Last night, with Bill’s help (part of the system for lighting it was broken and I couldn’t figure out how to make it work) I fired up the BBQ at the Saufleys and made us a great dinner of steak, potatoes and tomatoes.   In 2005, there was a big BBQ every night, with all the hikers participating…I guess times change.   We went to bed early, and it RAINED during the night here, but dusted the local mountains with SNOW.  Oh boy.  No melting in the Sierras under these conditions!  It was a very cold morning, but we looked forward to church, then back on the PCT.   

We went into the big trailer to have breakfast, and managed to finish up every bit of the food we’d bought at Walmart, except for some cream cheese.  I offered it to two young guys who were making pancakes, and they happily accepted!  Donna Saufley herself came by for awhile to hang out with us.  She was all bundled up because of the cold, as were we all!  Buddy the dog was also spending the early morning with us hikers.  He goes from one lap to another, wanting lots of petting! 

When JJ found out we were going to church, he wanted to come, too, and offered us a ride.  Bill-the-music-teacher came, too, and so at 8:30, we all headed to Shepherd of the Hills church in Agua Dulce, the church that’s right on the PCT trail route.  It turned out to be a “satellite” church of a very large “mother” church in LA.  And (why am I not surprised?) the message was pretty much what Bill had shared with JJ a couple of days ago.   I guess God wanted JJ to be SURE.

After church, JJ and Bill-the-music-teacher headed back to tackle hiker laundry, while Bill and I stayed on for the adult Sunday School class, which turned out to be great–a fine discussion of 1 Corinthians 12 by a bunch of folks who really know the Bible and aren’t just talking opinions.  We of course joined right in, and by the end the class said, “Are you sure you guys can’t stay another week?”  But we said, “No, sorry–the trail is calling”, and we headed for the PCT. 

The trail route is a little bit confusing for a short while after it leaves the road, but eventually we figured it out and began to climb up lovely Sierra Pelona Ridge.   We climbed in and out of a couple of canyons, with the wind blowing strong and cold–great hiking weather!  The grass on the hills was green, the wildflowers were great, the trees leafing out.  A look at the higher mountains showed that last night’s snow dusting had disappeared, and eventually we were getting views of Bouquet Canyon Reservoir.  We were SO glad to be back on the trail!

At the end of the day,  we were down into Spunky Canyon, which was also very pretty–lots of oak trees, bushes, grass and a trickling creek–but no flat spots!  Finally we came across a side gully, out of the wind, where there was a campable spot.  The temperature was 48 degrees–brrrr!  I had a suspicion that we were pretty close to the Casa de Luna cache, but the sun was down and there had been so few spots to camp that we didn’t dare continue on to find out.  So we stopped for the night and set up the tarp in case it rained.

Walk to Lórien: Near River Bruinen