The Beginning Part 2

Day 3 (continued): After hooking the lady up with her dog, I went into the general store to dig through the hiker boxes.  (People leave stuff they don't want to carry with them in hiker boxes.  There are several in every trail town.  There is so much stuff in the hiker boxes sometimes that you could almost do a full resupply out of them.  You can also do an upgrade, such as taking the nice shiny whistle from the hiker box, and leaving the old rusty whistle you found on the trial.)  I found a dry sack for my sleeping bag!  Yay!  At night the moon was full and the closest it will be to the earth in a year.

Day 4:  Woke up at six this morning and hiked down a ridge.  It was super easy to get 15 miles done, although I did get lost along the way.  I was not paying attention to landmarks, was lost in my own world, and ended up being farther ahead than I thought I was.  After 15 miles, I stopped at a huge concrete tank of water that several other hikers where stopped at.  The day ended short because the next section of the trail is nine waterless miles.  I cowboy camped on the water tank that night.  You could feel the warmth stored from the day's blazing sun radiating from the concrete.  The stars where beautiful and bright.  I love the wilderness sky, free of light pollution.  In the city the stars all seem to be flat and to shine at the same intensity.  Out here you can appreciate the stars for being exploding balls of energy all different distances from earth and burning away at different intensities.  

Day 5:  I made it across the desert, and hitched a ride into the town of Julian with another hiker.  This is a small touristy town, not really too much my style.  Though there was a pie shop called "Mom's Pies" that gave us a free lunch: a sandwich, pie AND ice cream!  I had bumbleberry (blueberry, boysenberry, and blackberry) with cinnamon ice cream.  Yum.  After Julian, About six of us decided to stay at a "hotel" "close" to the trail called The Stagecoach.  We divided ourselves into smaller groups of three to make hitching out easier.  I was in the first group to head out.  The guy at The Stagecoach said we could get a two person "cabin" for twenty five bucks and put more people in it, so we decided to get two of those.  When we went to check out the "cabins"  we discovered they were tool sheds that had almost no ventilation.  What can you expect for eight dollars each?  But still, we decided to pay the extra three bucks each and get the larger four person "cabin" which was actually a trailer called the "Missouri."  I had a pretty fun time, although there was a bit of a boy's club kinda thing going on. 

Day 6:  I walked 23 miles today and got my first blister.  It's the size of a flattened penny.  I also got my trail name to day.  I got named Navi because I look like a fairy and Navi is sort for navigation.  There was a fifteen mile waterless stretch today, relieved by the Gate 3 water cache.  ( There are many Trail Angels who bring gallons and gallons of water to the trail for hikers to fill up on.  These people could never be appreciated or thanked enough for the work they do for PCT hikers.)  The cache appeared like a beautiful oasis.  I sat in the shade with another hiker and waited out the hot part of the day.  When I made it to Barrel Springs Campsite, I popped my blister, ate dinner and went to bed.  A lot of what I've been doing is hiking, eating, and sleeping.  And repeat. 

Day 7:  It was just a hop skip and a jump to Warner Springs this morning where they had a community center set up to cater to PCT hikers.  I had a veggie burger there, and got to go on the Internet.  A group of four of us, Pica, Stone, Texas Chill and I, made our way in search of the next water source.  The terrain was beautiful and park like.  The trail was shaded by deciduous trees and ran along a river until we gained elevation and went back into the mountains in the late afternoon.  We passed the water source at twilight and ended up having to backtrack a mile in the dark.  We were so tired that we just did a snack potluck for dinner; summer sausage, cashews, and chocolate.  I was hurting.

Day  8:  The water source that we were camped at last night is called Lost Valley Creek Road Spring or something like that.  Nastiest water so far.  (And I'm typing this almost two weeks later, and it's still true.)  Fortunately I had some instant chrysanthemum tea packets to flavor the water with me which I distributed to everyone.  We hiked 20 mi to Nance Creek.  My schedule these days is to wake around five, (six if I'm really tired,) walk until noon or one, rest for an hour or two, hike until six or seven, cook and eat dinner, then hike until dark, or until I get to a good place to camp.  I'd like to start eating dinner at five or six.