Day 37- May 26th

The PCT roller coaster strikes again! We woke up in our beautiful campground up on the hill, the morning was nice and warm.

We eagerly hit the trail by 8am so we could get to the next water source and the rendezvous with the trail angel to take Claire to Agua Dulce. There was poodle dog left and right but avoidable for the most part.

In just under 7 miles we got to the fire station where we filled up on water. We arrived shortly after 10am. After water we walked down a road to a picnic area, where Claire and I split up the gear. I kept the whole tent, I have her the stove and cook food, and she gave me a little more dry food. 

In order for me to make camp safely, I had to leave Claire just after noon. Her ride was confirmed to arrive between 2:00 and 3:00pm. It felt weird to leave her there, but we were assured everything would work out.

I climbed up and up with Josh as a hiking buddy. I felt like I was on a mission to return to Claire even though we had only just departed ways. This drive caused Josh and I to split, knowing that we'd meet at Messenger Flats campground 12 miles later.

Poodle dog bush ALL. DAY.

It was ridiculous. However, between dodging branches of the stuff to save my skin, I kept catching the most beautiful views that I've seen for a while! The burnt black trees against the white rocks and colorful flowers were astounding.

I hiked fast and hard, racing to a spot to hopefully get some service to check in with Claire that she had made it safely to Agua Dulce. At about 3:00pm I texted her if she was ok. No response, but I figured that was ok as reception back at the picnic area was spotty at best.

At 3:30 I got a little reception again. I checked my phone and saw that Claire had texted, "Still waiting :/ phone battery at 5%"

I thought something might be wrong, so I hiked on quickly until I had enough service to make a call. I called Jodi the trail angel who was to pick up Claire. She didn't answer and I left a message. At 4:30pm I got a text from her saying, "Sorry I'm running really late, my daughter's in the ER."

Oh no!! Not only was that very unfortunate for Jodi, but Claire's phone was dead so she didn't know that she might not get a ride out! My phone was at about 20% but I knew I had to do something. I was able to Google the fire station nearby the picnic area. After a couple calls and a couple explanations, I reached a kind lady named Jessica.

She told me that she would send someone down and see if Claire was still there. The 5 minutes after I hung up felt like an eternity! "What if she wasn't there?" "What if something happened?" "I shouldn't have left her alone, what was I thinking?" "I'm the worst boyfriend ever!" My wild thoughts haunted me. 

I sat and waited. After what felt like an eternity, my phone rang. It was Jessica from the fire station. Claire was still there safe and sound! She let me talk to Claire and Claire told me that Ruth-Anne had also hurt herself and she was looking for a ride to Agua Dulce as well. They were going to call another local trail angel nearby and coordinate some rides.

Whew! Man, what a relief! My baby is safe and on her way to rest and recovery! Everything works itself out! 

I'm in need of some rest soon myself, I've developed two new blisters on the bottom of my feet (a new occurrence for me), and the one in between my toe is not surrendering!

I did 18.71 mile today, 6.71 with Claire and 12.71 solo from noon until 6, (pretty good!) Tonight I'm attempting to cowboy camp for the first time. I'm doing this so I can get a super early start tomorrow, and easily get the 14 miles to the Acton KOA out of the way.

I'm on the table so the snakes can't easily snuggle up.

There are some super cool guys named "Glide" and "Dad" who gave me some of their dry food which helps ease my mind since I ate ALOT today going uphill for the second half of the day.

I should be rolling into Agua Dulce before noon on Saturday where I rendezvous with Claire and hopefully Dad and Micah a little later! Everything works out!

-Thanks for reading!

Day 36- May 25th

Well, today was definitely brighter than yesterday. Both figuratively and literally. We got up a little earlier and there were clear skies. The morning started out rough for Claire and I personally, but just as everything was at its worse, Magic happened.

This time is was in the form of "Goal-Tech". Goal-Tech is from Portland as well. He is hiking the PCT southbound this year in sections. He carries 3 huge bags of chips to pass out to Northbound hikers and he says he sees 80 a day!

Goal-Tech

I don't know why but after we thanked him and moved on, we felt 100X's better. The sky seemed to clear, and forward we went.

Soon we hit the 400 mile mark, woohoo!! More than halfway through the "desert", and only 300 until the High Sierra! It's funny because it seems we've been cold and in mountains more than we've been hot on a desert floor, but summer is on the way, so we can't complain too much.

Soon after the 400, there was a huge "600" written neatly in pine cones. Someone is getting a little ahead of themselves!  The elaborate pine-art inspired us to write something. Since we had left camp shortly before Josh, and we knew he wasn't too far behind we, (very maturely), decided to leave him a thoughtful message:

Of course it was a playful act, and when he caught up with us shortly after at the next water source, we had a good laugh of it.

