Day 8, 6.62 miles

I don’t want to jinx myself, but I maaaaaaaay have figured this whole foot thing out! All I can say is Hooray for band-wagoning! Last time simply switching to Altras and upsizing saved our feet from sure doom. This time upsizing and switching socks will hopefully save mine! But, first let’s back up a bit.

Last night I decided to not get a super early start and just see how everything looks in the morning. Today I sure did sleep in! I woke up naturally at around 6:00am (I was tired!) and laid in “bed” until about 7:30. The pain on my left ball of my foot had subsided way down. It’s still a little sensitive to touch. 

The infection on my right pinky toe went down DRASTICALLY, and I feel like I jabbed it early enough to not be too major! This first picture was my toe last night:

And this next picture were my feet this morning:

Much better! Even the other toes in the top picture are waaaaay fatter, and that’s from hiking the 15 miles into Warner Springs and then walking around the rest of the day. At the end of this post I’ll put what my pinky looked like just two days before on Tuesday. But it’s a pretty gross picture.. be warned.

Anyway, on with today. I didn’t send myself a resupply here even though there isn’t much for groceries here. I recalled from last year hikers opening their resupply boxes and dumping a bunch of food in the hiker boxes because their hiker hunger hadn’t kicked in yet. Well, it was the same this year. Check out my score!

Not included in the picture are about 4 more bars some other hikers gave me later. Besides taking all this food forward with me, I had a nice oatmeal breakfast with all the fixings: chocolate chips, coconut shreds, chia seeds, and dried banana chips. Everyone is already sick of oatmeal but I don’t have a stove so when there’s a microwave and clean water available I’m game! 

I ended up taking all the chocolate that would inevitably melt out on trail and put it in my peanut butter jar. Brilliant idea I overheard from another hiker.

The morning quickly became hot, and I decided I would rest another half day and take off in the afternoon with my brand new kicks and socks:

Injinji!!!

While walking towards the restroom today, I nearly stepped on the second snake I’ve seen out here!! 3 1/2 ft long! It scared the bejeebus out of me because I was in the fenced in grass area and had my guard down!  My startle and yelp attracted some other hikers including Trout. It wasn’t a rattlesnake, but it had kind of trapped itself between the wall of the restroom and the sidewalk. As to not have it scare anyone else or anyone else scare it, Trout tried to pick it up carefully to move it away.

As soon as he grabbed it, it went straight for a tiny crack in the side of the building. It might’ve come from there and that’s it’s home, but I decided then I wasn’t going to use that toilet anymore!

Today, when I was checking the weather for Idyllwild, where I’m planning to arrive on Tuesday, I got a surprise!

Looks like I’ll be just in time to arrive and then hunker down for some snow. This is super super funny because last time Claire and I got to Idyllwild there was a rain/snow storm and we had to wait it out. This time I was like, “At least I won’t get stuck in Idyllwild for a few days this time”, haha. Nah, I got to say I’m pretty excited to see what I’ll do when the time comes. In 2016 my mom was praying that I’d have a memorable birthday, and it ended up hailing on us on an 80° day! 

I rested and elevated my feet some more, and at around 3pm I wrapped up my pinky toe LIGHTLY with gauze and tape, threw on my new kicks and was out the door. 

The shoes and socks feel GREAT!! There’s more space for my toes to move around in the wider toebox, and now they can’t blister by touching each other. The sock is thinner than the darn tough, but the shoe itself has a few millimeters more of cushioning and sole which makes a HUGE difference! I took it pretty slow on purpose this afternoon, but I had no pain in the ball of my foot area, which was a CONSTANT struggle in the other ones. I think this setup will work wonders :)

The trail was open and flat and straight for about a mile, and then it gradually climbed and there was much foliage, (First picture of post). The bushes were taller and the trees were very nice. The Agua Caliente Creek runs along the trail a handful of times, and it was a beautiful place to get some afternoon miles in.

