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5/16/2017 Idyllwild to Fuller Ridge Tent Site 187.8

Today was an amazing day. I woke up around 6 a.m. and Sherpa was still sound asleep so I got dressed and headed to the coffee shop to grab my morning joe. When I got back she was still sleeping so I started consolidating my gear and cleaning the apartment. Before long she was up and I made eggs and beets for us. We did the dishes, finished packing, dropped the key off, and we were on our way. It has been tough resting while all the people we started with were out hiking and now days ahead.  

Our plan was to climb Mt San Jacinto, a 10,833 ft snowcapped mountain. We hitched from just outside the inn to the trailhead of Devil’s Slide, an alternate but more direct approach to the summit trailhead. We were picked up almost immediately by a climber couple on their way to hike another trail.  At first they hesitated and said they could only take us a mile but then said they would take us the whole way.  

The trail to the summit was beautiful and covered with large twisted pines. It felt like walking through the pages of a Dr. Seuss book. Some of the trees had large trunks and a common Christmas tree like shape a the bottom only to stop abruptly and turned horizontally, as if they were growing against an imaginary celing. 

Sherpa led the way and tempered our pace so as to not worsen our injuries. This was a really pleasant change for me and a significant milestone.  If I told AT Sherpa that she would one day let me hike behind her, she would have slapped me. 

On the ascent we passed a couple people along the way, Mom, Rebecca from the UK, and a local. Other than that the hike was fairly uneventful.  We filled our water bottles from a spring about 2 miles from the summit and made the final push through patchy snow. 

When we had nearly reached the summit, the trail split off to the summit trail, and the trail that headed back to the PCT.  We met a few folks and dropped our bags because the last bit was an out and back. Within a few minutes we were passing an emergency shelter and nearing the top.  The last few hundred feet was covered in snow and boulders.

The summit was spectacular and there were lots of hikers enjoying the view.  On the northern side you could see the wind farms below that we would approach in the coming days. On the southern side, the valley was covered in clouds far below.  It didn’t feel like that we hiked up a 10,000 foot mountain, but now that we were at the top the views did not disappoint. 

We didn’t doddle long and soon we were heading back to our bags for lunch.  I stopped off at the shelter and stepped inside. It was a small stone cabin with a heavy wooden door, and an iron, sliding, latch. Inside there were four wooden bunk beds, a few wooden litters, and an emergency supply box. I imagine the whole cabin gets pretty well covered with snow in the winter. I also noticed a lot book so I signed in and saw a few other hikers we knew had signed in. Notably Honey Buns, and Knock on Wood came though on the 14th.  After I drew my signature Wolf Bird with a Gatorade and a hiking pole in his talons, I headed down to the junction to meet Sherpa.  We ate lunch in the sun which I was super excited about because I had packed hummus, garlic naan, and pesto.  It was delicious! Sherpa had cream cheese and bagel thins, gross! She likes nasty things precious. 

When we finished we started the trek down. It was a bit difficult to follow the trail because of the patchy snow. Sherpa was in the lead and I started getting annoyed that she kept leading us off the trail.  Then I finally took the lead and sure enough we got off trail in only a few minutes.  

After a while we got the hang of it and wandered through a funny campground where all the campsites had oddly sexual names. Our favorite was Owl’s Hooch!

Soon after we hit the PCT junction and decided to fill up at the next river ford, then camp just before or on Fuller Ridge. 

The ford was very cool as it flowed over steps carved for the trail. We filled up a solid 3 liters and I decided not to treat mine since the water seemed so fresh. Then we hiked the last couple miles to a campsite at mile 187.8. It was a beautiful spot but the wind had picked up so we hurried through dinner as fast as possible. As we were wrapping up a guy that was camping on the opposite side of the trail came over and said we needed to go look at the view before crashing.  So just before shivering our way into the tent we made a quick visit to the other side of the narrow ridge and it was remarkable. We also noticed that the three tents there were in the worst slopey sites you can imagine.  Good luck sleeping in those fellas!

We scampered back to our tents jumped inside and cuddled til we warmed up. As soon as we were laying on our own pads our feet were cold again. It was of because my torso and head was hot but my feet were cold. I am not sure how but I fell asleep in spite of the odd temperature distribution. When I woke up a couple hours later my body had found equilibrium and after a quick windy per, we slept like little hiker babies.  