Goal-Tech had told us there was a spot with some good cell reception a few miles ahead. "Yes!!" I thought, "We can finally arrange for Claire to get off this mountain so she can fully rest and heal her knees!" You can read yesterday's post if you're wondering why this is so.

We were excited when we approached the parking lot just off the highway where the trailhead pops out onto. I pulled out my phone, walked around, and... No service..

The "highway" near the trailhead sees about 1 car per 10 minutes by my estimate. And dropping off Claire alone with a stranger isn't the best plan. The only people in the parking lot was another group of older retired hikers, all of which who came from the opposite direction of Agua Dulce.

We knew that this was the last crossing of Highway 2, but didn't know what else to do. Without reception or a ride, and running lower on food by every minute, we pressed on..

We walked and walked and walked. Miraculously, Claire's knees weren't giving her too much trouble. Even through the false hope of salvation, our spirits were somehow high.

We walked through a huge burn area for about half of the day. There was a TON of poodle dog bush! This stuff is nasty and it you even touch it you'll be hurtin'! There were hillsides full of the stuff, in all stages of growth. After a recent burn, these evil plants pop up and thrive! Grown from destruction and desolation, crazy!

Beside, above, and below! 

We were certain that Claire would just have to walk to last 50 miles into Agua Dulce with me. We definitely don't have dry food for the both of us for 4 days each, and we estimated the fuel can only had 1-2 meals worth of fuel.

Then, after a 16.53 mile day, we stumbled into a beautiful campsite for the night. Low winds, no poodle-bush in sight, and an awesome expansive view cliff-side. Best off all, a tiny bit of reception!!

I looked on Google Maps and found that we were coming across a paved road in 6.8 miles. There seems to be a picnic area there. I had a list of local trail Angels on my phone, so we tried calling one. When the call didn't go through because the service was so weak, text messages saved the day!

This lady named Jodi is so awesome, we arranged for her to come pick up Claire at that picnic area tomorrow! From there they will head to Agua Dulce, only 25 minutes away by car, where Claire can rest for 2 days at "Hiker Heaven", a famous trail angel's house, while I hike the remaining 35 miles and meet her there hopefully Saturday night.

All is well! All we had to do was stay positive and things will work themselves out! It gets better:

We somehow got enough water to boil for an Idahoan potato meal and 3 servings of hot chocolate out of our fuel can! Tomorrow Claire will take the stove with her when her ride arrives, and I'll take some more of the dry food to safely make it there! 

We enjoyed a pretty sunset together and feel very relieved as we are here in our tent in this beautiful place. Although they didn't hurt during the day, her knees are very tight and in pain at the moment. The cold does not help.

The trail goes down 2,776 ft. tomorrow in those 6.8 miles, but luckily all we have to do is get her to there, as the descent to Agua Dulce is 12,000 feet down, and down is what kills the knees...

It's sad to have her miss a part of the trail, but we've thought about it, and weighing the options, she's decided that getting off and resting is the best thing for her to do. If she continues on them up here in the cold as is, we think that they may not heal as quickly and will give her more problems in the Sierra, where we'll be going up and down over 6,000 ft almost every day!

Although it's shocking news, we have hope that everything will work out. Also, my dad and brother are coming to meet us in the next week or so, so we have another period of rest and recuperation to look forward too!

Thanks for reading!

Day 35- May 24th

Today sucked. It's hard to stay positive when you wake up in a cold tent and everything's wet. You can't cook warm oatmeal because you have to ration your gas, so you just cram down a frozen protein bar and almost freezing water. 

Then you hike up a huuuuge mountain through a wet fog and mist all morning. Aptly it's named Islip saddle, probably because I slipped my butt all the way up and then back down the thing. 

On top of that this morning I offered to carry Claire's half of the tent, (the poles, stakes, and light system) for reasons I'll soon get to. Stupidly I strapped them on top of my sleeping pad which hangs by my butt. This is a big no-no because anything heavy near the bottom of your pack will drag you down when going uphill. Half way up the hill I was so drained that had to stop and resituate in the cold mist.

I don't know who named this wilderness, but they did an ironically terrible job.

So, Claire's knees have hurt ever since the descent from Mt. Jacinto. The rise and fall of Mt. Baden-Powell yesterday did not help. For a couple days now we've discussed her getting a ride ahead 100 miles or so while I solo and she rests. The thought of hiking alone is pretty terrifying for me, so on top off all theses negative things today, we've been thinking about this. 