How lovely!

I filled up four liters at the last crossing of the creek, and decided to go a little further until I camped for the night.

I climbed up a few switchbacks and went maybe just a mile more, when I saw a nice looking spot on the dirt. A small spur trail caught my eye, and I followed it down about 30 feet around a corner to find this sweet spot:

What a cool spot! It’s small but fits my tent perfectly, AND it’s on nice soft sand! Another bonus: the spur trail continues about 20 ft down to the same creek. Also, it leaves the larger lag dirt spot just off trail available for anyone coming up the hill later tonight looking for a spot to camp.

Nearby creek = more cereal for dinner :)

I’m laying here typing out the blog and the area has come alive with the sounds of so many different creatures! The frogs are going crazy, there are little chirping birds, and every now and then I hear something small rustle in the nearby brush. Everyone loves the water!

I plan on getting an early start tomorow and making it 12 miles to Mike Herrera’s place before it gets too hot out. He is a trail angel that lives 3/10ths mile of trail. He has a large water tank just for us hikers, and without him we’d be facing over 20+ miles with no water on a very exposed part of the trail.

Thanks for reading! 

(Bonus content below)

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Ok guys, here it comes, I thought I’d post the picture of my pinky toe on Tuesday. It’s pretty graphic, even in the blister world, so if you don’t think you can handle, stop here, but for those curious cats, keep scrolling! 

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It’s ALIVE!!!!

This is the result of socks that are too small and a shoe size that can’t accommodate my swelling feet, then ad luekotape wrapped too right into the mixture. Basically, I popped a small toe blister, wrapped it in tape, and a new one grew under the tape, forcing my pinky toe under my fourth toe when I was walking. That’s the result!

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Day 7, 15.08 miles

I woke up right at 5am again and started hiking by 5:40. Last night got sooooo windy, I’m glad that I crammed my tent up right behind some small trees that acted as a wind block. I figure I would get an early start and pound out the miles to Warner Springs before it got too hot out.

I was basically camped at the tippy top of the long, 17 mile incline, and now it was time to come back down! The morning was beautiful. It got light and warmed up way quicker than I was expecting so I soon stopped to change from my beanie/headlamp/base layers, into my shirt sleeve day hiking set up.

I love this one

So my brand new iPhone has been doing this weird thing where sometimes there are a bunch of vertical red lines on the screen. It can usually be solved by turning the whole phone off and then back on, but it’s pretty annoying when I’m trying to take a quick pick of something that may either move or change quickly. Below is a picture I took, then had to restart my phone before taking the picture at the top of this blog entry:

See the red lines? Weird huh?

Anyway, in the first few miles I hit another milestone! Mike 100! I have hiked 100 miles in 6 1/2 days! :) now I just need to do that again 26.5 more times to reach Canada! Wow. That’s a lot.. 

Mile 100!! No one there to take a full picture of me

(And yes; those are weed-printed gaiters, haha)

The trail continued down and down and emptied out into a series of long, flat open prairies. I knew we were getting close to eagle rock, and was having dejavus of Claire and I hobbling towards the great rock formation.

Here it is! It really does look like an eagle huh? Unfortunately no other hikers were around to take an awesome photo of me, so this picture of Claire and I in 2016 will have to fill that gap:

Leaving Eagle Rock the trail climbed up a bit more, leaving the open prairies, nd started winding down through a lush riverside wonderland for the last few miles into Warner Springs. It was this section last time that Claire and I were finishing our 18+ mile day with multiple injuries each and plenty o blisters! We were pro-hobblers!

I entered Warner Springs by 12:30 and was pretty proud of my time! 15 miles in under 6.5 hours!! I headed to the Resource Center where they host hikers and provide amenities like bathrooms, epsom foot soaks for $3, and free bucket showers. There’s also a small hiker store there to buy any food you need. 

