Mile 42 to 101 – Bitter Cold to High Desert Glory (April 4 to April 7)

Tuesday morning the 6 people in our 4 person tiny house started stirring around 4am and planning different times to head to face the cold and get back out on the trail. The other three that joined us for the night were Alberte from Denmark and Jan and Marcelle from Geissen, Germany (a great evening of conversation and prosts!)

I heated up my breakfast and coffee using the stove in the tiny house (saving my precious fuel) and was not inclined to head into the minus 4 temps (as our European friends would say) until there was sun on my face, which turned out to be about 8:15. My food bag seemed a little heavy for 4 days on the trail, but turns out – it was jut barely enough. By Friday at noon I’d consumed every calorie I’d packed plus 2/3 of my reserve bag, leaving a half a bag of nuts by the time I finished this leg, and I shed about 3 lbs of belly fat too. I have some new plans for calorie/weight optimization for this next week, but there is going to be some fine tuning as well as max-calorie-stuffing at every possible stop with a store or restaurant.

My goal leaving Mt. Laguna was to make it to mile 101 at Barrel Spring by Friday at 3pm, averaging 15 miles a day. Having only had one day over 10 miles, I wasn’t sure how the body would handle this, but was determined to give it a go. I managed 16 miles the first day out with about an hour of sunlight left to set up camp and eat dinner before it was back to sub-freezing for one more night. I made a stealth campsite, completely on sandy soil about 100 yards from the trail through brush that was fairly easy to pick through (and not that thorny). I had a great view of the surrounding desert mountains, but also remarkable privacy from the trail as the 3 to 6 foot shrubs totally obscured the view of my tent from the trail.

I’m also enjoying assessing the details of a landscape I’m only marginally experienced with, and changes notably with every elevation, latitude, and drainage detail. I could see the terrain on hillsides across the valley and concluded their would be a flattish spot among the shrubs on sandy soil for a tent. Then it’s about managing any troublesome small creatures – so far no scorpions, tarantulas, or campsite mice, but watching for the multitude of ant species and their little holes in the soil. I shared two lunch stops with them but so far the ones on this section don’t venture too far from their work areas.

Waking up Wednesday morning after the 16 miler (sleeping from 8pm to 3:15 am and then fitfully waiting for the sun to rise for 3 more hours), I was happy to find my body actually felt *better* than before I started this leg. Some of the chronic back/lower leg/foot issues I’d been working through the last several months responded very favorably to an old fashioned beating. I set out of this camp confident I could cover the remaining 43 miles over 54 hours. This was a lovely day and classic PCT socializing where I ran into a half dozen people multiple times as we leapfrogged, but largely hiked solo, rotating among the sounds of nature, music, podcasts, and audiobooks (I worked through Prince Harry’s ‘Spare’ having his voice in my head during large chunks of this section).

Also, had my first dose of ‘Trail Magic’ a PCT (or generally, thru-hike) phenomenon that was alluded to in posts, blogs, videos, and books, but I hadn’t personally witnessed just yet. I pulled up to rest at an area where the trail gets close to the highway and a woman named Desiree jumped out of her car and said ‘Hey, would you like a little Trail Magic!’ She said it was her first chance running into thru hikers this season and she had a cooler with ‘PCT Trail Magic’ written on the side, which had a variety of snacks (including mochi!) and a bag of apples. On any backpacking adventure, perishables are a a no-go to carry so any type of fruit is truly magic and this apple was INCREDIBLE. While I was hanging out and chatting another 8 or so hikers came along and were all very happy for this classic dose of trail magic.

The trail descended under 4,000 feet through the mile 60’s by Orriflamme Mountain and then the unique and beautiful Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. There was lovely fire tank water source at mile 68 as the streams were generally dry from this point through to mile 101. I was shooting for mile 72 as the sun got low and my go-to tool for planning, the app Far Out revealed a string of campsites I the 70’s. The first three were packed with trail families, one of which was a whole collection of ultra-minimalist tents, reminding me once again that my 4.5 lb tent prominently displayed on the outside of my pack is an anomaly, fully 15% of my total loaded weight. I didn’t really want to drop in line with the crowd, but Ashley did some additional research and found what appears to be the brilliant solution: A Canadian company called Durston makes a storm-tough hiking-pole supported tent with adequate interior space for a total packed weight of merely 1 lb. My MSR Hubba will be with me until then, but the order is in, and more dollars out the door for pricey gear.

I enjoyed spending the night, FINALLY with overnight temps above freezing and got a slightly better sleep and was rewarding with an incredible desert sunrise. It was 5 flat miles to an intersection with the highway at Scissor’s Crossing. I felt great on this stretch, but was down to my last few drops of water. Once again, Trail Angels really came through as there 25 gallon jugs in a water cache under the highway! This was especially incredible as the next 23 mile stretch has not a drop of flowing water through the San Felipe Hills. Far Out did corroborate that the one water cache midway was well stocked, so I felt comfortable filling up 3 liters as I left the crossing behind and headed into the these hills (one funny note – I speak in normal hiker parlance, referring to gallons of water in the cache and how many liters I carry. Who knows why, this is just how it is).

The landscape changed immediately on this side of the valley to more diverse flora and amazing blooming cacti, as well as some less enjoyable stiff brush grass growing over the trail (which made me glad I hike in long pants, pretty much always). The trail climbed about 800 feet out of the valley and then dropped into a steady traverse at about 3,000 feet paralleling highway S2 below. Sometimes this created ridiculously long stretches of trail to maintain the elevation. While sometimes the highway was out of sight, I just double checked: those 23 trail miles are exactly 13 road miles on a fast highway that can be covered in 15 minutes and took me about 10 hours to hike over 2 days. The PCT is a trail that is about experiencing beautiful country, step-by-step. Historically I like more direct routes up mountains with sharper switchbacks ,when they are needed at all, and I’ve 100% accepted, that is not the design of this trail and just move at my 2.1 to 2.8 mph pace and embrace the moment of each step.

Thursday night’s camp was out on peninsular mountain about 1/4 mile from the trail on a bit of flat sand I scouted, avoiding stepping on sharp and prickly plants, and making sure I left no mark of my camp. This one even had a couple bars of traditional cell coverage and I was able to do a FaceTime call with my brother Matt on his 42nd birthday, just as he was finishing dinner with my Mom in Juneau! A lovely magic moment at sundown. There were 13 1/2 more miles on Friday and out at Barrel Spring, mile 101 where Ashley and Aspen arrived right on time. Back to Palm Springs to rest and recharge for a day, including brunch with friends, and a long solid sleep in a bed!

Happy Easter to all here on Sunday April 9th! I’m back to repacking and loading up food for 6 days, hoping to hike 70 miles from where I left back, this time returning to Palm Springs on Foot. As Blondie said to Tuco, in the most fabled Spaghetti Western “I feel a man like you can do it” as he sent him off to wander 70 miles in the desert, albeit with no food, water, or sun protection…