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5/13/2017 Hurkey Creek Park Campground to Idyllwild, CA

Idyllwild has been a bittersweet stop for us. We are currently on our third zero in a row due to some painful injuries. Sherpa has some nasty shin splints and I have a little plantar fasciitis. I noticed mine in long runs before the trail and expect to have to manage it throughout our hike. Hopefully Sherpa’s shins will be in good shape tomorrow as we plan to hike our first thing in the morning or, less likely, take her to a Sports Medicine doctor. That is the bitter.  The only thing harder than hiking with injuries is making yourself rest. Especially when your new friends are hiking on.  

The sweet has been undoubtedly spending time with our wonderful and talented new friends. The first day and night we shared a cabin with 2.toe (Nicole), Coyote, Amelia, and Louie. We also got to spend the morning with the amazing and insta-famous, Crash. 

We arrived in town first because we had to hitch to town passed the detour due to Sherpa’s shins. Had breakfast at The Red Kettle.  Soon after the crew rolled up in a posse and we hung out with them while they ate. Afterwords we all meandered gr8 a while. Crash was waiting on a package at the post office, which opened at 1:30 pm. So we hung out with him for a few minutes and ate more food from the grocery store.

When 1 rolled around we said goodbye to Crash and went into the Library and worked on our blog.  It was sad to see him hike on but he’s a pro and it might be a while before we see him again.  

After we finished our internet chores we went back to the cabin and hung out with the crew for the rest of the evening.  We drank beers, cooked dinner, chatted, and had a fire. It was very plesant with such good company. 

Amelia and Louie in the Cabin

The next day the crew hung around till around noon at the coffee shop, Higher Grounds, then we went back.  They packed up and took off for the hills.  It was a little sad to stay behind but we want to stay healthy and finish strong. 

Notes from Friends

Sherpa and I went to the movies at 2 to see Gardians of The Galaxy 2.  It was ok, though I am starting to be shocked how action movies have so much wholesale, glorified, mass murder. There was a seen where the “good guys” were laughing and blasting music while killing what seemed to be hundreds of “bad guys”. It disturbed me. Afterwords we got some food and propped up our feet, I made a fire, and we watched 2 episodes of Fargo. Oh!! And I almost forgot. When we got our of the movie we met the Mayor! 

We got in bed and hopped to decide whether to hike in the morning.  We slept like little hiker babies. 

In the morning we waffled in indecision for a few hours than finally decided to try and rest one final day.  We miss the trail and it feels really hard to stay! 

We will relax again today and hopefully we will be in good shape for tomorrow!

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5/11/2017 Tule Spring to Paradise Valley Cafe

Our hike to Paradise Valley Cafe ended with in an oasis of delicious beer, salad, burgers, and shade. We started out our hike early around 5:45 a.m. and we felt rusty but the miles started trickling by even though we were climbing a couple of thousand feet. Before we knew it we were halfway to our siesta spot, Paradise Valley Cafe.

When we left in the morning Coyote, Nicole, and Patrick all had already left and White Spot was packing his bag. When we reached our halfway mark to the siesta point, also the only point with reliable water, they were all there. The spot, known as Walden, was really pretty neat and cozy. There was a water cache, a water tank, a mini library with printed poems, and some good shade. Patrick, thanks to my poor information, took off because I told him that I heard that there wasn’t reliable water. Oops… Sorry Patrick! Sherpa said she wanted to stop and of course it was amazing. Coyote and Nicole were propped up under the shade reading to each other and we sat down next to them for a minute.


After chatting them up we hit the road again and killed the next 6 or 7 miles to the road, where we planned to hitch to Paradise Valley Cafe.  About 2.5 miles to go I stumbled on a large bag of food that, in retrospect, I think someone ditched on the trail because of how extremely heavy it was.
I felt bad knowing that if it wasn’t an accident, someone might have to buy a whole new resupply, so I picked up the bag and strapped it to my back and carried it all the way to the road. I asked everyone I saw if it was their bag and everyone said no. When we arrived at the road, my feet were really hurting and I could tell I was getting the beginnings of Plantar Fasciitis. The bag moving side to side really added to the bruising of my right foot tendons. Poor Sherpa was also developing some serious blisters along the way so reaching the road was a welcome site.