Many hikers send themselves a resupply of food, and decide they don’t want a lot of their food so it all ends up in the hiker box. Unopened peanut butter jars, pounds of fresh trail mix, tuna, sunscreen, cliff bars, a Teehee’s best dream!

Also, as you can see from the picture, a TON of hikers buy new, bigger shoes here at Warner Springs, and ditch their old, blister causing pair. And that’s exactly what I did this time :)

Mary aka Pillsbury, and her husband Charlie Brown, run a gear shop out of an Airstream trailer called Two Foot Adventures. They weren’t here in 2016, and Claire and I couldn’t upgrade our shoes until Idyllwild, 70 miles North of here! 

I was hoping that I wouldn’t have to drop $130 on new shoes this year, because I started with 12.5’s which is the size my feet swelled up to in 2016. I figured they shrink back over these two years since and they’d swell and grow back to the same size, but all these toes blisters and now heel blisters and side of the feet arches lead me to believe that I’ve grown/am growing into size 13! I went with the Altra Timps instead of new Lone Peaks, they have an even wider toe box for my big old toes, and they have a few more mm’s of cushion between you and the ground. The Altea Olympus is the next cushion level up, but they are so high off the ground that many people complain about filled ankles.

Mary and Charlie Brown set me up with a box to send my old shoes home in and I gave them some money to ship it out tomorow for me at the post office. This way I’m not throwing them straight into the hiker box and I still have a nice pair of shoes when I’m done with the trail! I also purchased some luekotape, and some Injinji toe socks to help with my toe blisters, I’ll show pictures of them probably tomorow.

Next, I headed back into the Resource Center to inquire about a bucket shower. When I told the lady I had hiked through here in 2016, she told me to look for my name in the old trail registry. 

Check it out!!

I also saw a bunch of old friends that we had made that year like Chips, Guac, Orion, and many others! I sent the picture to Claire and then grabbed a towel for my bucket shower.

Getting those dreadies clean 

Ah, that felt GREAT!! As I was coming out of the shower and was about to return my towel, there was someone offering rides to the restaurant at the golf course. I quickly took him up on it since I was quite hungry, and I wanted to avoid hobbling the otherwise required 1 mike walk there.

Ross with his 2 year old Arlo

We ended up eating together and talking about all sorts of things. Ross volunteers his time to taking hikers to and from the restaurant and post office and Resource Center in town. As his main job he works contractually in IT. And as his OTHER volunteer job, he performs off-road recovery in his sweet off road rig. (Like when someone in an off road vehicle gets stuck off road somewhere, HE comes for an off-road off-road reuse.)

Arlo  is SUPER smart and well behaved for a two year old, and he enjoyed his Apple juice and chicken fingers, while we enjoyed our Adult Apple Juice (IPA’s) and I had a massive bacon cheeseburger with fries :)

Alright, now for some bad news, haha. Ross took me back to the Resource Center where I was able to sneak in a $3 foot soak 10 minutes before they closed. After washing up, I was able to actually see and feel the damage to my toes. I popped 3 new blisters that I got over the last few days, but found that my right pinky toe is most likely infected. This makes sense as it has been the worst blister so far and the painful blister has recurred in a slightly different area each time, either not quite healing and closing, or just being more irritated with every mile. 

I also have this blister-like pin in the ball of my left foot just below the third and fourth toes. The funny thing is there is no blister there, although there are some all around. Some googling online leads time to believe I might have Morton’s Neuroma. It’s not the worst thing in the world, but basically my foot fascia is putting pressure on a nerve in my foot and it really really hurts, even when I just touch it. And unfortunately I can’t relive the pain by popping anything or taking ibuprofen :( 

I hope this isn’t it, but the location of pain is the exact same and those two toes have the stinging and burning feeling at times even though they don’t have actual blisters on themselves.

So, long story short, I’m going to sleep in tomorow morning instead of waking up early, and check the damage on my feet. I’m hoping that things get better with rest and that the toe infection isn’t serious.

