Woke up a bit earlier this morning - 615am. Everyone was up and moving and getting out of camp. I did a quick pack, and discussed the plan for the day - I got some numbers confused and I thought we only had 5 miles to Mt Laguna - turns out it is 10! Oops. Not quite a “Nero”.
Somehow despite camping next to a stream in a lower lying area, we didn’t get any dew or condensation on any tents. Definitely a plus, but also, mysterious.
It was an exciting day as Mt Laguna is a small town of 60 people. But, it is a “town day”: there’s a well stocked cafe and a general store and post office, and it’s pretty much next to the trail. What this means is that we can eat town food - and that’s exciting for PCT hikers.
I ate some bars for breakfast on the move, got out by about 7. Need to work on packing my bag tighter, my sleeping bag has so much loft it pushed everything up.
Despite thinking the early morning sun wouldn’t hurt me, I managed to get a bit sunburnt. I kept a closer eye on my hydration and electrolyte intake today and felt much better for it.
In the final 3 miles of the hike into town it changed from sandy scrub to pine trees and the weather cooled right down and a nice breeze came by. It felt simply glorious.
I came across some familiar faces at the trailhead to town, and while we had discussed the option of staying at Mt Laguna, I was feeling like pushing 6 more miles to a caravan park off trail. So definitely not a “Nero” day anymore. We started getting excited for town food and this one place quoted on a review as saying “this is the best burger on trail, not hyperbole” - alas the blue Jay lodge is shut on Monday and Tuesday. Bonus distance then. So we walked back to the cafe - which was playing some strange polka type music loudly with no one in sight. It felt like we were in a movie or something.
Anyway we got good food and the restaurant owner was super nice, had plenty of charging ports and let us pay the bill individually. I ended up hanging around town for a few hours to wait the heat of the day out, and got sucked into the “town vortex” - a phenomenon where hikers end up spending loads of time in town - buying food, eating food, going to the post office, etc.
Eventually I set off in the afternoon and it was just glorious weather, nice and cool, so nice for this time of year, which should be so much hotter. Was met with some stunning views and could see San Jacinto in the distance - this is a mountain we will climb in about 100 miles.
After some pleasant walking the wind really picked up and was a nice change to yesterday. I made it up to the turn off for the caravan park and walked onto the highway for 500m until I came to the turn off - I eventually found some other hikers friends and were really stoked to learn that a nice guy in his RV at this caravan park had gifted us our tent sites as he has capacity for 8 people - handy to not need to pay, although I did try to offer him money.
The wind really picked up and I tried to nestle my tent between some trees to avoid some of the wind. It was looking like it would be cold with the wind only getting stronger and the campsite being in a valley - overnight the cold air would settle down into where we were.
I was hoping my friends were ok, one of their tents was looking like it might struggle staying up in the wind.
I cooked up some “cheddar broccoli” packet mix with some 4 cheese Idaho instant mash potatoes - it was glorious, although a really trick to get the stove to work in the wind.
My tent held up well in the wind, but my feet started to get a bit cold from the wind blowing through, was an interesting night!
Tomorrow will be a push halfway to the town of Julian, the somewhat legendary mile marker 77 marking a place to stop under the highway and either push on for a waterless stretch or head into Julian to relax and rebound. I’ll head into Julian, PCT hikers get a free slice of pie at a place called “moms”.
The night was definitely interesting, it snowed, but it wasn’t cold enough for it to stick.