Also there hasn't been any reception since Wrightwood. We would've had her rest more then, but her knees didn't really scream in pain until after Baden-Powell. We were going to call a trail angel for a ride ahead, since there are no high traffic roads around here to hitch. Because of no service for the ride, it's looking like she's going to have to walk the whole 50 miles to Acton with bum knees. That's 9,500 ft up and 13,500 down...

Also, because we've been at such high elevations, water has been taking longer to boil and we've been using fuel more rapidly. When we run out of fuel, which will probably be tomorrow, all of our cooking food will be useless. Therefore we have to seriously ration our dry food.

Not much happened in terms of the trail today. It was really crappy and foggy for the most part like I said. Then we had to do a road walk around an Endangered Species Closure. I'd say the only plus side of the day was that we reunited with Josh again and hiked with him for a bit. He lifted our spirits just a tad.

There's a severe poodle bush area for the next 40 miles. The weather is still extremely cold, and I'm extremely bummed. By the time I'm able to post this and you can actually read this we'll probably be in Acton or Agua Dulce, and hopefully things have gotten better. 

Well, I should stop bumming everyone out. We did 12.36 miles total today, which was pretty good considering the alternate route and the freezing foggy weather.

Thanks for reading!

Day 34- May 23rd

This morning we woke up bright and early, even though we were in a house with walls to block the light. Our natural clocks are set!

Heather offered us coffee and her boyfriend Johnny offered us waffles! We said goodbye to McKenzie (Heather's daughter) and then she was off to school. Heather came right back to pick us up and take us out to the trailhead.

Heather, Claire, and I

We were out on the trail again by 9am. We felt pretty good with our decision to stay in town instead of camp out up on the trail. Our blisters were still bugging us, but Claire finally has her poles!

We came across a campground area and sat down for a snack. There was a large group of children in a field trip and the leader came over to ask us a bunch of questions. When we told the group that we had been out here over a month, one boy replied in shock: "And you're still ALIVE?!?!"

The first few miles of trail flew by. We descended down to highway 2 and prepared to climb Mt. Baden Powell, a 2,817 foot elevation gain in just 3.7 miles!! The climb was grueling and intense. Slowly but surely we approached the summit. 

Near the top we admired the Waldron tree. Named after a boy-scout leader, the twisted and gnarled tree hanging on to a wind blown dirt cornice is estimated to be 1500 years old!!

The summit 0.1 miles off the PCT, so we decided to skip it and keep going.

...

Of course we didn't skip it, are you crazy?! After that long climb?! We went up to the top and were amazed at the views. It would've been a 360 degree lookout point, but there was a sea of clouds to the south. But they still made for some awesome photos'

We had lunch with a few others up top, spent a good while airing out our feet, and then started our long descent. The trail had gone up from the highway very quickly, but from the summit we could see that the way down North roller-coasted up and down gradually along a high ridge.

Surprisingly the top of the mountain was nice and sunny and warm compared to the rest of the day. All the clouds from the south were constantly creeping over the  mountain ridge right through us hiking. Going down took a very long time, and was very hard on Claire, even with the poles :(

We did see some beautiful things though!

About an hour before sunset, we came across our home for the night. Little Jimmy Campground. There were a bunch of hikers there, and some who we haven't seen for a long time! It was a big reunion! 

Firstly, we saw Josh!! We had left him at Cajon Pass when Helen had picked us up at McDonald's. Then there was Becca and Andrew. We hadn't seen them since the day we met them: Coming down Mt. Jacinto! We also saw "6", someone we had met in Idylwild, and "42", the one who impressed Floyd Mayweather and crew in McDonald's. Also Duckman who we met a few days before. Lastly there was Bj and Metro, as well as  Salsberry and Dang; both couples we had met in Wrightwood.

Well, today was a day, we climbed 4017 ft and descended 3987 ft in only 14.55 miles!! Super pooped, going to bed, it's probably below 30 degrees outside! Brrrrr!

-Thanks for reading!

Day 33- May 22nd

Today we slept in knowing that we only had to do 2.17 miles to Wrightwood. We thanked and said goodbye to John, Erik, Tony, and Ben who were just packing up their tent. 

In a few minutes, we came across some more ski runs and chair-lifts for Mountain High, and I checked out the resort map for future reference!

About 1/2 an hour later, the 4 guys passed us in their jeep on a paralleling dirt road, reminding us just how fast vehicles are compared to feet.

As we were coming down the trail, we caught a glimpse of Mount Baden-Powell, which we'll be summiting tomorrow! 