Thanks for reading!

Day 6, 17.11 miles

I got up nice and early as planned, used all of Trouts leukotape to wrap up as many toes as I could. The Climb On worked its magic overnight and a few of the open, pruny blister sites had smoothed out and dried overnight! The ones that didn’t got a nice wrapping of tape. I’m going to buy some leukotape for myself when I get in Warner Springs in a couple days, as well as another pair of XL socks.

Alon was ready to go a few minutes before I did, and he headed out to the street to hopefully get a ride. As I was finishing up getting my pack together, I saw Ed, (who had given Claire and I a ride into Julian in 2016), pull up to Alon. He said he’d pull the van up to the back of Carmen’s to take anyone else that needed a ride. Just like on the way up, it was Alon and I (Alone, haha) on the way down. My ultimate goal is to record Alon saying “Sometimes I feel so... alone.”

Soon we were on our way down! Ed had been given the trail-angel name “Ghost” this year because he always seems to pop up and/or disappear out of nowhere to help hikers out with whatever they need.

Two pack, Ed, and Alon

Alon and I parted ways as I wanted to get as far as I could before the sun came out in full force. It was forecasted to hit 80° today and that’s HOT when you have no shade all day in the desert.

There was a lot more cactus on this side of Scissors Crossing than the other, and now in two fun new shapes! 

The trail hugged one side of the valley and started to climb, up up and up! Sometimes gradual, sometimes steep, and every now and then flat or down for a tiny bit. I kept seeing hikers that were just ahead of me, sometimes it would look like they were just around the next corner and I was just a 1/4 mile behind them, but then I’d turn the corner and see more like a mile of trail in between us! 

Check out this crazy trail!

Something I’ve learned as a long distance hiker is you can’t be picky with your shade in the desert. Some people would see this:

and think, “There’s no way I could sit on that”

We see it and think this:

A perfect chair with a back, foot rest, and pack holder!



On one of those crazy corners I spotted Andre! (Truth is he was taking a leak, hahaha) He had hitched out of Julian last night and camped under the highway at Scissors Crossing to get an early start. It was almost noon, and the day had turned super super hot, and was almost ready for my long break. 

I decided I’d slow it down during the hot and dry sections of the desert (which is kind of all of it), and start taking an extended midday break in addition to short ones whenever I need to. Claire and I used to do this in 2016. I like the idea of going 15 miles for three days a lot better than battering my feet for 20+ miles for two and then recovering for a whole day!

I told Andre of this and he very much liked that plan.  I set out ahead of him to find us some shade. I shortly arrived in a wide, dry creekbed in the saddle of a ridge. Here the ground was relatively flat and there were a few small bushes around, but not big enough to lie under for shade.

TADA!! Not the most beautiful but not bad for my first time “building” shade!

As the sun got higher and moved to the ther side of the bush, so did I with my rain fly and trekking poles. I moved my build three times in about 3 hours, and this was my favorite:

 Andre set up his rainfly plus footprint for some shade as well:

While we were on our break we briefly saw Candyman and his hiking partner Sweat, who’s name I had forgotten earlier. We also met these two hikers from North Korea. They are so cool! I mainly talked to Minjoo Kim, partly because her hiking partner only spoke Korean! He is a buddhist monk that lives in a monestary in North Korea. He meditates everyday and is very quiet. (I made him laugh twice though)!!

Minjoo Kim on left with her own shade lean-to

Companion in silence on right (probably meditating)

I did some blogging and tried to sleep a little without much success. I think I napped for about a 1/2 hour though! I decided to hit the trail a little after 3, I had been there for just over three hours! The temperature either wasn’t as hot or the sun wasn’t as directly overhead, and the nice breeze way up in the ascending high ridges felt good.

The trail kept climbing and winding with more of the same terrain. Last time Claire and I did this 14 mile climb without a big break in the middle, my left ankle was hurting bad by the end and I had developed a giant lump on my right quad from the angle of the grade on the trail! This time because of the break I feel great except for the ever-present blisters.