I dropped off the bag at the trail head, hoping that it’s owner would go there first if they were looking for it. Later I found on Facebook that a lot of people were mad that someone left a bag at the trail head. I only recently added myself to the Facebook group and it is hilarious at times but probably not worth the time of day. It’s just more hiker babble which is often wrong and sometimes ridiculous. I include my own hiker babble in that.

We were tired of walking and are not fans of walking off trail miles when we can help it, we attempted to hitch. Within minutes we were picked up by a lovely couple. The guy in the passenger’s seat jumped out and he surprisingly resembled a hiker. Once we got in we realized why when he told us he had just finished the AZT.

They dropped us off and wished us well and we entered Paradise. This place was amazing. It had all you could ever want, burgers, beer, power, shade, and bathrooms. So exciting! The food was outstanding and all of our hiker friends started trickling in. We sat at the table with Patrick, Coyote, Nicole, and White Spot. We only had one beer but we were laughing a lot. Sherpa and I got burgers and fries, and we shared a large salad.

We finished eating and promptly sprawled our pads and gear out under the shade of a beautiful pine tree with soft bark. A few of us napped, including myself, and then we started talking about what to do next. Originally Sherpa and I planned on taking the PCT alternate to avoid a trail closure due to a fire. We were discussing it with Coyote and Nicole and we stated hearing roomers of poodle dog bush covering the alternate and we began thinking we were making a mistake. Soon we were planning all kinds of different paths around the infamous bush that can inflict pain and blisters more severe than Poison Oak, or Poison Ivy. We heard from one of the hikers, who said he hiked the AT, that his friend and fellow experienced AT hiker told him: “don’t go on the alternate, you will run into a wall to poodle dog bush”.  That almsot had us all convinced. We were going to hitch to a campground 7 miles away that would take us 24 miles on the PCT and the PCT alternate.

We know better than to listen to hiker hype. Hikers, myself sometimes included, often inflate the danger or intensity of their experiences. I have learned this lesson time and time again that the only person that can tell you what you will face is you, when you face it. We finally started to doubt the roomers when Sherpa read some blogs of people that did it only a few days ago and there was no mention of a lack of water or excessive poodle dog bush. Coyote, Nicole, Amelia, and Luis all decided that we were going to see it for ourselves.

When we finally got the motivation to get moving, Coyote, Nicole, Sherpa, and I went to get a hitch. Within moments Cayote and Nicole were able to get picked up and were whisked away. We stayed for another 20 minutes with no luck so we began walking. Sherpa was in a lot of pain because her blisters were very large now, but we didn’t have much of a choice.

By the time we hit the trail head it was probably 6:30 p.m. and we started a mad dash to hit a campsite 4 miles today to make the next day an easy 17… or so we thought. It turned out be 20. A story for another post. The hike turned out to be pretty breathtaking. We were immediately so glad that we didn’t give into the fear mongering. This was some of the most gorgeous hiking on the trail thus far. Rolling hills, beautiful pines, granite boulders, the sunset. Priceless. Sherpa and I got in a bit of a spat over having to walk instead of waiting for a hitch but we soon made up in the presence of all this beautiful hiking.



We hit 4 miles and Coyote, and Nicole were there and already had their tent set up. We pitched our tent, ate dinner together family style, and went to bed on the forest floor.

Before we could slide into our sleeping bags, Sherpa took off her socks to reveal the most gruesome blisters I have ever seen. Half her foot was now a giant flapper and she also had some serious shin splints developing. She was in tears from pain and fearing walking on them tomorrow. She did her best to patch them up and I offered to do whatever I could to make it easier on her. She is so strong and I am so proud of her. She endures tough situations with determination like I have never witnessed.

Inside our tent, the moon looked like a spotlight and Sherpa woke me up just as I was falling asleep and said “what is that flashlight?” LOL. To be fair, it did look like someone had a floodlight pointed at our tent. It was that bright.

We finally fell asleep and slept like little injured hiker babies.

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5/10/17: Mile 115 Tentsite to Tule Spring

It rained/misted overnight and we awoke to a soggy, overcast day. We packed up our wet tent and set out into the surprisingly chilly morning. We had our sights set on ‘Mike’s Place’ as our midday break. Other hikers had been talking about Mike’s Place for the past couple of days, really building up just how great it would be there–burgers and beer and all that a hiker could want. I didn’t get my hopes up too much about it, but Wolf Bird decided to mock all the hype about it by spontaneously shouting ‘Mike’s Place!! Mike’s Place!! Yeah!!!’ all morning. I soon banned this cheer since it was driving me crazy.


