I was up at the crack of dawn–5:30 am–because the”breakfast crew” had to report for duty at 6:00am today.  We gave all the hikers another feast! I also finally snagged both the other Montys for a picture, and am now the proud owner of a pin (I put it on my hat) that says, “I am a friend of WS Monty  I also got a picture of a totally cute little “future thruhiker”!  Bill and I spent quite a while helping to fold up and stack all the tables used for mealtimes, before returning to camp to  pack up, put on our “town shirts” and walk a mile to church.

We’d spotted the church while in town yesterday, and it was wonderful to be able to go there before starting the “last leg” of 2,630 miles to Canada!  The church people were very sweet — they love to pray, and all gathered around to pray for us! We were very blessed. The church folks had a potluck after, but we had miles to do, and we have eaten so much at ADZPCTKO that we actually weren’t that hungry, so we declined their friendly offer.  Since we are trying to slow down (gotta give the Sierra snow time to melt!) we took our time walking back to the campground, where we changed back into trail clothes, messed around  bit, and then prayed for God’s blessing and help on our walk to Canada, and that we would honor Him always.  And oh, joy!  A look at the Laguna Mountains up ahead showed all the snow was GONE!   So off we went, a bit after 1 pm, with the feeling that at last our journey had truly begun.

The PCT winds and turns, slowly climbing above Lake Morena, with more gorgeous views around every bend.   Despite our carefully slower pace, we kept passing people, including a whole Scout troop.  We met one tired southbounder who asked, “How many more minutes to Lake Morena?”  When we told him “About 40” he sighed deeply and trudged on.

Note from Alexa: I’ve seen their ‘slower’ pace. I think they’d outdistance Luke Skywalker on his speeder.

When we reached Cottonwood Creek, we were amazed to find that it was a simple matter of walking across on a 4 x 4.  The second crossing of the Creek was a little trickier, but nothing like in 2005, when we had no choice but to ford it.  We reached Boulder Oaks campground, which was closed due to Arroyo Toad breeding season, but we got a good chuckle because every single picnic table that had any shade was occupied by a tired PCT thruhiker lying on top of it!  We were due for a snack, so we sat down under a big shady oak and had fun playing with a little camera holder that you can attach to the end of your trek pole and take a “self portrait”.  It worked! 

After crossing under Interstate 78, we began the 3,000 foot climb into the Laguna Mountains, on a warm but breezy afternoon.  I got a picture of a very cute horny toad!  As we climbed higher and higher, we got into the awesome canyons and rocks of the Lagunas.  Still trying to “take it easy and let the Sierras melt”, we THOUGHT we were walking at a leisurely pace, but we still kept passing other thruhikers, including a mom and her teenage daughter.  And surprise! At the road to Mt. Laguna, there was “Mad” Monty, sitting in the shade.  He asked if we’d seen the mom & daughter and we said yes–about a half hour ago.  Monty kept on munching his snack bar and told us he was hiking with them to help them.  “I thought we’d make Cibbetts by tonight,” he said (it’s 13 miles from Lake Morena), “but it’s looking iffy.”  He shook his head and we left him still patiently waiting.  Bummer!  If Monty were hiking by himself, he would have easily reached Mt. Laguna by now.

The sun was getting lower, which meant (hooray!) that we were now hiking in the SHADE along the east side of the Lagunas.  It’s a steady climb, with awesome views, but in 2005 we were doing it in the hot sun, and getting fried, so that wasn’t much fun.  This time, we were really able to enjoy ourselves.  Around 5:30 we stopped to cook dinner (mac & cheese–yum!)  at a huge thruhiker “encampment” at Fred Canyon Creek.  There were tents everywhere, all up and down the creek.  The hikers were amazed that we were not planning to stop for the night. 

While we cooked over our little alcohol stove, we got to watch a bit of thruhiker “melodrama”.  A Brit hiker arrived just after we did, also hungry for dinner.  He built a tiny little cooking fire with twigs in the middle of an established “campfire circle” of rocks near the creek.  He had his pot of water and instant mashed potatoes ready to cook, when another hiker came up with a potful of water, and threw it on the tiny fire, instantly putting it out.  The waterthrowing hiker then launched into a tirade about “Don’t you have a fire permit?  You should know the rules–NO FIRES in the back country!!!”  Then he stalked off.  Everyone was shocked.  A hiker who had been lying in his tent nearby rummaged through his stuff to find his own fire permit, and read it carefully.  “Hey!” he said.  “That guy is wrong!”  Then he read aloud the exact rule, which went something like “Fire must be on mineral soil, and at least 5 feet from any vegetation.”

