Riding the Eagle! Yeee-haw!

May 2: On our way out of Temecula, Amanda and I made a few resupply stops. We visited the evil Wal-Mart where I bought lots of food, Gold Bond, batteries and other necessities. (A headlamp that works! Woo-who!) Then we stopped at Carls Jr, where I feasted on as many calories as I could consume because hey--why not? I'll burn them off faster than I can eat them anyhow on this hike. Then we stopped at a Best Buy at the last minute so I could buy a new card for my camera. I won't see Amanda again for probably a good month and a half after this visit, and in case my camera card gets full, I want to swap them out, send Amanda the full one to copy the photos safely elsewhere, and be able to mail me a blank card back. We probably could have gotten that at Wal-Mart, but we had already left before I thought to buy one. It wasn't until we saw Best Buy on the side of the road that the idea hit me.

We stopped in Warner Springs to check into the resort here, but just long enough to check in. We didn't even check our room before Amanda drove me out to Montemuza Valley Road by Barrel Spring for me to slackpack into town. She brought some sodas and clemintines. She threw the sodas into the spring to stay cold for hikers to enjoy, and gave out the clemintines to the hikers sitting around.

Including Mad Hatter, who apparently mailed off his signature hat in a bounce box, but picked up a tent in the shape of a shark (yes, a shark) that was designed for "kids 3 to 9" so was now calling himself Shark. The tent was packed away, but one of the other hikers showed us photos of it, and it's absolutely hilarious. I have to camp with this man so I can get a photo of this tent. It might rank as the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen on a hike, and I heartily approve. =)

I moved on, tromping toward Warner Springs. The trail dropped into meadows and followed riparian habitats (if you aren't familiar with the word riparian, it's the environment found along a riverbank). The wide-open meadows burst with wildflowers--a seemingly endless parade of colors and shapes. Already, this hike has had an amazing abundance of wildflowers (I've put only a small fraction of the pictures I took of them on this blog), but today's show topped them all--and by a wide margin.

I found another large group of hikers taking a break alongside a creek, with several soaking their weary feet in the water. I didn't stop for long, though, and pushed through to Eagle Rock, a prominent rocky point on a hill that resembled an eagle with its wings spread as if it were about to take off. Only two other hikers were there when I arrived, Bob and Chris (neither were thru-hikers, so neither bothered with trail names). Bob was limping pretty badly and looked in a lot of pain, so I asked Chris to take a picture of me climbing the eagle as I waved my hat around like I was sailing through the air.

Getting down turned out to be a lot harder, though! I couldn't really see behind me very well to see where to place my feet, and Bob joked about me being like a kitten stuck in a tree. Fortunately, however, I did not need any rescuing, and managed to get off on my own.

The rest of the hike continued through more wildflower displays, before following a river back into Warner Springs. I agreed to meet Amanda at the second road crossing--Highway 79 loops through Warner Springs, and the PCT intersects it twice, both intersections about 1.2 miles from the town center. Without Amanda to pick me up, I'd have just hoofed into town myself, but why bother when Amanda would pick me up? =) But I had her look for me at the second road crossing to extend today's hike by two miles and decrease tomorrow's hike by two miles--tomorrow would already be a much longer hike as it was.

The trail crosses a ranch between the two Highway 79 intersections, and while I saw no cattle, I certainly saw plenty of evidence of their existence in the area. I watched a couple of gliders slice through the air above. The trail exists the ranch near an airport with gliders. They're pulled into the air by a real plane, then released and left to glide for 20, 30, or 40 minutes (depending on how much you pay) until it touches down on the ground again. It looks absolutely thrilling, and Amanda and I have reserved a slot to give it a try the next day. One glider startled me--I didn't see it coming in from behind me and they do glide through the air. There is no motor on them, so they're very quiet and it was coming in for a landing from behind me. I didn't hear it until it was nearly on top of me when a heard a strange humming kind of sound directly overhead not more than 50 feet away.

The trail wound its way through a "challenge course," or what I'd describe as a high-ropes course, then a campground, and finally under a bridge for Highway 79 where I walked up the road a short ways to the parking lot and waited for Amanda's arrival a few minutes later.

She took me back to the resort where I got my first view of our accommodations, and it's absolutely adorable! It even has a fireplace already stocked with wood, although they'll charge us $10 if we light it. There's a little lobby kind of area, where Amanda posed for some staged photos where she was pretending to read. Outside, we found a rabbit sitting out in the grass, and I slowly sneaked up on it trying to get a good photo. Amanda then showed me around the joint, including a cantina painted with remarkably elaborate murals.