The trail popped out onto Highway 2, at a viewpoint called Inspiration Point. There were pullouts on both sides of the road and even a bathroom! We met another girl there named Emliy who was hitching into town as well. Soon someone pulled up in a big Suburban and took all three of us into Wrightwood. 

He dropped us off at Evergreen Cafe, a big breakfast place that has delicious huge portions, that we were definitely ready for:

After that we headed to the local Mountain Hardware store. They are an awesome company that hold hiker boxers for hikers! Good thing we used them as our pick up spot instead of the Post Office because we arrived on a Sunday!

I had two packages, one from my sister Sarah and one from my mom. Inside there were plenty of goodies like blister bandages, power bars, protein bars, dried apple-bananas, beef jerky, and letters from Sarah, Mom, and Dad!

Claire got her hiking poles that she ordered online from Hiker Hunger and they are amazing! Pictures to come tomorrow! She also got her last paycheck from work.

In the Mountain Hardware store there was a list of trail angels in Wrightwood who offered to house hikers. We decided to give one of them a call instead of hitching back out and staying up in the cold mountains for the night. It was a girl named Heather and she said she'd pick us up a little later.

We went to the grocery store and resupplied with a bunch of goodies. We thought we bought a lot, but then these 3 hikers came out with a shopping cart's full! 

The store was great and had a big area outside with some umbrellas to sit and charge our phones. We stayed there for a couple hours to wait for our ride. We ate, talked with other hikers, ate, charged our phones, and ate some more! 

Where all the cool kids hang..

At about 7:45pm, Heather pulled up with her daughter and took us to her home. We have the whole downstairs all to ourselves tonight, and she says she can fit up to 10 down here. They have two German shepherds who live down here in the winter, and you can tell they aren't pleased with us taking over. They are making their presence known from just outside the window.

Heather and Johnny are very nice and they let us take showers and do laundry, gave us some wine and offered us some food, and told us to help ourselves to breakfast in the morning. Heather's even taking us back to the trailhead tomorrow after she drops off her daughter at school! 

Again we are super thankful for all the nice people who have showed us such kindness and generosity on the the trail so far. Big day tomorrow, up and around Mt. Baden-Powell. Super excited!

Thanks for reading!

Day 32- May 21st

Today was loooong! A roller coaster for sure! We had some low low and high highs, all in one day! Today was our second 20+ mile day!

We woke up and we had some major condensation because of the rain fly because of the high winds from last night. My sleeping bag was all wet and it was still very cold out.

It was still nice and windy when we were ready to hike, making it even colder out! We climbed and climbed and climbed. We climbed over 5000 feet today! 

We entered an old burn area, from a fire in 2013. We encountered a lot of Poodle Dog Bush, a plant poisonous to the touch with effects similar to poison oak:

Touch this and you'll be hurtin' for a while...

We climbed up and up all day, for 17 miles. We climbed up so high that at the end of the day, we climbed DOWN onto the top of a ski resort called Mountain High!

Like I said earlier, we both had some hard downs today. Claire has blisters on both sides of both of her heels, both pinky toes, and a big blister in between her big toe and second toe on one foot. It was not the best of days for the sore and cold Claire..

I threw a mini tantrum like an 8 year old boy when I couldn't find some things in my pack. I also had a good hour straight of zombie walking, an occurrence that happens when you're tired and sore and unamused and you just hobble at a slow pace, with not even enough energy to keep your face looking alive.

That being said, the magical PCT roller coaster doesn't keep you down for too long! After climbing for 17 miles and freezing our butts off at 9000 ft elevation, we came down a few miles into Blue Ridge Campground, just below Mountain High ski resort. This is what we saw:

Ben, Tony, John, and Erik. With chicken on the grill!

These guys saw us trudging over and invited us to come eat. Tony made the best flame-grilled chicken of my life! We had Coors Light, chicken, sun chips, gummy bears, life is good!

We set up the tent in between servings of chicken, and then day around the fire talking for almost 3 hours! All four boys work at Equinox (a fitness gym) as personal fitness trainers.

It's cold up here tonight, just below freezing. At 10:00pm, we reluctantly left the fire to clamber into our freezing tent. We'll warm up soon in these sleeping bags!

Today we put 20.17 miles behind us. Tomorrow it's an easy 2.17 miles to the highway where we'll hitchhike into Wrightwood for a resupply, some food, a couple packages from my family, and hopefully some trekking poles for Claire! (She had ordered them online when we struck out in Big Bear). We'll most likely be back out on the trail tomorrow afternoon after our town errands.

-Thanks for reading!