We woke up to a very cold, windy morning.  I wore all my layers plus fleece hat & mittens.  We have enough breakfasts that we can still eat a full breakfast, hooray!  Last night before I went to sleep I was trying to figure out WHY we are short on food, and finally had a “duh” moment.  I had planned our food based on Ray Jardine’s chart for a 4 1/2 month hike.  Ray’s chart was based on resupplying at Wrightwood, not at Cajon Pass.  It’s almost a day’s hike from Cajon to the Wrightwood turnoff.  No wonder our food supplies are short!  Well, today we planned to put a good dent in the 54 miles we have to go. 

By 9:30 we passed the 400 mile mark at “Camp Glenwood.”  From there, we had lots of nice downhill trail,including our last crossing of the Angeles Crest Highway, where Bill almost took a wrong turn.  What happened was we have a policy that on any given stretch of trail, whichever of us is slowest goes first.  Lately, that’s usually Bill, limping along on his sore feet.  But he took some Motrin at breakfast, and by the time we reached the highway, the “motrin effect” had kicked in, and Bill was charging ahead instead of limping ahead.  In fact, he had gotten way ahead of me!  And at a trail junction, he took off down what looked like the PCT–but no, the sneaky PCT had gone slinking off sideways into the bushes.  Fortunately I was able to shout to him and get him back on track.  At that point I said, “OK, now I’M going first!” 

After that, we spent a lot of miles going through sort of a chaparral tunnel.  At one point, there was a confusing fork in the trail where it looked like BOTH trails were labelled with the PCT emblem.  What the??  Well, a bit of more careful observation showed us that the two emblems were NOT the same–one was PCT, the other the Boy Scout Silver Moccasin Trail.  

By noon we’d reached the little creek near Sulphur Spings Camp, whre I cooked a “short rations” skimpy dinner and Bill went down to the campground for water.  Some other thruhikers also arrived and stopped for lunch, so we were able to talk.  Bill returned with bad news for all of us–the water at the campground was shut off.  We looked at the creek–but no way, the water in it was gross.  All of us were really low on water, and a big climb of Pacifico Mountain lay ahead.  The guidebook said there were springs on the mountain–we all hoped so!

So the whole gang of us started the upward trail, which was often overgrown by very pretty yellow flower bushes.  The guidebook said there were 2 springs after 3 miles.  The first spring was not even trickling and was yucky.  Not good.  But half a mile later–oh boy!  The second one was clear, sweet, and in full flow.  We all filled our bottles with cold, delicious water, and drank a lot of it on the spot!

Monty crosses a pine cone "river"

Seven more miles of climbing and a 1,600 foot elevation gain brought us to the top of the mountain.  The trail on the other side was long, narrow and at times looked like it wanted to just slide off down the mountainside.  One interesting part was a little side gully that looked like a “river” made of pine cones, there were so many of them covering the ground and the trail. 

What's with the little yellow markers?

 We passed Pacifico Mountain Campground, where it looked like somebody was doing a science experiment–there were little upright plastic net squares in different colors sticking up out of the forest floor.  As we hiked on into the afternoon, the views were great, but we were really getting tired, and the topo map showed no flat places to camp in for a long way.  But about 1/4 mile from Mill Creek Summit, we spotted a little flat place!  Even though it was a while till sundown, we stopped for the day and made camp.  For once (with the sun still up) it was warm enough, AND we had enough water that we could actually take “wipe-yourself-off-with-a-wet-bandanna” baths before bed.  Usually when we stop it’s just about dark, and it’s cold, and every drop of water is too precious to waste on “baths”.   Of course, as soon as the sun went down, the mosquitoes came out.  Hooray for the net tent, so we can sleep in peace!  And it is a blessing to have plenty of water, both the kind you get from a spring, AND the “water of life” that Jesus gives.