I give this place two thumbs up!

I'll Walk One Hundred Miles....

May 1: Almost immediately after leaving camp, I saw a small container sitting off on the side of the trail. It was strange, unexpected, and if it were found in a city, someone would probably call in the bomb squad. I was pretty sure that nobody was trying to bomb the PCT, however, so I went ahead and opened it, and the register inside labeled it as the Lead Weight Cache. It's a lot like the water cache, with a warning to take "only what you need" and leave the rest for others who need it. And the container was filled with, yes, lead weights. Hahaha! I laughed and laughed. That's pretty damned funny. I don't know who lugged that heavy thing up there, but they deserve a prize. Reading the logbook in it was just as entertaining with comments such as "left 5, took 4" or a treaty about all of the uses that a lead weight provides (blisters, back spasms, yadda, yadda, yadda). I took pictures, added my own thanks, but decided to leave all of the lead weights for others. I didn't need any.

I caught up with Motor on the trail, and we ended up hiking most of the afternoon together. According to our guide books, the 100-mile mark on the trail was coming up, and we were discussing the little messages people sometimes leave in rocks. The day before, we saw one that read "Canada" with an arrow pointing north along the PCT. On the AT, we'd often see them at significant mile markers, such as at 100 or 1000. When we didn't see a 100 mile marker for the PCT, we decided to make our own.

We walked down the trail a bit to find a wide point along the path to fit three decent-sized digits, and I started "excavating" rocks for the project while Motor arranged them into numbers. She started putting it on the side of the trail, but I convinced her to position it directly on the trail where people would actually have to step over it. I liked the idea of people being able to take a single step and saying, "I've hiked 100 miles right.... NOW!" Truth be told, though, neither of us had any way to accurately measure distances, so our 100 mile marker was only an estimate. I've always wondered if those mileage markers on that AT were accurate--I always took them at their word since I had nothing better to go by, and they always seemed to be at appropriately the correct location.

While working on the project, I joked that, "Just wait--we'll walk another 200 feet up the trail and find out that someone else has already done it." She thought it would be hilarious to set up three of them over the course of a mile to really confuse people, which was an idea that really appealed to me as well.

"I always wondered who created these things," I told her. It seemed satisfying to finally know--people like us! =) I also always wanted to know how accurate the placement of those were--and now I know--completely wild-ass guesses! (Well, okay, educated guesses.) It was a heck of a lot of fun to do, though.

Onward we continued.....

At Barrel Springs, we stopped to rest. A trail angel had left sodas in the spring, fresh and cold. Interestingly, all of the diet colas floated in the water while the non-diet colas sank to the bottom. I wonder if that pattern holds true for most all diet and non-diet colas, or if just these particular brands happened to work out that way. I didn't realize that any types of full soda cans could float in water, though. That alone looked pretty bizarre.

Quite a party of people formed at the springs. Biloxi was already there, and we learned that he was artist who created the Canada photo op out of rocks and seemed pleased that so many people liked it and had taken pictures of it. Pie was already there as well. Mother Goose, Mr Mountain Goat, and Wyoming arrived shortly thereafter. We didn't even know that Wyoming was behind us--she had camped a couple of miles short of the water cache where the rest of us camped.

Biloxi planned to stopped there for the night. He was having knee troubles and was in no rush to get to Warner Springs since it was already too late to get his maildrop from the post office before it would close, and it wouldn't open again until Monday. Everyone else left to continue their hikes.

I stayed behind because Amanda was scheduled to pick me up around 3:00 that afternoon from the road crossing another 0.2 miles down the trail, and Biloxi and I kicked around a few hours until she arrived in a rental car decorated with "PCT Support Vehicle" written on the windows. Biloxi wanted a ride into Warner Springs to buy some stuff at a convenience store, so we obliged, then drove him back to Barrel Springs.

Then Amanda and I headed towards civilization hoping to find cheaper accommodations than can be found in Warner Springs and ended up in Temecula. We were surprised that it wasn't really any cheaper, but at least we had wi-fi access in the room (which the accommodations in Warner Springs didn't have), and Temecula was a far better place for resupply options.

Taking a Slash and Outhouse Shenanigans

April 30: Early that morning, Tradeja walked down to my camp to talk about the 'incident' from the night before. From the sounds of it, they got even more action during the night than I did two the border patrol stumbling onto their camp twice. He said that the border patrol had caught two people, and he could hear them interrogating the illegals in Spanish, asking how many more people there were and such. Apparently some of them did manage to get away, however.

