wanted to do a long hike. Years ago while living out east, it was the Appalachian Trail that held my interest. Since moving to California it has been the PCT.

But to hike the whole trail takes five months. To get five months off work is pretty much impossible. I did get six months off a few years ago, but it would be pretty difficult to go backpacking while being treated for cancer as I was back then.

So, my former employer's massive restructuring provides me with the opportunity of time.

For those who don't know, the Pacific Crest Trail is a trail from the Mexican border in Southern California through the length of California, then across Oregon and Washington to end at the Canadian border.

2660 miles, give or take a bit.

Downsized

My house for the next little while.
Tarptent Motrail.

Starting something big

Just how many steps will these last?