We were walking in a cloud all morning, so we had no views. It seemed like pretty cool landscape all around us–we walked through some boulderfields and ridgelines that seemed like they’d have amazing views on a clear day. While disappointing that we didn’t get views, it was a treat to not have to worry about the heat for once!

Such excitement over the sign to Mike’s Place
Wolf Bird showing off his new hairdo

We arrived at Mike’s Place around 11AM. He has a couple huge water tanks up the hill from his property where he allows hikers to refill their water bottles. We took advantage of this and then continued on to his actual house and yard. Yote and Nicole were already there, as were two other hikers we hadn’t met yet–a guy hiking with his two dogs and a girl Rebecca from the UK who was resting her ankle injury. Mike’s Place was quite interesting–it was a small-ish house with a pretty cluttered yard off a dirt road in the high desert of California. It didn’t appear too welcoming at first, but it turned out to be a nice oasis for us hikers.

It was pretty chilly once we stopped walking, so we cooked up some warm food and Wolf Bird made some instant coffee. Many other hikers showed up over the 3ish hours we were there. Eventually the sun even started peeking through the clouds and we all hung up our wet gear to dry. Other highlights of Mike’s Place included Wolf Bird drinking some Coors, Wolf Bird painting my toenails (the colors were his choice), and Wolf Bird being dared to eat a tortilla wrap with peanut butter and pepperoni in under 5 minutes (he failed).

We finally mustered the strength to leave the comforts of Mike’s Place and set out to hike another 10 miles to complete our day. We’d been hiking uphill all morning to Mike’s Place and continued uphill another couple of miles after leaving, only to then descend for the next 8 or so miles. We planned to camp at Tule Spring, the next water source after Mike’s Place–we tend to plan our days around water sources and like to try to camp by them so we have plenty of water to drink and cook with.

The first 7 or so miles out of Mike’s Place flew by, and the day had cleared up so it was beautiful and sunny out. I started getting a bit tired and asked Wolf Bird how much further to the spring and he told me it was only 2.2 miles. We soon found out he told me the distance to a different spot that was before the spring, and it was actually 3 point something miles to the spring. I definitely felt that extra mile and was really dragging by the time we arrived at the spring.


We had to walk downhill about a quarter mile to the spring. There was actually a cistern that apparently sometimes has water, but was empty when we got there. We had to fill from the creek below. Wolf Bird very kindly got my water for me and reported that the creek was really gross, with oil skins on the top of the water and weird colored algae. Yum! I wasn’t too worried, since on the AT I had drank out of some questionable water sources. However, once I tasted the water, I was shocked! It was SO gross. It was the worst tasting water I have ever had even after treating it with our Aquamira drops. We all joked that we felt like we were getting actively poisoned by it as we drank it…. hopefully that does not turn out to be true.

Yote and Nicole, as well as White Spot and Patrick camped near the spring in the same area as us. It was an early 7:30PM for us!

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5/9/17 101.1 Spring to 115.4 Tentsite

Today was a great day.  After our big 24 mile push, we were excited to have a short day and to resupply at Warner Springs (mile 109.5). 

We let ourselves sleep, which in trail life means 5:30 a.m. but Sherpa woke up feeling more tired than when she went to sleep. I was feeling a little tired myself having woken up at 5 feeling refreshed, but drifted for 30 minutes. Of course that extra half hour cost me and I was feeling groggy. 


In spite our sleepiness, we let the air out of our mats and packed up. We both scarfed down a protein bar and hit the trail.  Within seconds we paused so that Sherpa could pee and I could put on my jacket. Off to a great start.  Two people passed us, Fran and Mayo. We got ourselves together a second time and caught up to them. 

We hiked through some very nice valleys with beautiful live oak trees all day.  After a few miles we came upon Louie and Amelia.  Louis carries a guitar and seems to be pretty good at it.  A mile or two later we entered a beautiful prairie of rolling hills and a few isolated live oak trees where the horizon seemed to be tilted to the south. 

It was an odd and impressive view. After some time we arrived at Eagle Rock. Sherpa mentioned several times she was excited to see it. I, of course didn’t know the first thing about it, or any other significant sites on the PCT with a few exceptions. 