Tradeja went on to talk to HoJo, who heard some of the commotion the night before, but didn't actually see anything since the border patrol turned around when I told them that there were at least three more 'campers' in that direction and I hadn't seen anyone run by.

And a short while after that, a border patrol agent wandered down the trail, saying he was part of the group causing the ruckus the night before and apologizing for disturbing us. (I can't complain--it was the most excitement I had on the whole trail thus far!)

At first I thought it was remarkably thoughtful for one of them to walk through our campsites this morning to apologize for the commotion, but I think there were actually still looking for the illegals they missed in the darkness. When I walked up to the road to fill up with the water cache, I saw a couple of border patrol vehicle posted along the road that had not been there the day before, and at least three of the officers were walking along the length of the road. There's not a lot of water in this part of the country, and I'm guessing that they expect the illegals they missed to return this way at some point. Tradeja seemed to think they caught the 'leader' the night before, and the ones who were still running loose may not know where to go or what to do expect return back to the road once they think the coast is clear. And the border patrol seemed to act like that would likely happen as well.

As I started up the trail again, a car pulled up and Mother Goose, Pie, and Big-e piled out of it. They had spent the night in Julian to get out from the weather, but were back on the trail again. We all started up the San Felipe Mountain more-or-less together. Actually, Big-e hung back, and we would later learn it was because he left is camera in vehicle that shuttled them up there, and he called the woman to come back to drop it off which took some time. So Mother Goose, Pie, and myself headed up the mountain, where we found Just Josh breaking down camp. I had wondered what happened to him--I expected him to stop at Scissors Crossing like the rest of us did, but he pushed on a little ways past us not realizing that we had set up camp along the birding trail just off the PCT.

Not much happened on the hike this day. The highlight (for me, at least), was finding a snake in the trail that had just eaten a lizard, and I could still see the tail of the lizard hanging out of the snake's mouth--and the tail was still twitching! It was kind of gross, in a National Geographic special kind of way. Nobody ever said nature was kind. In fact, it can be downright vicious. I actually got pretty close up to the snake to get this photo--I figured since its mouth was full, it was pretty unlikely it could bite me even if it wanted to. (I'm pretty sure that this snake isn't poisonous either.)

I took me time heading up the the Third Gate Water Cache, so named because it was at the third gate one finds after coming out of Scissors Crossing. This water cache is located nearly half a mile from the nearest road, and all of the water is packed in by trail angels that carry it on their backs--quite a strenuous undertaking. They say hikers shouldn't rely on water caches since they do sometimes run dry, but there were several dozen gallons of water available, and I felt a little stupid arriving while still having five liters of water on my back. Five liters of water is heavy, and to think I didn't need to carry any of it all that distance. *sigh*

While reading the register at the cache, Motor, Lisa, Pie, and Mother Goose arrived in short order. Lisa I hadn't met before, but she was nice and friendly, so I will not spread the trail name that Motor is trying to give her. Lisa doesn't like it, and I want to stay on good terms with her. =)

Mother Goose is quite the character. I'm not sure how old she is, but she's probably one of the oldest folks on the trail and has hiked the AT five times or something like that. I think she's done the PCT a couple of times already as well. And she says words you wouldn't expect from someone named Mother Goose. =)

It was rather remarkable--somehow, I ended up at the top of a mountain with four women thru-hikers. Women are generally a minority on the trail (though not nearly as lopsided as in bygone eras), and I wind up with four of them. It must be a good sign.

Motor and Lisa told us that they had seen two illegals on their hike, a male and a female, who asked for some water. The female, Motor said, looked harmless enough, though the male looked like he could kill without flinching. And neither of them looked at all prepared to be out in the wild. I wondered if these were the two that the border patrol tried to catch the night before, and were still hoping to catch when I left that morning.

I set up camp near Motor and Lisa, and an hour or so later Mr Mountain Goat arrived, an Australian fellow who's an English teacher in the real world. Alas, I wouldn't be the only guy among the girls anymore, but we were still outnumbered two to one, which is quite unusual anyhow. Goat explained how us Americans are butchering the English language, and asked about useful idioms that we could use on the trail. "To spit the dummy," for instance, basically means becoming very angry. A dummy is a pacifier in Australian, and like an upset baby would spit out its pacifier to scream and yell, so does an adult.

