Day 11, April 28: Mile 148 to 167

• Start: Mile 148.2

• End: Mile 166.5

• Miles: 18.3

• Ascent: 3591 | Descent: 2362

Alex and I left camp just after 5:30am and hiked an incline in the cool dawn light. Our morning chat as we hiked made the miles fly by, and we were at the road to go into Paradise Valley Cafe (“PVC”) an hour earlier than expected. We stuck our thumb out a couple times to try to get a ride for the 1-mile road walk, but we were unsuccessful and just walked the road. Luckily it was flat. 

We came to the cafe and chilled at the picnic tables outside while we waited for the restaurant to open. Christina and Andrew arrived shortly after, and more hikers trickled in as 8am got closer and closer. 

As soon as the restaurant opened, the hikers quickly descended and took up almost every table in the place. It was fun to see many familiar hikers that I had met recently- Matt and Laura the Australians, Mayor the swearing sailor, Topo, Sunshine and Taz, Morgan and James, Midnight, Trail Diva, others. 

An older British gentleman hard of hearing named Snake Charmer (as he saw and took video of two rattlesnakes either fighting or mating early on in the trail) joined our table for breakfast. He is hilarious and gave me his massive bag of Huel, a powdered food product, which I ended up pawning off to a hiker named Micro Bear (who isn’t spending any money on food while on the trail, so he was incredibly grateful).

Note to self: don’t chug coffee on an empty stomach after not drinking it for 10 days. Your stomach is gonna hurt and you won’t be able to finish your breakfast. Ask me how I know. 😭

I ate as much as I could of my eggs, hash browns, sausage and biscuits and gravy, and I ordered a French toast to go, which the cafe wrapped up nicely in foil so I could throw in my pack. Yum!

We finally left the cafe around 9:30am and I hiked out with Alex and Snake Charmer. We ascended through the most magnificent boulder field, and I was happily soaking in the energy of the granite.

We came to a small watering spot and Feather Blue and a hiker from Kingman, AZ named Reaper (who I had met on day 1) were there. We chatted briefly and Alex, SC and I continued on our way. 

We kept climbing and climbing, and the landscape shifted again from desert to the cozy familiar smell of pine needles and dirt. I was taking deep breaths, and it smelled like summer camp as a kid. So happy!

After 8 or so miles, we got to the junction for Tunnel Spring, which was a steep descent down. I met the crew down there, and Alex and I dried out our wet gear as we ate some lunch and filtered water.

We continued the climb up along the ridgeline, and I was feeling energized by the breakfast burrito lunch and good conversation. 

Then came the wind from hell.

We found out a little later that a wind advisory was in place, and it was brutal to walk through. I pulled up my bandana around my face to not get wind chapped, put my puffy on, headphones on, and cruised as efficiently as I could. 

I was running low on quick snacks and was too lazy to completely unpack my pack to get my meal food out, so I was bonking pretty hard (when your glycogen stores are depleted and you lose all energy). I kept feeling like I was going to puke and had to keep sitting down. The only food I had easy access to was pumpkin seeds, which I realized later have almost zero carbs so weren’t doing much for my depleted state. Oops. 

Still, I continued on, knowing I wanted to catch my friends who were a ways ahead of me. A long while later, I got a text from Alex saying they/we were going to camp about 3 miles before we had intended as SC was not willing to do the extra climb that it required. My heart leapt in joy that I only had a half mile of hiking left at that point. 

I got into camp absolutely hangry and basically in tears, but I devoured the French toast I had packed out from PVC and felt almost instantly better.

The winds were pretty intense in the campsite, so I decided to “cowboy camp”, aka sleep without a tent (for my first time ever!) so I wouldn’t have to deal with my tent flapping in the wind. There was a nice spot tucked away under some trees, so I cozied up under there and bundled up as tightly as I could for the cold windy night ahead.