The poor Brit was very upset and frustrated–and still hungry!  We all told him, “You go ahead and redo your fire!  We will all protect you!  That guy was over-the-top-rude, even for an American!”  So the Brit tried to relight his fire, but alas!  It was too wet.  So another hiker loaned his alcohol stove and some fuel, and he cooked up his mashed potatoes in peace.  Bill and I washed up our pot, shouldered packs, wished everyone the best, and headed on.

We were able to put in another 3 miles before the sun seriously got low.  I was starting to be concerned about finding a campsite on the steep mountainside all covered with chaparral.  Every possible campsite we came to was already occupied by other thruhikers, with no room to spare.  Finally, just at sunset, we found a spot off the trail that was just barely big enough to camp and set up our tarp & gear just before it was dark.   I calculated our mileage and was amazed.  Even though we’d been trying to walk slowly, and got such a late start, we still did 14.7 miles.  It was a cool, quiet night, with minimal mosquitoes.  We read the Bible a little bit before going to sleep–Psalm 24, where it says, “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof, the world and all that dwell therein.”   I am the worrywart type, so I also had to give to God all my concerns about the Sierra snows not melting.  We stayed awake for awhile, just savoring our first REAL night on the PCT!

Walk to Rivendell: First Meeting with Black Rider

When I opened my eyes this morning, we were in ground fog that was bitter cold.  There was ice all over our tarp! Brrrr!  I was on kitchen crew for much of today, starting at 6:30am with cutting bagels, then continuing on with work on scrambled eggs, followed by scraping and scrubbing very dirty egg pans! What a feast we had for breakfast! In the very cold morning, with ice on the tables, we served up all kinds of bagels with cream cheese, jams, peanut butter, and lots of fruit, plus all sorts of scrambled eggs with sausages, etc. I had fun talking to Georgi Heitman, the trail angel from Old Station.  She told me about their SCARY time last fall when a forest fire almost reached their house!

The pot-and-dishwashing side of being on breakfast crew is actually kind of fun!  We had a very jolly crew who joked and scrubbed diligently.  I was running around collecting MORE dirty stuff to wash, and every time I came up with an armful of messy whatevers, the crew would cheer, “Let’s go, guys!  Incoming!”  They were awesome!  I also took on the job of carrying the dirty dishwater off to the toilets to dump it in.  I made lots of trips with those buckets!  Last night after dinner, on one of my “dump the bucket runs”, I noticed a small crowd of hikers standing around near the row of portable toilets.  Thinking nothing of it, I opened one of the doors and went in with my bucket.  Oh my!  Sitting on top of the toilet was a large browncolored SNAKE!  My immediate reaction was that it must be a fake plastic snake that someone put there as a joke–but then it MOVED!  I said, “Hi, Mr. Snake!   OK, OK, I’m outta here!” and quickly backed out.  I heard a muffled “Aw, darn!” from the crowd of hikers.  Turned out that they were hanging about for the fun of watching people freak out when they found the snake, and I hadn’t been much fun to watch! 

Since ADZPCTKO doesn’t provide lunch, Bill and I took a stroll into town and enjoyed sharing a table with a couple of  other hikers. Then we went tearing back to camp just in time for seminars on mountaineering and snow travel, plus snow and water reports. The snow reports are very troubling. It’s continuing to snow up there, instead of melting! I am personally praying that the weather will warm up and clear up to take care of it.  Bill started talking about skipping the Sierras again and heading for Oregon instead, as we did in 2005,  but quickly changed his mind when we heard the report on OR/WA–they had tons of snow up there, too.  In 2005, there was a sort of drought and snow levels were low, so we were able to “skip up” and not hit many snow problems.  Not this year!  Georgi Heitman of Old Station was going around literally begging hikers, “PLEASE don’t even THINK about skipping up to Northern CA to avoid the Sierra snow!  We are up to our eyeballs in snow–it’s BAD!”. So Bill and I resolved we’d just “go for it” and see what happens.  If it gets really tough, we can always bail out. We also learned about TWO major detours up ahead in Southern CA–both due to fires last fall. 