I excused myself, saying that I "had to take a slash," an idiom meaning to take a wizz.

Who said trail life wasn't educational? =)

That man is funny, though, and he's keeping a blog going with his iPhone at Postholer.com. I also heard this story about the three of them riding out the big wind storm in the outhouse for much of the night. Oh, joy. =)

Things That Go Bump In the Night

April 29: I survived the night, in remarkably good condition. The wind was still howling, and it drizzled for a few minutes early in the morning, but I'm not sure it would have counted as "measurable" precipitation anyhow. But I was dry and warm underneath my tarp, even if I was filthy from a coating a dust and leaves carried over by the wind.

I got up with the sun, ate breakfast, packed up camp, and left the protective windbreak I left all night. The forecast today called for wind "gusts" that peaked at 40 MPH, a full 20% less than the day before. Oh, joy. The skies were partly cloudy, and just feeling the warmth of the sun occasionally throughout the day made a huge difference in the day's attitude.

A couple of miles down the trail, I found Just Josh eating a snack on the side of the trail. He had set up camp in a particularly bad spot that night had ended up breaking down camp and moving further down the mountain in the dark of night, apparently suffering a miserable night trying to stay warm and out of the wind. We swapped our war stories of the weather from the day before. We were The Survivors.

Further along the trail, at Rodriguez Road, I found what was left of a PCT store. A trail angel named Renee, who spoke with an Irish accent but would tell anyone who asked that she was from San Diego, set up a store for hikers to get clean water, candy bars, cook meals, and most anything a hiker could need. She used to be a helicopter nurse for 21 years, if my memory serves me right, which sounded pretty darned cool to me, but she said the stress was terrible and she was glad to retire from it. In any case, the PCT store was basically shut down by the wind which blew much of her setup all over the place, much of it clearly broken and barely hanging in place.

The potable water was free for all, and she offered the cluster of us hikers all a free candy bar, which I gladly accepted. Two Israeli guys who were hiking the trail (from which I learned that there are a whopping seven people from Israel hiking the PCT this year) offered to help her break down the camp, but she declined their offer. I kind of felt bad for her--she clearly wanted to help hikers, but she really seemed like she needed help herself. It appeared to just be her there, and it seemed like we could have broke down that camp for her in minutes if she had let us.

I continued down the trail to my destination for the night: Scissors Crossing. It was near two busy roads and I was skeptical about setting up camp too close to them, but other hikers assured me that there were good campsites in the area and setting up camp under the bridge there would be a good windbreak, so I took them at their word at committed to camping right there.

Just before the first road crossing was the first water cache of the trail. In sections where good water is especially scared, trail angels haul out gallons and gallons of clean drinking water for hikers to stock up with. It was here I met the most remarkable young girl. Her trailname was Fossil, and she was 11 years old who had hiked there all the way from the Mexican border, even suffering through the brutal wind and rain. She intends to thru-hike the PCT when she turns 18 as well, and good for her. It's not often you see 11 year olds setting such lofty goals for themselves. She seemed quite in her element, although she certainly seemed less than pleased with the wind. We all were, though. When I asked her dad where they were from, he told me Portland.

"Oregon? I used to live in Hillsboro," I told him, and it turns out that's actually where they live. Then we started a long conversation about all of the hiking opportunities around the Portland area. Good times....

I signed the register at the cache, finding a couple of familiar names I recognized from the Appalachian Trail. I can't be completely certain they are the same people I knew from the AT or completely different people with the same trail name, but I know Karma from the AT class of 2003 is on the trail, and he appears to be a couple of days ahead of me. I also saw Hmmm.... listed in the register a couple of days before, and Amanda and I shared a room at the Doyle Hotel in Duncannon with a Hmmm.... Could it be the same one? I don't know, but it would be fun to catch up to her and find out.

Fossil and her dad recommended I go down a small birding trail where numerous good campsites were available rather than directly under the bridge, so I went off to find a campsite. L'il Bit and Jill had already set up, and HoJo had just claimed the best site of all (in my opinion). I settled for a location next to the slope of a hill, trying to merge my tarp as an extension of the hill. The wind wasn't bad down here at all, but I feared it might pick up during the night so I prepped it as if the wind was still vicious--aerodynamic and low to the ground.

Tradeja and Jess walked by a short time later, telling me to drop by their site later if I wanted to chat some more, and I said I would. I made dinner first, though, cooking up a batch of Hamburger Helper.

