Day 15- May 4th

(In song) These shoes are great! 

These shoes are great. 

These shoes are great,

with a cherry on top!! (End song) 

This was my anthem all day. Did I mention that these shoes are great? Even after walking over 16 miles today, straight through the hottest time of day, all my blisters are dry and non-irritated. They are surely healing, yay!!

Unfortunately for Claire the previous shoes gave her a mean blister on the INSIDE of her pinky toe, so it continues to run on the neighbor toe. However, since the toes aren't as squished, we're hoping for a speedy bliss-covery.

But enough about feet. Today we set a new speed record for packing up camp, we were out on the trail by 6:45am! This may not seem like a big accomplishment, but with us sharing a small space, and a relatively big tent to break down in the morning, it means getting "started" at 5:30!

Getting that nice and early start sure makes a big difference.. The first few miles flew by! As we went up and up and up, we soon came across someone who has just packed up their campsite. It was Orion!!

What perfect timing! We hiked with him up up and up some more while catching up and seeing what's been going on. We came across some beautiful views towards the top:

We were waaaaaay up! 

It's nice when someone's around to take pictures of the two of us together! 

At the top we came to Cedar Springs Junction, which starts the 10 mile portion of the PCT closure. So we took a left in Cedar Springs trail and started going down down down! 13 switchbacks in a row! 

On the way down we saw two people hiking up. It was Cassie and Dario, the last of our three hitchhike rides yesterday out of Idylwild! They were day hiking and it was such a nice surprise to run into them again! The PCT is full of magical reunions and often times has extreme coincidental (or not) timing! 

At the bottom of Cedar Springs trail we continued on a paved road for 1.4 miles, then forked onto a crazy rocky dirt road that went down down down for 2.5 miles straight! No shade at all, and mean ankle-threatening rocks. 

At the very bottom, we had another reunion!! It was Alyssa and Paul, who we hadn't seen since day 3, hiking out of Lake Morena! We talked for awhile and ate lunch under a big pine. 

Alyssa sent me a very detailed 55 mile alternative route around the NEXT fire closure that up until today we thought was impassable, resulting in a 60 mile hitch and having to skip 40-60 miles of the PCT. (Which is a real bummer for those of us who want to maintain a continuos foot-path from Mexico to Canada!) More on that later, we can only handle one fire-closure at a time!! 

The road walks today weren't my favorite, but it's worth it in the long run to be able to say we walked from Mexico to Canada without hitching around any sections. And after all, they aren't ALL bad views:

This little dirt road paralleled the highway, and it's way safer for hikers. 

Today we hiked 16.2 miles total, only 7.65 of which were on a trial. The other 8.55 being on 4 different roads combined. 

It wasn't all that bad, we got to test out our little AM FM radios today. Claire and I both almost stepped on a snake. We also got to stop at a little market along the highway for some breakfast burritos and a Pacifico! 

Tonight we are camped close to the highway, but it's not loud enough to keep us awake. That storm that's supposed to start tomorrow night or early Friday and last until Sunday is still coming on strong. We plan on hiking our 9 mile road walk/bike path back into Idylwild, completing our fire closure alternative footpath, and we safe and sound enjoying $1 tacos again before the storm hits! 

-Thanks for reading!