In the afternoon, we also had a great time meeting the Rosanders, who have offered to help us in Tehachapi, plus other people from Sonoma County. We got our 2010 “class picture” at the rocks by the lake. Our 2010 class is the largest one yet! At the gear contest, I entered my lightweight, hands-free umbrella holder and tied for 6th place out of 13 contestants. Not bad! Then I was put in charge of the kitchen dishwash crew for dinner, which was another feast of all sorts of hamburgers and all the fixings, potato salad, cabbage salad, fruit salad and brownies. (By the way, I think brownies should be classified as the Official Dessert of the PCT–everywhere we went along the trail, we found brownies at every trail angel’s house! )

 The first item on the evening program was a slide presentation of the first thru-RIDE of the PCT in 1959 by a husband and wife team. She’s 84 now, sharp as a tack and a wonderful lady!  Eric Ryback, the first “official” PCT thruHIKER was there, too.  We enjoyed the presentation, but both Bill and I were really tired and headed for bed after that.  We didn’t get much sleep last night because our campsite mates stayed up so late talking and making noise.  They were having fun, which was great, but I was up so early this morning that I ended up short on sleep.  So we missed seeing the “premiere” of the new National Geographic film about the PCT.  I am not a National Geographic fan–they so misrepresent things in many fields of science and history that I no longer look at any of their stuff.   Their “PCT film” was typical–it exaggerated and misrepresented what the PCT is really like.  We began to hear shouts from the hikers who were watching the film.  They were yelling “Extreme!  Extreme!” in a mocking way.  (In the morning, I asked some folks what they were yelling about, and they said it was because the film narrator kept using the term “extreme” so often that they got disgusted and started yelling every time he said it again!)

It felt good to lie down and rest after a busy day.  And it was so nice to see sunshine and be warm again!  Tomorrow we will head for Canada!

The rain stopped during the night, and we were up at 4:30am (30 degree temperature) to pack up and walk by headlamp in the darkness.  Turned out we didn’t need the headlamps as we walked through Campo–every building we passed had motion detectors, and lights came on constantly!  But once we were out of town into the sagebrush, it was pretty dark!   We reached the PCT monument as the eastern sky began to lighten. We were disappointed to find there was no longer a way to “touch Mexico” with your foot. A new net and barbed wire fence keeps you well back from the border. As we were standing there looking at this new development, TWO border patrol vehicles came zooming up–one on the “inner corridor” between the fences, and the other from Campo.  They aimed their searchlights at us!  Guess they thought we were illegals?  (Not sure why illegals would be walking TO Mexico??)

Once they saw we were PCT hikers, they just waved and smiled, and I boldly asked the guy who’d come from Campo if he could take our picture.  “Sure!” he said.  “Stand by the monument!”  He carefully aimed his searchlight to “light us up” and took a couple of great pictures. Awesome!   I signed the register, “What is this?  Christmas in April?  There’s FROST all over the monument, the plants and the ground!  I thought we were ‘sposed to see that in Canada!   Oh well, here we go!”

Then we took off on what I like to call “the rock garden hike” to Lake Morena. The trail glittered with mica and fools gold, the wildflowers peeked out from every nook and cranny, and the morning air was cool and breezy. Bunny rabbits were hopping around in the bushes.

We “leapfrogged” several times with another couple, “No Trace” and “Unbreakable”. After last night’s rain, the trail was often muddy (gee, just like the trails we’ve been practicing on back home!)  And oh my–we could see SNOW on the Laguna Mountains up ahead! During the morning, we met one couple who were having a “garage sale” (and it was only the 2nd day of their hike!) because they started hiking yesterday afternoon and got caught in the pouring rain.  Wow, I am glad we were able to camp under that truck trailer last night! 

The trail gorillas have done a great job on the PCT between Campo and Lake Morena–everything was in great shape!  We planned on eating lunch at Hauser Creek, which used to be a favorite PCT hiker gathering place, with soft green grass under lots of shady trees by the creek.  But oh, bummer!  The trees were all dead or dying, and what used to look like a park was full of dead branches.  Nobody was there.  We ate lunch there anyway, but it was sad. 

 We reached ADZPCTKO around 2:30, signed in, and set up camp.  It was a sunny afternoon, but very cold and windy. Setup didn’t take us long, so we were soon socializing, checking out gear, and talking to vendors. More and more hikers kept coming in— this is the biggest ADZ ever!   I had volunteered to help WS Monty in the “kitchen” and ended up being the “beer runner” and pot washer.  The beer runner job was interesting–we had an assembly line of hikers who were making big fat burritos for the dinner, and I kept them well supplied with whatever kind of beer they wanted.  It took 1 1/2 hours to make 750 big burritos! 

At dinner,we met some people from Windsor (a town north of where we live)— the wife is doing the PCT and her husband is providing support. They know all the same trails we do!  We also met “Jack Sparrow”, and lots of other “characters.”  The other thruhikers in our campsite are all very young, and are spending their time at ADZPCTKO drinking lots of beer and hanging out.   We left them to it, and headed off to an interesting seminar on making “one liners” from grocery store items instead of paying the big bucks for freezedried dinners.   