The rest of the night, I traded stories with Tradeja and Jess, a cute couple from Bend, Oregon. (Let me point out, I have no idea if I'm actually spelling Tradeja's trailname correctly. It's what it sounds like when he introduces himself, however. That goes for a lot of trail names that I haven't actually seen written down anywhere.) Tradeja described an incident when he was struck by lightning, which he doesn't recommend, by the way.

I left as it started growing increasingly dark--especially since I had no headlamp to find my way back into camp. (They did offer to lend me one, but I still thought it was just light enough for me to get back without it.)

I crawled into my sleeping bag, and went promptly to sleep.

Until.... I woke up and heard voices in the darkness. L'il Bit and Jill were way too far out of range for it to possibly be their voices. They'd have to be screaming to be heard as far away as they were. Tradeja and Jess weren't even all that close. These voices sounded furtive, and whispery, and much too soft to be heard from their camp. And it sounded like the voices were coming from the other side of the road near where the water cache would be located. I tried to listen to the words, but couldn't make anything out.

Then I heard a vehicle drive up quickly and sirens pierced the night. The sirens only went off for a couple of seconds, but it obviously must have been the border patrol who had set up a checkpoint at Scissors Crossing. (You could see them as we hiked across the road, although I didn't think much of it at the time.)

A couple of car doors slammed, and there was shouting. Some in English, some in Spanish, and I clearly heard the word "Perros!" Dogs! I was wide awake at this point. Exciting stuff was happening! It was nearly a full moon, so visibility was remarkably good despite it being a little after midnight. But I could see nothing--just hear a lot of stuff happening up on the road.

Most of the noise seemed to be coming slight further up the road, closer to where Tradeja and Jess had set up camp, and I wondered what they were able to hear from there. A couple of minutes later, two border patrol agents with a dog came crashing down the trail with a flashlight. The first one saw me and stopped, pointing the light towards me, "Who are you?!"

Before I could even answer, the other agent said, "It's a camper."

I wasn't sure if being called a mere "camper" should be considered an insult or not, but I decided it wasn't a good time to argue the point. "Just camping," I replied.

"Did you see anyone run through here?" the first one asked.

"No. Nobody until you guys got here."

"Are there anymore campers up there?" the interrogator continued.

"Three that I know about," I answered. Jill, L'il Bit, and HoJo. It's possible others could have arrived after I set up camp, though, so I wasn't sure if there were more than three. "And two in the direction you came from." (Tradeja and Jess, and I knew those were the only two 'campers' in that direction.)

During the interrogation, I heard chatter coming from their walkie-talkies, phrases such as "They're running northeast!" and a warning about campers being in the area, but I missed most of it since I was focused on the conversation they were having with me first. They seemed surprised at the unexpected campers in the area, and apparently our camps were causing quite a bit of confusion for them. I suspect their dog might have been following *my* scent back from my visit with Tradeja and Jess earlier in the night. (And believe me, by now, I definitely had quite a scent to follow!)

They officers turned around and headed back where they came from. I'd hear more yelling occasionally, more car doors slamming, and things that go bump in the night, but couldn't really make anymore sense of what was going on. Probably they caught some illegals as they crossed the road, I thought, but what if they were drug smugglers?

Finally, the noise ceased, but I was wide awake for another hour after that thinking about all that had transpired, and trying to figure out the blanks in my knowledge of what was happening around me.

The Day My Hat Attacked Me

April 28: The skies were angry, my friends. Amanda drove me out to Mount Laguna with my full pack, tossing me to the wind. That's not a figure of speech, either. The wind roared with a terrific howl--a cold, bitter wind blowing the drizzle horizontally. Visibility didn't extend more than a few hundred feet in any direction, and I wasn't out of the car for more than five seconds before I started bundling a couple of more layers on me including fleece for warmth and a wind breaker to, well, break the wind. Slipped on the gloves, tightened the strap for my hat around my chin, said goodbye to Amanda, and charged down the hill to the PCT.

The weather forecast called for wind gusts up to 50 MPH, but on these exposed peaks, I doubt the wind ever fell below those speeds. Surprisingly, the severe weather alert for the region wasn't supposed to start until noon and last through midnight. Presumably, this was just the beginning. It would get even worse later in the afternoon.

Several miles along the trail, Tradeja and Jess caught up to me, and we spent the rest of the afternoon passing each other, shouting over the wind to communicate.

By around 11:00, the drizzle stopped, a welcome relief. The cold, wet drizzle managed to push through my my clothes and I felt a bit of a chill as a result, but once the drizzle stopped, my clothes started drying out and I warmed up considerably. The wind, however, just continued to grow worse.

