Days 0-2: And I’m off!
Day 0: April 17
Start: Southern Terminus - 0.0
End: Campo - 0.6
Miles: 0.6
After my last post from the train, I arrived in San Diego at 1pm and met up briefly with my friend Callie who lives near Joshua Tree but happened to be in San Diego. I needed to go to an ATM and the closest one was a mile away so she graciously walked with me while we caught up. It was great to see her!
I got back to the transit center and was happy to see the PCT Southern Terminus shuttle waiting for me. It was driven by Just Paul and I rode with two guys, one of which was going for the calendar year triple crown (PCT, Appalachian Trail, and Continental Divide Trail). Just Paul drove us to the terminus and we took the classic monument photos.
I then walked to CLEEF, a campground 0.6 miles down the trail run by a trail angel named Legend. And what a Legend he was! He served us spaghetti dinner with salad, fruit, and other goodies- all for free (donations accepted). We also got a motivational, safety and foot care talk by Legend after dinner, which gave me a nice confidence boost. After dinner, we packed a group of 8 hikers into another campground host Patrick’s suburban so he could drive us from the building where we had dinner back to the field we camped in. It was a pretty hilarious clown car situation.
Day 1: April 18
Start: CLEEF - 0.6
End: Hauser Creek - 15.4
Miles: 14.8
Ascent: 1736 | Descent: 2304
Technically I started the trail Sunday but today felt like the real first day. Woohoo!
I woke up in my completely soaked through tent. It was my first night ever camping in my new Gossamer Gear “The One” tent, which is a single wall tent. With these kind of tents, condensation is a big issue because you don’t have the ventilation that a mesh tent + outer rain fly type of tent has. A way to mitigate this is to open the flap of the tent completely, and pick a good campsite- both of which I forgot, despite reading several articles on this subject. Ah well, lesson learned.
I wiped down my tent, packed up my gear, and wandered back to the camp building for the pancake breakfast. Legend and Patrick weren’t there so I didn’t end up getting any, but I ate a delicious mango, said some goodbyes and was on my way!
I was elated to finally be on trail. Seeing the Mile 1 sign was particularly exciting. I cruised along, and came to the only water source of the day at mile 4.5. I “cameled up” aka chugged as much water as I could before departing. I filtered my full capacity of water- 6 liters, which felt pretty awful on the hot, exposed climb up out of the area, but was necessary as we would be dry camping (camping not near a water source).
I kept playing leapfrog on the trail with Juliet, Arielle, and Sam, who I had met at the campground. I caught up to them a bit later for an afternoon siesta. At that point they had been joined by Paul from Taiwan, and the five of us had a nice long break and dried out our wet gear while we ate lunch.
We continued on and kept walking, took breaks, walked more, took more breaks before making it to camp at Hauser Creek with the group. We enjoyed a leisurely evening of cooking, stretching, cleaning up and settling into our first (real) night of camp on the PCT!
Day 2: April 19
Start: Hauser Creek - 15.4
End: Fred Canyon Stream - 32.0
Miles: 16.6
Ascent: 3441 | Descent: 1561
We were on the trail at 5:40am to get the big climb out of Hauser Creek out of the way before it got too hot. The climb felt lovely with the moon shining and the cool morning breeze. The landscape was beautiful and full of yucca and manzanita. We descended into Lake Morena and after a pit stop at the campground bathroom and water spigot, we made our way to the famous malt shop. Our group of five came upon a much larger group of hikers who were feasting on breakfast items and the namesake malted milkshakes. We went inside, our eyes gleaming at the possibilities of the shop and the extensive menu inside.
I got a breakfast sandwich with a thick sausage patty, scrambled eggs and cheese, and a chocolate brownie milkshake. It was 9 AM, and it was delicious.
Our group went outside to sit down with the rest of the hikers and met many, including Indy the Australian, Ben the Brit, Christina and Jeff the Germans, and Cucumber from Oregon- named as such because he packed out a cucumber on the first day of trail. It fits him well.
After stuffing ourselves silly, we left the malt shop and continued hiking in the breeze and stopped again a few miles later at Boulder Oaks Campground. I tried to find Just Paul (who had driven us to the terminus) and his wife One Speed who are camp hosts there now, but it looks like we had missed them. On the upside, the campground is at mile 26, which means I made it 1% of the way to Canada!
After another long siesta, we continued on and got some trail magic on the side of the road. That Wethers candy was the best I’ve ever had.
After a while, we came to Kitchen Creek, which was a nice spot to soak our feet and filter water before another dry camp. It felt great to soak my feet, but I felt pretty cranky hiking afterwards, so I called my sister Christy; it was so nice to talk to her.
I finally made it to camp at Fred Canyon, a bit later than the rest of the group. I had a single serving backpacking meal which wasn’t enough food, so I tried to cook some vacuum sealed mac n cheese that I got from a hiker box, but it was completely rancid and disgusting. So I put that in my trash baggie and Arielle offered me another meal, which I could only eat half of, oops!