Some of the areas that I applied leukotape to actually re-blistered under the tape :( There are so many different factors out here in terms of taking care of your feet. I’ve learned that no one knows everything, and it’s best to find what you think works best and for your feet to grow stronger. For me what works best is popping those suckers right when I feel them! (Verdict is still out on the leukotape.)

Anyway, enough boring stuff. About 2 hrs after I started hiking again I got the third gate water cache. Fond memories of camping and conversation here in the past. This time I saw two hikers that I knew but aside from that just headed down the steep spur trail to fill up my water.

This is the one water cache that the PCTA itself has deemed reliable throughout the season. We aren’t to rely on any watercaches in general, but on the PCT water report, this one is usually reported as being stocked 300-500 gallons. Again, these people do this on their own time with their own money and are not paid. We are so thankful for these angels.

While I sat there eating half a family sized bag of frosted mini wheats, this tiny guy was munching down on his favorite flower:

I love these little guys

After getting three liters for 10 miles of hiking to the next water source and one night of dry camping (not camping near water), I headed off to make a few more afternoon miles. I absolutely love hiking between 5 and 8am but especially between 5-7pm our her win the desert. The temps are always perfect and the lighting is fantastic

It’s so satisfying to look back down on the trail after a big long climb and traverse

Well, that’s about it for now! I’m camped next to a few ther hikers on a SUPER windy ridge! I’m super close to some trees and shrubs which are making this constant squeaking noise but it’s better than being blown over on an exposed section of cliff! :)

Thanks for reading!

Day 5, 2.87 miles

I woke up this morning in the sandy wash and checked for mountain lion prints right away but didn’t find any. Andre woke up shortly after I did and I helped him discover Pop Tarts, haha. 

“Thank you, this is a great breakfast!”

I know in yesterday’s post I said the sun gets hot at 8:30, but it definitely got hot at 7:30 today. We’d been descending down down down into the desert floor and were now feeling the heat! 

I told Andre I’d meet him in Julian, and headed off. It was a pretty uneventful few miles except that there are suddenly TONS more cactus! The trail hit the highway and followed it for a bit, and eventually I made it to Scissors Crossing. There under the bridge I met another hiker named Alon from Israel. He had camped right near the highway last night and was also going to hitch into Julian.

Alon

This picture was from later in the day but I just wanted to give you a face for the name!

Alon and I walked down highway 78 for a bit just passed where another road connects to it. I’m glad we did because in a few minutes, a car pulled out from that road headed towards Julian and stopped to pick us up. If we stood before that road we would’ve missed the ride! The hitchhiker-picker-upper was named Sonny. He lives in the area and commutes to work past Julian everyday. 

He was very nice and drove VERY fast! Alon and I crammed in the back of the cluttered sedan and we zipped up the windy 40 mph country road doing at least 60 all the way to Julian! We thanked him and got out, I was pretty surprised I didn’t lose my pop tart breakfast! After walking for 5 days at 2mph, driving and making crazy turns at 60mph is pretty intense.

We walked up to Carmen’s Garden. CLOSED (except for hiker trash!!) What a beautiful oasis in the desert. Carmen is a trail angel in Julian that owns this restaurant. I’m glad I started my hike when I did because as of May 1st she’ll no longer be open to thru-hikers as she’s selling the restaurant. In 2016, Claire and I didn’t stay here but we saw Carmen in the general store and she gave us a ride back to Scissors Crossing!

Carmen

It was so wonderful spending my nero (near zero) day here. Carmen’s helped Sierra greeted me and gave me a nice clean tub of super hot water. First I soaked and washed my blistered feet three times and took off all the old bandages. Then I washed my dirt-face (above picture taken after the face wash) and I added my dirty clothes into a load of laundry to be washed.

