150 miles + on the PCT completed! Lot’s of snakes and lizards, new friends from Sweden, Canada, Germany, France, Hong Kong, Czechoslovakia, along with a variety of different states, and 11 incredible, jaw dropping sunsets. Reflecting on the community among the PCT hikers and on the quiet moments of beauty makes me feel lucky.
We are doing well! By we, I mean me and and a good friend from Western Washington University, Austin Abendroth who I am hiking with. Besides a few manageable blisters, some aches and pains, and an embarrassing fall out of a Wal-mart hammock, our bodies have been able with our desire to experience the PCT at 15 miles a day.
There’s way too much to drop into just a few paragraphs. In this Blog I’ll focus on stories about the incredible people we meet, aspects of the trail life, the gear we use, and particularly treacherous weather on stretches of the trail. My goal with blogging is two fold: 1. I want to develop my writing style and voice as a writer, and 2. I don’t want to forget a second of the trail. I will try to blog in the evenings and post entries about once a week as we pass through the small, one road, towns that line the trail.
The first story I will tell you is about a house appraiser named Jeff. Jeff lives in a small town named Julian which is a twelve mile hitchhike from a place thru hikers call Scissors Crossing. We camped about six miles south of Scissors Crossing, woke at 5:30 am, and were hiking by 7:00 am as the sun began to rise over the Granite Mountain and the surrounding hills.
Julian is well known on the trail for its hospitality towards hikers and for the promise of free pie at small restaurant name Mom’s. Excited by the prospect of free pie and our first official PCT hitchhike, we quickly found ourselves thumbs out walking along side Highway S2 at mile 77 of the trail. Before we even crossed onto the right side of the road, a pickup slowed and rolled its window down to offer us a ride. Jeff helped us load our packs into the bed of the truck and we jumped in.
As we drove towards Julian, waiting for a rock slide to clear, we talked about the people of San Diego county, the shortage of water, where we were from, and how the 2008 housing crash affected Jeff’s job as a real estate appraiser.
We arrived in Julian to large “PCT Hikers Welcome” banners over candy shops, cafes, grocery stores, and more. As we got out of the truck, Jeff asked us if we would like to stay the night with his family at their campground resort and gave us his business card.
Our delicious free pies, free hugs, and free foot bathes more than hit the spot. Over a dozen hiker congregated at Carmen’s Garden to wash clothes and stay the night for free on the floor, but not us. We met Jeff again, picked his kids up from school along with Corona and pizza, and headed toward the campground.
This “campground” turned out to be an all inclusive resort where Jeff parked his trailer a couple weeks a time. While our hiker friends slept toe to toe on the floor of Carmen’s cafe, we soaked our aches and pains in the resort’s hot tub, swam in the indoor pool, and used the campgrounds laundromat. We talked with Jeff’s daughter about overtaking her smartest classmates in Math class and his son about his favorite video game. They even offered us kale from the school garden to put on our pizza. So tasty!
Jeff frequently picks up two hikers on his way into town and offers his place for them to sleep. He explained that though he can’t afford to take his kids all around the world, he can bring the world to them two hikers at a time.
We laid out our sleeping pads on a large carpet, underneath the awning of his camper. In the morning we said goodbye to Jeff’s kids with a photo and dropped them at their respective schools. While Jeff’s son was too busy playing tablet video games to notice our departure, his daughter eagerly said goodbye, aware of the fantastic interaction she had just had with international adventurers. On the way out of town, Jeff picked up two other hikers and eventually dropped us back onto the trail at mile 87 the next morning.From there, began our 17 miles and 2000+ feet of elevation gain for the day.
So far, the trail has proven to be challenging both physically and mentally, but entirely worth the trouble. Tonight we hike on towards mile 200 and our first encounter with Californian snow.
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