It definitely lived up to the hype.  It really does look like an eagle and shortly after we arrived we were joined by Amelia and Louie. They took our picture and vice versa then we hiked on, only to quickly run back to retrieve my water bottle which Amelia was kindly carrying. 

After Eagle Rock we only had a short distance through a beautiful forest valley to our destination, Warner Springs.  

Warner Springs’ main feature is a community center right off the trail that caters to, and celebrates hikers. The town is small and there are so many wonderful volunteers shuttling people around and helping them with everything you can imagine. Here is a quick summary of offerings: camping, coffee, Wi-Fi, computers, resupply store, vibrating foot bath and Epsom salts, gearshop, rides to the post office, bucket showers, laundry, clothesline, power, hiker box, hiker clothes, books, and lots of wonderful places to sit. Pretty unbelievable! 

We were one of the first ones there and it filled out quickly. I got a coffee and headed to the post office with Slow Buffalo, Andrew, and Mayo. We had a great talk and it helped keep me from getting lost on the shortcut. Sherpa stayed and did internet chores.  

After I got back and did my chores, we went through our resupply. We were generally pretty happy with our choices, though we are carrying way too much food for 70 miles! Most people were in the same boat and we made lots of cool food aqusitions. I got Starbucks VIA and some dehydrated Asian veggie mix, which was amazing in my Pad Thai tonight. 


After we chilled for a while and had lunch we packed up and said goodbye to most everyone to hike another six miles.  We knocked that out in no time and camped next to a pretty stream, ate Pad Thai, which I generously gave some of mine to Sherpa. Amazing, I know.  And now we are in our tent getting some early r&r before an early day and potentially 21 miles.  

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5/8/17: Julian to Tentsite at Mile 101

We had a great evening staying with trail angels Mary Poppins and Roar last night. They live about a mile outside of town so we headed in their direction mid afternoon and met Yote and Nicole at Nickel Beer Brewery which was conveniently right on the way. The brewery was super cool, great beer and all locals except for us and a new hiker friend, Crash, from Australia. He is doing an 8 month trip where he is hiking the PCT as well as a couple of other long trails. Yote invited him to stay at the trail Angels as well so the five of us headed over there around 530. We enjoyed delicious baked spaghetti for dinner and relaxed talking and watching a movie. In the morning we had cereal and toast and coffee (I got to have my much-adored Cheerios) and chatted with Mary Poppins before heading out around 830 to hitch back to the trail. 
Most cars were heading into town rather than in the direction of the trail, but after about 30 minutes, Yote, Nicole, Wolf Bird and I scored a ride with a woman named Kim (Crash had gotten off at a different point on the trail and was headed back there himself). The two back seats in Kim’s van had booster seats for her kids so I enjoyed sitting on one while we cruised around hairpin turns down the mountain. 

We arrived at the trail at Scissors Crossing around 10am. We were a bit nervous and curious how crowded the trail would be with so many people having stayed in Julian to wait out the storm. We had 14 miles to go for the day until our first water source. Wolf Bird and I set out and had a good pace all morning, passing many groups of hikers. It was fun to see everyone and chat briefly. We were in cruise mode–it was sunny but much cooler than other days and with a nice breeze so it was easy to get a good pace going. We went uphill for nearly the entire morning and ended up getting to the water source around 2ish with only a brief 5-10 minute break! 

There were many hikers hanging out around where the water was. This particular source was a water cache–volunteers drive in gallon jugs of water for hikers. We walked downhill and off trail about 0.4 miles to reach the cache. It was crazy the amount of water there for hikers! It is truly humbling and awe inspiring to know that complete strangers will spend their time and money making sure we have water here (otherwise it would be 20 mile plus waterless section). 

After we loaded up with water and enjoyed a long break and lunch we set out for our afternoon miles. We were still feeling great–it must have been that two days of rest! I allowed myself a special treat and put in my headphones to listen to music, something I hadn’t done yet on this trail but did often on the AT. It was amazing how motivated and energized listening to music made me feel! The miles were flying by and when we got to a campsite we’d thought about stopping at a few miles out, we both agreed we wanted to keep walking!
We committed to another 10 miles and ended up passing the 100 mile mark! We pulled a 24 mile day and surprisingly felt pretty great when we arrived at camp.

