We woke up just before 6 and packed up our stuff before breakfast. The Andersons made pancakes and coffee for the 80 or more hikers and they were some of the thickest pancakes I’ve ever had! After filling up on those plus coffee, Wolf Bird, Tofu, Yote, Two Point Two and I hung out and were ready to get back on trail before it got too hot. Terrie (the trail angel) offered to give us a ride back to the trail and we of course jumped at the opportunity. Unfortunately when it was time to hop in the car Yote and Two Point Toe were doing something so a couple other hikers jumped in the car in their place. Not a huge deal as Terrie would make more trips but sad we didn’t start out the day together. Before we left Terrie had us take a group photo and as the person taking it was counting down, Terrie mooned us!! I’m sure our faces were hilarious and full of shock. I guess now we know why it’s called Casa De Luna (House of the Moon in Spanish).
We were on trail by about 8AM and it was already hot! We planned to hike to a campground with water to take a siesta, which was about 15 miles away. We had a big climb up out of town and I immediately was sweating profusely. It was sporadically breezy and the times without a breeze were incredibly hot with no protection or relief from the sun. I usually try to keep going and not stop too much before our siestas, as I want to be done and resting as soon as possible. That was perhaps not the best strategy on as warm a day as today–after four or so hours of continuous hiking in the heat I was really worn out and tired. I was glad to come upon Wolf Burd who’d been hiking in front of me. We stopped and rested in the shade until Tofu caught up. Then we headed to the campground to take our siesta.
The campground was annoyingly located a half mile off trail, and very downhill. We already dreaded the walk back up as we descended. We went to get water once we arrived at the deserted campground and that was of course even more downhill! The campground was pretty buggy so we set up our tents to rest for a few hours. Wolf Bird and I watched Almost Famous on his phone (he’d downloaded it from Amazon) while Tofu read. Yote and Toe Point Tor arrived after a while and also rested for a while.
Finally around 5 when it was a bit cooler we packed up and set out to walk the last five miles to Sawmill Campground, our destination for the day. The hike back up the the PCT was hot and uphill but not as bad as we imagined. The next five miles were pretty easy but made much more difficult and frustrating by swarms of flies/gnats. They weren’t biting us but were flying all around us, especially our heads, which really tested our patience (mainly mine). Sawmill Campground was also off trail a half mile, except uphill. We arrived there relatively quickly around 7 or so and found a big open campground overlooking the valley below with plenty of spaces to camp. Many other hikers were here but it didn’t feel crowded at all since it was such a big space.
The water source at this campground was a half mile away (a full mile from the PCT!) which was pretty far, as many sources are right on trail or at least at the campground. I absolutely hate walking off trail miles (miles that aren’t on the actual PCT that don’t “count”) because I am lazy, so I was delighted when Wolf Bird proposed a deal. He would walk the one mile round trip to get water if I set up our tent and inflated our sleeping pads. I of course agreed and felt like I was getting the much better end of the deal (even more so when it ended up taking him maybe 45 minutes to come back!). We cooked dinner with Tofu and Yote and Two Point Two as well as Vice and Boathouse, who we’ve been hiking around since the beginning.
It was a nice evening made even nicer by a breeze that kept the bugs away from our campsite.