My parents sent us a package in Warner Springs that included thoughtfulness cards that spanned extraordinarily cheesy and rather meaningful. We handed them out to friends and strangers over lunch, and while hanging out in the community center. Everyone read them aloud. It was incredible.
After sitting inside the warm community center for several hours, we decided it was time to get moving. It's always better to camp in the mountains if you're feeling up to it. However, as we zipped the last compartments on our packs, I realized I'd forgotten to talk to my parents (like I said, resupplies are a vortex). So I called. Sorry, Jenny! Don't worry, karma will even this one out in a few hours.
It was a beautiful hike through fields of grass from Warner Springs up into the mountains.
The walk included a little detour through a private campground, ropes course and large oak trees all clearly gone to seed over a few seasons with large weeds growing throughout. It was a little creepy.
When we were almost at our campsite for the night, Jenny inevitably realized she had forgotten her external battery, charging in Warner Springs. Luckily we had a little bit of cell service, so we sat down on the side of the trail and posted to the PCT 2016 Facebook group. Yes, I bet you never imagined you'd read that sentence here. But there you have it. There's a very active Facebook group of PCT hikers, and even though we didn't know the last names of any hikers we figured there was a non-trivial chance someone would pick it up for us.
Lo and behold the next day when we had service on the top of a ridge line, Jenny saw that Jim -- who started the hike on the same day as us -- posted back with a picture of the battery. Unfortunately, he had posted some ten hours before so we weren't exactly sure if he took it, or where we'd meet up. But we had faith. We had a leisurely snack and reading session on the ridge line, figuring we would meet up 12 miles down the way at Trail Angel Mike Herrera's house, the only water source in a 30 mile stretch.
It turns out that Mike Herrera hooks up all hikers who make their way to his little homestead in the desert. When we showed up around 1pm there were pancakes and Tecates waiting for us, Johnny Cash blasting, trailers for hikers to spend the night, horseshoes, hikers lounging in a miscellany of lawn chairs around a fire pit, a whole room acting as a hiker box, and of course lots and lots of water.
The place was weird, but it works.
We hung out for a few hours meeting other hikers, and ducking inside during a thunderstorm to play cards with Amber and Adam who we'd met the night before. Aside from living in Montana which is awesome, they spent half of last year working in Antarctica "on the ice" working as a driver and cargo unloader. Apparently as the thaw begins, ruts in the ice roads get feet deep. Crazy.
Jim arrived at 5pm, having gotten caught up in the mountains during the thunder storm. He and another hiker, Andrew, had videos of the trail turning quickly from parched desert sand to rivers and piles of hail. Luckily, Josh -- the caretaker of Mike's place -- had just finished making his first round of pizzas then and gave Jim one of the first slices. Upon hearing that Jenny loved pineapple on her pizza, Josh gave her a big spoonful... of pineapple.
Amazingly, Jim had Jenny's battery in hand.
We left Mike's at 6pm and hiked 4.5 miles to a campsite. We were antsy to get moving and wanted a quieter place to lay our heads.
Still nursing sore knees and achilles we kept up a slower pace for the next few days: about 18 miles a day, but more of a 8-9am to 6pm kind of hike. It was gorgeous.
There were two additional epic water caches between Mike's and Highway 74.
This one...
...and Malibu East. Yes, you read that correctly. Replete with a surfboard for hikers to sign (a truly creative, if less functional take on a trail register), a mini library, cold sodas, water and wildlife-proof trash and recycling.
We saw a big snake curled by the side of the trail, which may or may not have been alive. Someone had scrawled "snake" into the trail and pointed towards it after all...
Check out this inch worm!!
The next day, we walked 3 miles to Highway 74, down a mile of the highway to Paradise Valley Cafe. It's both a great water stop and an excellent diner accordingly to thru-hiker lore (i.e., Yogi).
In true town fashion, everyone leaves their packs outside, charges any devices that need charging, and dig in. I did some minor blister surgery towards the back of the patio. When the waitress came walking towards me to take a cigarette break, I apologized. She said, "Oh, I don't mind. I'm a country girl, that don't bother me."
We had a lot of hemming and hawing about which way we'd go given a fire closure midway through the trail from Highway 74 to Idyllwild. A lot of people were hitching straight from the cafe KTI town. We decided to hike on for the ten miles of trail and then exit the ridge on Halfmile's alternate. Halfmile is a former thruhiker who makes all of the PCT maps available as a public service, and has an amazing app that uses a smart phone's GPS function to say where you are on the trail (or close to it).
We're glad we did. It was hot during the heat of the day. We took a siesta under some trees -- it felt like Tahoe! Pine trees! Big rocks!
Walked past a scary swarm of hornets hovering around a tree. But once we got up to the ridge line it was gorgeous. We could see the Salton Sea and the Coachella Valley from nearly 7,000 feet. Even from thousands of feet away, it's easy and incredible to see green, irrigated plots in the completely arid valley. Beautiful up close, from far away it's easier to see what a small toehold these plots are against the desert. Water is truly precious out here.
Having finished my first non-trashy book of the trail, "The Age of Edison" -- a neat book about the invention and scaling of electricity primarily in the US -- the next one will be closer to the subject of water: "The King of California: JG Boswell and the Making of a Secret American Empire." JG Boswell fundamentally altered the water landscape of Kings County, CA to create a cotton empire in California.
Before I get riled up about taxpayer subsidies to Big Ag, Jenny has been going deep into death. Yes, death. She's been reading Atul Gawande's "Being Mortal." This has made for some unusual trail conversations: Jenny wanting to talk about assisted living and end of life care, my wanting to talk about insurance's role in electrifying American society. Regulation and insurance unsurprisingly got very little air time. Go figure.
We are now in Idyllwild, a super welcoming mountain town thanks to two hitches in the back of pickup trucks. There are banners welcoming PCT hikers and little notes in the stores highlighting stuff for us.
We are going to rest today and make a game time call about whether to leave tomorrow based on reports of snow. Winter is still coming here, and our knees and Achilles could use some rest. Also: the Donald?!