At the Pioneer Mail trailhead, I found several hikers huddled near the outhouse, using the outhouse as a wind break. They looked to be in a sorry shape. One guy, Borders, I think it was, had only one light T-shirt left that wasn't soaked, and set up his tent and bunkered down trying to stay warm. Lo seemed like he was all but convulsing from the cold. I also met Kathryn, if I remember her name correctly (I wasn't taking notes!), who came from Australia and complained about our so-called "desert." She was shivering pretty badly too.

As soon as I had stopped hiking, I started doing a pretty fair amount of shivering myself. The hard walking had been the only thing keeping me warm, and the conditions were perfect for hypothermia. Wet and cold can be deadly. One hiker had a cell phone he was able to use and "ordered" for a ride back to Mount Laguna to get off the trail. Most of them left on the truck. A couple--Rhino and Wyoming--decided to keep riding it out in their tents. Tradeja, Jess, and I decided to keep hiking. Frankly, hiking was the easiest way to stay warm.

I really wanted to get a picture of the wind, but wind is a tricky thing to capture in a photograph, so I held out my pink 2010 PCT Hiker handkerchief--pretty much every PCT hiker this year received one for free at the kickoff event--as the wind whipped it around horizontally and the wind puffed up the pocket of my jacket, pushed the brim of one of of my hat to my face, and blew up my pants like a balloon. That's the best I could do with a still photo, however.

Lo looked at us like we were certifiably insane and told us to be careful. He didn't want to hear about any of us needing rescue or dieing on the trail. "Don't worry--we don't much like that idea either!"

I ate some snacks--I needed the energy!--then got back to hiking. As soon as all of the other hikers left in the pickup, there wasn't much of anyone left to chat with anymore anyhow.

The trail passed by Kwaaymii Point, along an exposed ridge where the wind picked up to levels that reminded me of my hike through the White Mountains. More than once a particularly strong gust would quite literally blow me right off the trail into a bush, walking like a staggering drunk. Every step was a struggle.

And that's when my hat turned against me. The strap for the hat had a knot tied at the end with a small plastic bead to weigh down the part that hangs down from the chin, but the wind would whip it up into my face, which felt like I was being pelted with rocks. It hurt! My Leatherman which I could use to cut it off was deep in my path, so I tried tucking the strap under my shirt, under the strap of my pack, twisting it in all sorts of knots, but the wind would keep tearing it loose then pelt me with the plastic bead.

The brim of my hat would flap up and down in the wind, slapping me across the face like an abusive woman might consider doing to me at times. It hurt! I had no intention of cutting off the brim of my hat, however, and instead walked with my head tilted away from the wind so it would only flap upward rather than down onto my face.

I worried a little about finding a place to camp. This kind of wind can easily damage tarps and tents, and I needed to find somewhere with a natural wind break. The chance of "measurable precipitation" was 20% overnight, so setting up a tarp would be especially tricky. It had to protect me from both the wind and possible overnight rain. After walking nearly an hour, I grew increasingly worried that I wouldn't find a safe place to set up camp.

Until I saw a man-made concrete structure by the side of a dirt road. Perhaps I could set up camp next to the side of it? I walked up to the pullout by the side of the road, with a small wall built out of rocks, behind a small hill--a location that looked promising. The wind decreased considerably. "It would have to do," I thought sullenly. I wasn't very excited about the location, but it was the best option I had found in the past hour of walking.

The concrete structure seemed to be a water tank, but it looked pretty overgrown and didn't appear to have any space near it to set up camp. I walked up anyhow to get a closer look, however, and my spirits soared! It looked like someone had already cleared out a small section for a camp, and even created a wall of logs to protect against the wind from a second direction! Sweet! There was barely enough room for a single person, but it was more than I could have possibly hoped for.

Tradeja and Jess weren't far behind me, and I waved them down as they were hiking by. They hadn't spotted the water tank at all, and I showed me my little score. We got up on the water tank and opened it up, looking inside seeing that it was empty. Tradeja seemed keen on the idea of sleeping inside of the structure, but Jess didn't care for the idea. Ultimately, they decided to keep on hiking and hoped to find somewhere a couple of more miles along the trail in Chariot Canyon. They left, and I started setting up my tarp.

The wind was still fairly strong--not terrifying strong--but enough to be annoying and enough to prevent me from using my stove safely. And I started thinking... maybe I should sleep in the water tank instead?

