- Date: 2023-06-03
- Pct day: 29
- Start: Mile 369
- End: Mile 380
- Distance: 11 Miles
- Ascent: 3914 feet
- Descent: 2424 feet
- Start name: Highway 2
- End name: NA
- Wake up: 07:00
- Start hiking: 12:02
- At camp: 19:00
- In bed: 20:00
- Where I slept: tent
- Shower: yes
Key moments
- Woke up at 7am, ear plugs in, feeling good. Had to pee a lot during the night. I swear sometimes I need to pee so much when I’m hiking
- too much detail? Probably
- One of the other hikers staying at the trail angels place, Chris, asked if anyone had a can opener - I felt very good being able to produce one in my little slim Victorinox Alox. Chris cooked some baked beans and sausages - looked like a great meal.
- I packed my new Durston bag and was very excited to use it. It felt so good. It was heavy, but it didn’t feel heavy carrying it. More to come on this later
- Adam and Amelia and I walked into town and I felt so good about my bag
- We went into Village grind and I ended up ordering two breakfast burritos because they were so good. And a bit small, perhaps.
- I wrote some postcards While we waited to meet some friends, and for me to retrieve my lightweight trowel from my friend Jeremy. Long story.
- I returned the other trowel I bought from the hardware store, or rather I exchanged it for a Gatorade. Got to stay hydrated while in town - I had a lot of coffee and sometimes I feel like town days you can get a bit dehydrated if you aren’t careful
- While I was downing this Gatorade waiting for Adam and Amelia to come back from an errand, a friendly guy doing some renovations on his home had a chat to me about the trail, telling me a story about a New Zealander he picked up a few years ago. Man the people in this town are so friendly.
- A big Ram brand truck pulled up and asked if I wanted a lift to trail, turns out it was a PCT hiker who was taking a break after hiking from Campo to Kennedy Meadows.
- Adam and Amelia and I got a ride to the trail, and we started off, quickly running into some trail magic from a crew of friendly people doing PCT trail maintenance.
- It was a bit of a slog up and down some elevation to get to the base of the approach to Baden Powell, our mission for the day. A significant part of the trail, at about 9383 feet tall.
- We stopped at the road next to the car park to climb up to Baden Powell - interestingly the road was closed due to snow so you could kind of hang out on the road.
- If you didn’t want to climb up Baden Powell, you could take this closed road around mountain and avoid a lot of elevation gain.
- There was a pretty good amount of snow on the way up, not nearly as much as there was on San Jacinto, and definitely felt very secure
- The day was running away from us and we summited at 5pm, it was just a lot of elevation gain and it was hard work
- We found a little campsite on a ridge, and camped there
Plan from here
- head about 20 miles or so down towards Sulphur Siena’s campsite if possible
Animals sighted
- squirrels
Gear thoughts
- man the Durston bag is just so great. It Carries so well, it has minimal fuss, has well thought out designs, and just enough of what I need to make it work
Physical condition
- good! Right foot blister appears to be gone - new shoes and using laces not elastic seems to have helped that
Thoughts and Observations
Some of the bad things
- man slogging it up hill in snow is like really hard work, is this what the Sierras are going to be? Should I delay striving th Sierras?
- I realised I have sent a few things to Kennedy Mesdows. Which makes the end of the desert, however a lot of hikers are skipping out from Kennedy meadows and going from Tehacapi to Northern California or Oregon, as it’s a lot easier to get from Tehacapi than it is from Kennedy mesdows - I hope I don’t make an annoying situation
Quotes of the day
- I know when this gets hard and steep I can get through this because I have a pickle
#pct #pct2023 #pctclassof2023
