- Date: 2023-06-15
- Pct day: 41
- Start: Mile 558
- End: Mile 583
- Distance: 25 miles
- Ascent: 5422 feet
- Descent: 4186 feet
- Start name: Tehachapi / Willow Springs Road
- End name: unmarked campsite in a windy area next to a loud wind turbine
- Wake up: 06:00
- Start hiking: 08:30
- At camp: 21:30
- In bed: 10:30
- Where I slept: tent
- Shower: no
Key moments
- woke up in the hotel room we were staying at - headed down to get hotel breakfast
- Sorted out a ride to the trailhead with a trail Angel
- Shared the ride with James and Stitch, a young woman from the south and a retired man from Canada - turns out they met at the southern terminus (the very start of the hike) and both had the goal of doing the whole PCT in less than 100 days, so they’ve just been hiking together the whole time.
- I asked them how they do 30 mile days back to back, they said that the key is in the morning miles, and in your breaks not being too long, and snacking every hour
- I told them I did a 37 mile day and didn’t understand how they could do 30 mile day
- They said 37 miles is too long, and I believed them, my feet still felt tender
- our trail Angel dropped us off and we tried to give her a donation but she said she didn’t want one, just to pay it forward
- there are some very generous people on the trail
- I saw magic man at the trailhead - he’s a trail Angel who gives trail magic to hikers, cold soft drink, snacks, and chairs. He was near Paradise Valley Cafe a few weeks ago, he’ll spend another week here before going further up the trail to independence, in the Sierras. What a cool dude.
- I started out, having a great morning hiking in the morning sun, amongst these enormous wind turbines, walking through an area with small old ones with just two blades, to brand new freaking enormous ones. Super cool things
- Tiptoe caught up to me later down the track, he and clouds and nubs hitched in a little while after me
- We all caught up at the highway, where there was thankfully a large water cache.
- Also a whole tub of biscoff cookie butter, which I helped myself to a few tablespoons
- The trail walked beside the highway for a few miles, I made the “honk the horn” motion to a few trucks and had success, even got a local county ranger to briefly blare his buzzer.
- I felt like a child and it felt great.
- I was sticking to taking a break every hour and taking my pack off for 5 minutes, eating a snack. It seemed to help!
- This felt especially important to do as my bag ended up having about 7 days of food and o was carrying nearly 4 litres of water
- I came across the most glorious siesta spot ever, it looked like a cave carved into a tree, I couldn’t not rest there
- Nubs and I ended up sleeping there for at least 30 minutes. It put us a bit behind on the day but it was a really nice sleep
- Nubs and I had a good chat about music and tv shows we watched growing up, he’s one of the few people who has also seen the Samurai Pizza Cats.
- We spent a bit of time reminiscing over the power rangers as well. Turns out he’s also a fan of one of my favourite bands, Seoul, a band I saw when they first formed in Montreal, back then were called Cherry Chapstick
- We made it to the next water source, which was a 25 mile day - unfortunately the campsite was pretty full and it was late - about 9:20pm so we didn’t want to bother anyone else and headed off to walk another half mile to some less good campsites that were under a large loud wind turbine and were windy. Oh well.
Plan from here
- wake up early and get some morning likes in - which is to say walk back to the water source and then leave from there. Aiming for about 20 miles tomorrow
Animals sighted
- either a bobcat or a small mountain lion or a coyote - we saw it at night, maybe eating another animal. It looked creepy
- So many grasshoppers - they’ve been on the trail since almost the start, but this time they were jumping especially erratically and I had three collide with my face, it was quite funny
- Small bunny rabbit
Gear thoughts
Physical condition
- my feet are just sore - it feels like the balls of my feet are very thin, got a small reappearing blister on my right foot, hopefully should go away with a smaller day tomorrow
Thoughts and Observations
Some of the bad things
- my feet are sore, in a very deep way
- I’m camped basically under a loud wind turbine
- long water carries are really annoying
- It’s windy in my tent and I’m getting dust in my face
Quotes of the day
- 37 miles is too many miles
#pct #pct2023 #pctclassof2023