The Friday evening program was short films made by PCT hikers.  The topics were quite varied–everything from trail gorillas to trail angels.  It was a very cold and windy evening–all of us were bundled up to stay warm, but we greeted every film with cheers and enthusiasm.   Back at our campsite, our site-mates built a campfire and stayed up talking till I’m-not-sure-when.  Bill and I just conked.  It has been a fun day!

Walk to Rivendell: On Stock Road in the Shire

We stayed last night in a jewel of a little motel in Los Banos, just off Interstate 5. It was called “Economy Inn” and was obviously a labor of love for the owners. Being a “plant person”, I went nuts over the landscaping of gorgeous succulents. We were on the road by 6:30am, on a very cold, cloudy morning, watching a pink sunrise over very snowy Sierras. The orange orchards were in full bloom— very like driving through perfume. Nearby mountaintops had a light dusting of snow.

We mailed a lot of resupply boxes at Santa Clarita, with very friendly and enthusiastic staff who answered us “Don’t worry! your boxes will make it! We are shipping them with love!” The clouds overhead grew thicker the farther south we went. We had a quick shivery lunch by Camp Pendleton, where we saw Marines in desert camos messing around with tanks on the bluffs above the ocean. We dropped the car off in downtown San Diego and took the trolley, watching carefully for any fellow thruhikers. At last we saw them! A whole group got off the trolley at the same stop we did!

We met Old Goat, an experienced PCT thruhiker, plus others. After that, every trolley that came by dropped off even more hikers, including the famous Billy Goat! A cheer went up from all us PCT alumni, “Billy Goat! Billy Goat!” The poor little rural bus ended up stuffed with hikers and packs. The driver said, “Wow! This time of year I always expect hikers, but you guys are the largest group I’ve ever driven!” We all cheered loudly! But rain was beginning to fall, till by the time we got off at Campo, it was really coming down, and it was so cold you could see your breath. We were the only ones to get off at Campo— everyone else was going to set up camp at Lake Morena, then get rides to the border tomorrow.

We’d been advised to go first to the store, where we got nice hot burritos for supper, and the store owner suggested we go to the Campo history museum, where the caretaker would let us stay in one of the out buildings. The store owner commented about the weather.  “I’ve lived here for 20 years, and I’ve never seen such a cold, miserable April.”  Oh, great! 

At the museum, we couldn’t find the caretaker.  The only guy around was holed up in his very wet little dome tent, and smoking something illegal.  He blearily stuck his head out and told us, “Oh, you can camp anywhere on the property–no worries.”  So we ended up where we are camped tonight very comfortably out of the rain– underneath an old rusty truck trailer. It is a real hobo camp!  Close by to the truck trailer are signs reading, “1875 Hangin’ Tree”  and “Site of famous Campo Shootout.”  No danger of shootouts tonight in the pouring rain and cold!    But the weather report for tomorrow sounds promising— hope it turns out to be right!

This post is not by Monty or Bill, but by me, Alexa, their daughter. I’ll be sending their resupply boxes out, and they will be mailing their journal back which I will then post here on the blog. This means that you’ll probably see a few days of no posts, then suddenly an entire week’s worth! Keep checking back, if there is a lull that only means they are hiking furiously on their way to the next town and will be mailing back a journal.

Photographs
Both Monty & Bill each have cameras and will be taking pictures, but unlike the text journals, the memory cards will only be mailed about once every 3-4 weeks. Initially I’ll be posting the text of the journal, then a few weeks later you’ll suddenly see a bunch of photos in the posts. If you want notification of that, tweet me at @zimrahil and I can tweet you whenever a new photo post is up.

Who’s Talking?
In order to quickly tell who is writing the journal entry:

Monty: Her text will look like this.

Bill: His text will look like this

Alexa: Occasionally I like to add my comments and they will look like this.

Please continue to comment, if I know the answer I’ll be replying, if not I’m sure they will be happy to respond upon returning. I tried to persuade them to bring an iPhone but to no avail.

As a fun added feature, with Monty’s consent, I’ll be putting in the Walk to Rivendell stats. We are both Lord of the Rings fans, and basically someone went through the books and atlas to put together mileage charts for Frodo’s journey to Mt. Doom. As a little joke at the end of each post we’ll put where Bill & Monty would “be” had they started out from Bag End. For more info on that visit the official: Walk to Rivendell web site.