There were about 15 other hikers already set up in the area we were camping. It was crazy because we hadn’t met any of them before–I guess we broke into a new bubble. We cooked dinner –wolf bird cooked a double dinner and ended up eating it on a log alone well into dusk after everyone else went to bed.  

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5/5/17: Pioneer Mail Picnic Area to Mile 73 Tentsite

We got up bright and early (well not actually bright because it was before sunrise) at 4:15AM. We packed up and were off around 5:00AM and believe it or not we weren’t even the first to leave our camping area! We had a beautiful walk along what seemed like an old road right along a ridge line as the sun rose. It was so beautiful and peaceful.

There was an area with all these plaques that I guess was a place to memorialized loved ones that passed away. 

We had an enjoyable and quick seven mile hike to the Sunrise Trailhead, where we stocked up on water. A guy was dropping off his friend to hike and gave Wolf Bird 4 liters of water which he graciously shared with me. We opted to carry a reasonable amount of water which meant we would have to walk extra later in the day to restock our water supply. Others opted to carry a heavy load of water (think 6+ liters or 12+ pounds) to avoid having to walk more/stock up later. 

Today it was really noticeable how meandering the trail is. Since it’s so open, we can often see where the trail will take us for the next half hour or more. Today we went way up up (at a very gradual grade) only to then do a switch back and walk way down in the totally opposite direction. Then we crossed the valley floor and went right back up again. It can feel frustrating since we can literally see all this back and forth ahead of us. 

It got very hot by 10AM but we powered on until about noon where we would stop at Rodriguez Road for our siesta. This was where we had to stock up on water which meant we had to walk off trail a mile down a dirt road to a spring. The walk down wasn’t too bad but we then had to walk a mile back uphill in the blazing hot sun awkwardly trying to juggle about 5 liters of water each. I was really struggling near the end so Wolf Bird went ahead of me and disappeared out of site. Minutes later, as I was struggling even more, I saw him walking in my direction. He had set down his water at the top of the hill and walked back down to me to help me carry my water the rest of the way up. 100 points for Wolf Bird!

Wolf Bird found a pretty sweet spot with some shade and also rigged up our tent fly to create some extra shade. It wasn’t perfect but it was very nice to get out of the sun. The tent fly “shade” turned out to be more of a sweat lodge but Wolf Bird is weird and enjoyed it. We laid about snacking and relaxing and Wolf Bird also read some of The Alchemist to me. 

After our long break we finally set out around 5PM to walk our final four miles. It still felt pretty hot, as we were walking uphill and in the sun for most of the miles. We finally made it to our Tentsite which turned out to be a bit windy but also beautiful. 

(Wolf Bird here) Sherpa put in 100% and she needs her rest

Our plan was tomorrow to walk four miles to the road and hitch into Julian, as we’d heard a storm with strong winds and potential for snow was on the way. 

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5/4/17 Mile 34 to Pioneer Mail Picnic Area

This was one of my favorite sections of hiking. We had a really hot day yesterday and so we decided to try a siesta strategy to keep from walking in the hottest part of the day so we woke up at 4:30 a.m. 

We were at the top of a ridge at 4,908 ft but it was still very warm out and beautiful. The stars were beautiful and still bright since the moon had set. We packed up and I ate a quick breakfast of bars and Sherpa wasn’t feeling great so she didn’t eat much. We started walking around 5:15 a.m. and were making amazing time.  

As the sun started coming up we started hearing a lot of mountain lion chirping. They seem to be calling each other from different slopes. Sherpa went ahead at one point because I have been taking pictures of as many flowers as I can find, and she promptly waited for me when we heard some chirping nearby. We had heard that this section had some stalking reported.  I have since done some googling on how to prevent an attack if you encounter one. Basically you stare them down, make yourself larger than life, and shout. 

Fortunately we didn’t have to fight a cougar. After a couple miles we climbed into this forest wonderland. Pretty wild seeing such an environment change. 

After a couple miles we encountered a sign to Mt. Laguna. We decided in Lake Morena that we would skip this town and go into Julian. After that came Burnt Rancheria Campground where we stopped and took a quick break and I took advantage of their privy! Sherpa was still feeling weird but tried to eat something without much success. 

When we finally got water and got going, we hiked out of the forest and passed some striking views!

