So we woke up in our perfect little campsite we had scored yesterday. We slept in because... IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!! Woo-hoo! They day was absolutely beautiful, the weather had said there was a 60% chance thunderstorm the night before and today, but alas, not a cloud in the sky!
We walked through some beautiful boulder fields and took many many pictures!
Finally some tee-shirt weather!
And check out this epic panorama I took of Claire walking:
We knocked out about 4.5 miles when we came across this sign:
Mike Herrera is an awesome trail angel who lives out in the middle of nowhere next to the PCT. His private property land is surrounded by the Anza-Borrego State Park. This amazing dude has a well on his property which he lets all of the hundreds of PCT hikers that come through fill up at. Without his tank, hikers would be facing a 36 mile water-less stretch!
He happened to be home today and the lands caretaker Josh invited us down to the house, where about 8 other hikers were resting. Some had stayed the night because of the thunderstorm "scare". We enjoyed pancakes, carrots and Tecates, said thank you to Mike and Josh, gave the tip jar a little lovin', and then headed back out on the trail!
It was so warm and sunny that we had to pull out the umbrellas! Claire told me that for my birthday she had kept her Spotify Premium account. (Shorthand meaning that she had all my favorite reggae jams saved offline so I could listen to them on her phone today)! I popped in the tubes and started singing away some of my favorite songs!
Suddenly some clouds popped out of nowhere, one of them was a perfect heart!
(Of course by the time I took the picture it had started to dissolve)
Three songs later and it started to sprinkle. We were both in t-shirts, Claire was wearing shorts, and we both had our umbrellas out because of the sun. Oh well, we thought, now we can finally use them for their intended use!
The trail was going down and down and down, and the rain was getting harder and harder. Music still bumping, I heard Claire say something.
"What?" I took the earphones out of my ear to hear her repeat:
"It's hailing!!"
Sure enough the rain had turned into hail and it was coming down hard. Small pieces but lots of it. We rushed down the mountain quicker thinking we might be able to get low enough to escape it.
I swear, in my whole life I've never seen weather change that quickly. One second it was a hot desert and a beautiful day, the next second it was flash flooding. It was now a mix of rain and sleet and hail. We hadn't had a chance o change clothes and the sidewards hail was pelting our legs, poor Claire in her shorts!
There were no trees around, only shrubs. We ran into some 4 ft shrubs to try and hunker down with our umbrellas as a shelter. It lent a few moments of relief.
After a few minutes and no end, our fingers were turning white and our limbs becoming cold. We decided we had to keep moving forward to stay warm.
Soon there were streams everywhere caused by the flash flood. We hobbled down the trail with our wet blistered feet, not able to avoid the water.
Three-four foot wide and 10" deep streams, too big to jump over, were now crossing the pct in each dip.
(If you look at the river closest the front in the picture, you can see a little rapid.. Full on river-status!)
Finally the hail stopped. It continues to rain in and off for a little while. Finally, when it had all stopped, we also stopped and changed into some dry clothes. Our feet were soaked and our socks were full of muddy grit that had gone right through the mesh and into the socks themselves.
The only thing to do was to keep pushing. Soon the misery went away and we were yet again just strolling along. It was only 5pm, the sky had cleared shortly after the hail ceased, but now it was darkening up again, we passed a group of people that invited us to camp with them, but decided to get in a few more miles and get even lower off the mountain in case the storm struck again.
Sure enough, we soon heard thunder rolling back in, but it was almost as if we were walking INTO the darkening clouds!
As we approached a good looking campsite with a couple other hikers a few miles later, the rain had started back up. We hurried as fast as we could to set up the tent in the now rain. However by the time we got it up everything was soaked. We threw all the dirty and muddy and wet items in, and then proceeded to wipe everything down with our Pack-Towels (Thanks MaRegine!)
We were sitting in the tent soaking wet and it was raining super hard outside, with thunder and a little lightning as well. Claire and I discussed and inquired the chances of surviving being hit by lightning, and if the poles in our tent acted as conductors.
Once everything was relatively wiped down but nowhere near clean, it stopped raining. Of course! We went outside and witnessed some of the most beautiful scenery we had seen so far. The sky was pink and orange with the setting sun, the distant clouds looked mysterious and strange. All of the white rocks around had an orange tint and the green desert seemed to be sighing relief around us...
Claire had some people camped nearby to take some awesome pictures of us, a little birthday-shoot:
Well, that's about it. What a great birthday I had out here on the trail! Thanks for all the wishes everyone, all of the texts came in all at once when my phone caught service but I lost it agin before I could reply to anyone. We are safe and sound and have survived the storm!
-Thanks for reading!
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