I popped open the hatch again and climbed down the ladder. It smelled a bit dank, and I wondered if mold in it might be a health hazard. I could stand fully upright in the structure, with only about an inch to spare. Definitely a low ceiling, but a heck of a lot higher than my tarp would be set at. And it provided complete protection against the wind and rain. "Yes," I thought, "this could work."

Then I saw a mouse scamper across the wall. And another one. And another.... Goddammit! I looked around and counted five of them, and what looked like a nest in the corner. I had a few choice words for them, and finally decided it wasn't worth having mice crawling around me and my food all night long. I'd ride out the storm under my tarp instead.

I got the tarp up, which turned out to be a lot harder than I expected since it was much too large for the little space available in the site. The tarp wasn't as tight as I normally like it, so it whipped around all night while dirt and leaves settled over me during the night. Shortly after the sun set, I pulled out my headlamp to read. I popped in the batteries, flicked it on, to discover that the batteries were completely and utterly dead. Time for sleep!

PS. I've heard that at least one hiker said that he didn't sign up for this kind of weather and actually quit the trail for good. So far as I know, everyone else who left the trail because of the weather intended to come back once things settled down again.

Rubber Gloves, Safety Glasses, and Other Trail Necessities

I generally prefer not to treat most of water I acquire from mountain springs, but I've heard rumors that these desert water sources--when you can get them--are often less than desirable. I'm carrying my SteriPEN, the same one I used on the Florida Trail, and seems to work well enough. I never did get sick from drinking water treated with it, and some of that water looked pretty nasty. But it runs on batteries, and what if they run out? What if the device stops working?

So I also like to carry an extra backup system. This time, I decided to try these Katadyn Micropur Purification Tablets. Later, I read the customer comments, and found this interesting tidbid: "Just a heads up, no matter what your local REI employee says, these are NOT OK to pack in a carry-on or checked bag while travelling... even if still sealed in the original packaging. Says 'DANGER: Corrosive' pretty clearly on the package, as the TSA agent will be happy to point out. ;) YMMV, but official TSA rules say 'No Corrosives.'"

Really? Something you drop in water and meant to be consumed is corrosive?!

I pulled out my little tablets and looked myself. This is what it said:

DANGER: Keep out of reach of children

DANGER: Corrosive. Causes irreversible eye damage and skin burns. Harmful if absorbed through skin. Harmful if swallowed. Do not get in eyes, on skin or on clothing. Wear protective eyewear (safety glasses), protective clothing and rubber gloves. Wash thoroughly with soap and water after handling. Remove contaminated clothing and wash clothing before reuse.

(The emphasis in italics is my own, not on the packaging.) Needless to say, I was shocked to discover I'd be carrying such a major bio-hazard on my back all this time. The stuff sounds positively deadly. While I can't be certain what other hikers are carrying, I'll readily admit, I don't normally count safety glasses, "protective" clothing, or rubber gloves among my backpacking gear. And apparently, the stuff is so toxic, I can't even drink the water once it's been purified. I'm a little confused about how to remove the dissolved tablets from the water to make it safe to drink again. There's no explanation about that.

But when I think about some of the other crap I've consumed on my previous thru-hikes, this sounds positively harmless by comparison. So screw it. I'll drink it and take my chances. =) Wish me luck!

Lots and Lots and Lots of Thru-Hikers

April 27: I hadn't seen Abigail or Big Bertha for the last couple of days. I popped Abigail and plastered it with moleskin, and tried to pop Big Bertha, failed miserably, and plastered it with moleskin as well. That moleskin is sticky stuff, though, and when I apply it, I tend to leave it in place until it mostly falls off on its own. So I haven't looked at the blisters again... until now.

Abigail was quite plump and ready for another popping. Big Bertha looked largely much the same as I left it. I took lots of pictures of the process this time, and Abigail took a little work, but I finally got it popped. Lots of liquid exploding out of that one. Big Bertha I still can't seem to pop. It's in there pretty deep, and I'm surprised I haven't actually drawn any blood yet. I didn't think it was possible to poke that far into the skin with a safety pin and not get some sort of fluid to come out. It didn't really hurt much, however, and finally decided to leave it. It didn't appear to be getting any worse.

Also, I added the 'glovelet' to my hiking gear. One of my hands was getting sunburned, despite repeated applications of sunscreen, and I didn't much like it. While holding a trekking pole in my hand, I imagined how nice it would be if there was just a piece of fabric that could be draped over the back of my hand, held in place with a loop for the thumb and little finger.