The desert is hot and unbelievable! It’s definitely easier for me to enjoy the scenery because the heat doesn’t affect me like it does Sherpa. She is constantly having to manage her system to stay at a reasonable temperature. Today was more manageable than the last two because we were hiking earlier and there was a breeze. 

We hiked until mile 48.7 at Penny Pines Point Faucet and planned to siesta there. We met a few thru-hikers there: Sara, GG, and Shannon. We chatted them up for a few minutes then found an out of the way, shaded place to take a nap and eat lunch. 

I made one of my dinners for lunch and passed out. When I woke up I was super grumpy and had to take a second to chill out.  We decided that we hadn’t done enough to meet other hikers so we were going back to the faucet to find people to meet. There where two hikers at the pump, Bryant and Evan?? They were from Caly somewhere and pretty friendly.  

We then saddled up for the final push and had a really pleasant last couple miles.  We saw lots of wildlife and amazing views. 

Our final destination was technically a picnic area called Pioneer Mail Picnic Area not a campsite. We were apprehensive about camping here because you aren’t allowed but when we arrived there were already 4 tents up.  We found a flat spot and out up our tent then when to get water.  

The water source was a horse trough that had two faucets. One on top and one on the trough itself. Sherpa, nearly a genius, started filling her bottle from the trough faucet which supplied life giving green algae, mosquito water. I quickly mansplained that the top faucet was clear so she dumped out her water but, to my consternation, left at least a cup of green water in the bottom. I convinced her to dump it out, saint that I am. We are working on her standards. 

We went to bed and slept like little hiker babies.  

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5/3/17: Lake Morena Campground to Mile 34 Tentsite

In the night we had a classic Wolf Bird/Sherpa situation where I (Sherpa) woke up Wolf Bird in the middle of the night because of animal happenings. I smelled a super strong skunk stench around 3AM and was concerned a skunk was in our campsite. I had my leftover chicken tenders in the vestibule of our tent so I was worried the smell was attracting a skunk. Wolf Bird was of course not too happy to be woken up for this. We put the food inside our tent so nothing could get into it and went back to sleep with no issues. 


We got up around 6:30AM and didn’t get going until close to 8:00AM. We passed a couple from Knoxville (the guy, Yote as in Coyote, hiked the AT previously) and also a German/Swiss couple. It was nice flat easy trail for a good portion of the morning. We saw some prairie dogs (or so says Wolf Bird) and also a woman riding a horse down the trail (not for a thru hike). 


We started climbing up and of course that is when the temperature also started to rise. The sun is just so strong! I am a person who sits in the shade at the pool or beach, so walking in the blazing hot sun all day is pretty tough. I have to stop and take brief breaks whenever I find the smallest amount of shade just to get a brief relief from the sun’s intensity. 

We decided to try taking a siesta in the middle of the day, where we sit and take a long break to wait out the hottest part of the day. We had decided in advance to take our siesta at a water source, Kitchen Creek. Unfortunately, when we got there around noon we discovered Kitchen Creek had very little shade. It was a nice cold flowing creek about 100 feet down below the trail, but was surrounded by exposed rock all around. 


Wolf Bird kindly walked upstream a bit, passed a rattlesnake in the grass, and actually found a bit of shade around the bend of the creek! We laid out our groundsheet and posted up for the afternoon under a tree. Unfortunately, the shade kept moving as the sun moved across the sky, so we had to keep adjusting where we sat. To top it off, we were on sloped ground so it was a bit difficult to get comfortable. Wolf Bird took a nice nap and made some instant mashed potatoes which he shared with me and we lounged for a loooong time, until about 5PM. Wolf Bird took a dip in the creek just before we headed out and reported that it was very refreshing. 


We finally set out to hike our final miles of the day. Lucky for us, most of these miles were on the north side of the mountains we were walking along, which meant the sun had already sunk low enough in the sky so that we were walking in shade. It felt so nice to have relief from the sun and the air temperature was also cooler which made for nicer walking. 

We got to our next water source at Fred Creek Canyon and found a bunch of thru hikers camping there. We opted to continue on a few miles as we both were feeling good and there was still an hour or so until sunset. We walked until we got to a beautiful ridge line with a nice flat tentsite. We set up our tent and cooked dinner as we watched the sun set and stars start to appear. It was very beautiful.