Next came the fun part.. I popped 12!! blisters on my feet, yeeeeeouch! Why would I do that to myself? Well, for us hikers, it’s better to pop the blisters so that we don’t continue walking on them and making them worse. It actually doesn’t hurt that bad, you just break the skin with a needle and make sure everything drains out, before slapping some Leukotape back on and walking the next 20 miles. :p Becasue I took a nero here I was able to add the extra step of applying some salve to them and letting them completely dry out overnight before taping them up.

Sarah (with her dog Porter), let me use a sweet salve that worked miracles on my dried, gross blister-laden feet.. Climb On. Mainly used by rock climbers for dried cracked skin and open cuts.

This stuff is magic.

After my laundry was done and I had elevated my feet for a bit, it was time to go get my free pie from Mama’s bakery. They are a great little store in Julian that offered a free slice of pie and a lemonade (otherwise ~$12), to PCT hikers that show their long distance hiking permits. It was there that I saw a familiar face, PUMA!!

Puma

Puma thru-hiked the trail in 2016 and Claire and I met him/talked to him a number of times. He was one of the last hikers to see us after we got sick and before we got off trail! It was so great to catch up with him. He’s FLYING this time around, I believe he started on the 21st and has been doing 20+ miles everyday. No blisters! I could learn a thing or twelve.. his girlfriend started a few weeks ahead of him and he’s planning to catch up with her in a bit. I think that’s so cool!

We said goodbye and he headed back out onto the open trail. After hitting the grocery store and picking up some flip flops (I forgot to get some before I started), I headed back to Carmen’s for more relaxation. I met many hikers during the day there, some just arriving, some leaving that had already stayed a night out on the porch. 

When Carmen was leaving for the day the invited us hikers to come have a shot with her. She accidentally poured two extras, and just before we were about to take them, two hikers, Kayleigh and Debbie, entered the restaurant and received instant tequila shots. What a greeting! I said goodbye to Carmen for what will most likely be the last time :( She is so awesome and treats everyone like family. After leaving she leaves her restaurant open to us to sleep inside/outside, take advantage of free soda, and even a free beer on the honor system (see first pic) 

Speaking of free stuff, check out what someone left in the hiker box!!

Must be a $20 jar! I just scooped all of this into my big plastic peanut butter jar and it’s a great mix! 

Later in the evening Alon and I decided we would go eat at the Julian Grille, and the idea spread like wildfire! Out bro-date turned into a party of 10! It was really really fun meeting everyone at dinner and talking story. It seemed that everyone had a couple funny stories to add to the conversation. I told them my “Desert Creature Religion Theory”, you may vaguely remember this touched on in 2016. I’ll go into more detail about it at a later time, so you’re just gonna have to wait and keep reading! Gotta do something to keep this blog interesting, hahaha.

Roy took this sweet selfie of our 10 top. I’m in between smiles as we had no count down, that’s why my face looks weird. Roy was almost a pro surfer and I geeked out in his surfing “portfolio” that he had on his phone. This guy had surfed 20ft+ Hawaiian scale waves on the North shore of Oahu. If you know, you know.. let’s just say he’s really really good.

The cheapest AND biggest thing ordered on the table. I figured since I don’t eat much veggies on trail I need to stock up in town! This filled me up :)

I got to talk to Claire for over an hour after dinner. I miss her a lot... I lost my little bracelet she made me for the trail today at Carmen’s and no matter how hard I looked I couldn’t find it. It make me super sad. I know that’s a trivial thing to be sad about, but when you have so few possessions out here on the trail, losing something that someone close to you MADE for you is like losing a friend :( It’s all in my head of course and she said no problem and that she’d make me another one! :)

I’m sleeping out on the porch tonight at Carmen’s and plan on getting a nice and early start tomorow to beat the heat! Trout rolled in while we were at dinner and he’s going to let me have some of his leukotape for my (hopefully healed up) blisters in the morning. 

Thanks for reading!