Amanda bought a pair of cheap gloves and started carving out my vision of it with scissors. It worked out pretty well, too. After trying it out all day, there were only two changes I really wanted. The first was a loose strap to fit around my wrist. The fabric kept flapping around more than it really should if I wanted to keep the back of my hand out of the sunlight. The other was to use a very light fabric that breathes. The gloves Amanda carved up weren't especially thick, but they weren't very thin either. I just needed them to provide shade--not to keep my hand warm. Amanda says she'll try to work something out when she gets home. In the meantime, I'll keep using these makeshift versions. After I finish my hike, I'll sell the idea to outfitters everywhere for millions! MUHAHaHahahaha!!!! Or maybe not.... For now, I'm calling them glovelets, but I might change the name if I think of something better.

Then Amanda drove me back to Cibbets Flat Campground to continue my hike. I didn't even take two steps before a previous thru-hiker who was camped there came up to me to apologize for the 'scene' the night before. Naturally, I had no idea what he was talking about--I didn't camp there last night--and he said there was a pretty bad fight, but didn't seem inclined to get into details. Alrighty, then.

I waved goodbye to Amanda and started up the road to the trail, almost immediately catching up to Cheeks and Mojave. Cheeks was just about to go for a pee when I wandered up to them, however, so I kept moving. Not long after that, I crossed paths with Upchuck and Mad Hatter. Mad Hatter wore a crazy Mad Hatter hat with reflective mylar taped on top to keep cool, and hailed from England. That was the first hiker I met not from the United States. Mad Hatter seemed to have trouble remembering the name Tortuga and kept calling me Green Enchilada, which I thought pretty funny. Though when it does say it to get my attention, I don't realize that he's talking to me at first and end up ignoring him. I'm not used to responding when someone shouts out for a Green Enchilada. Mad Hatter had to fly through Bangkok to get to the kickoff because of all that volcanic ash that caused airports in Europe to close down.

Upchuck explained that his trailname was given to him by the folks who shared his campsite at the Kickoff after waking everyone up at 4:00 in the morning after partying a little too hard. (Or maybe partying "just right," depending on one's point of view.)

They started listening to music on their iPods, though, so chatter came to a stop, and I started pulling ahead, catching up to more hikers. Just Josh, who didn't have an official trail name, but was considering "Fucking Retard," but had reservations about the name. He wore a bright visor with a rainbow across it and a bright orange shirt, though, and Upchuck started referring to him as Rainbow Bright, which seemed perfectly suited to him. I hope that name sticks. =) He also had the heaviest pack I'd seen on the trail so far. It was HUGE! He didn't know how much it weighed when I asked, but said it must be under 50 pounds because he wasn't charged extra for it during his trip down to the kick off.

I also met Borders, and Brittney. Three other hikers are trying to stick the name "Spears" on her, but she doesn't like that connotation. I find it rather amusing, however, and am hoping it sticks. The other three guys said that they were telling the nickname wide and far in the hopes it would stick. Those three guys... their names were Lo and.... I forget the other two. My head was about to explode with names. They were everywhere!

Then I found another Englishman, Fozzy (or is it Fozzie? I didn't ask how he spelled it), whose name I only remember because I wrote it down when he gave me the location of his blog. He had his own problems making it to the kickoff due to volcanic ash which included trains, buses, and planes in I don't know how many countries. He was hiking with another hiker--Gabe, I think it was was? So many hikers, so many names.....

I'm not even sure I remember all of the people I actually met. I may have overlooked some of them in this account. They're everywhere!

The end of my day's hike consisted of a search for the Meet me on the PCT letterbox, my first letterbox find of the PCT. Near the end of the hike, pine trees started becoming more prevalent--a wonderful change from the chaparral I'd been hiking through so far. Even a couple of small pockets of snow were still left from the big storm that hit just before our arrival, so I took pictures of that.

Amanda was already waiting for me at Mount Laguna when I arrived, and whisked me away to Julian, a tourist trap of a town famous for apple pie. It's actually a trail town and we saw numerous hikers roaming around, but it's about a dozen miles from the trail so I had no intention of stopping during my hike. A drive-by visit in a rental car sounded like a good gig, however. We stopped for dinner at a Mexican restaurant, and ordered the obligatory pie at the Julian Cafe and Bakery. I had them top my apple pie with ice cream and whipped cream, a towering pile of sin I gobbled down in no time flat.