Miles: 231.1 to 256.6 Mileage: 25.5 Day: 13 This morning was the first time on the trail that I felt beaten before lunch. The first few miles followed Mission Creek upstream. It was a seemingly endless slight uphill grade on loose baseball-sized gravel or sand. These are my two least favorite hiking surfaces. By the […]
Miles: 210.8 to 231.2 Mileage: 20.4 Day: 12 Maybe it was the heat, maybe it was the miles, but the hikers slept very quietly overnight at Ziggy and The Bear’s. I woke up a couple of times to shift positions and the rustle of my sleeping bag was all I could hear. Even with Interstate […]
Miles: 187.9 to 210.8 Mileage: 22.9 Day: 11 The wind picked up overnight and from our camp above 8,000 feet; it made a mockery of our tent. Stakes were pulled out of the ground and the temperature dropped. In the morning, there was frost on our sleeping bags. We slept in until 7:30 a.m. Richard […]
Miles: PCT: 1.6; Cedar Springs Trail Junction plus road walk to Idyllwild: 19, minus a 2.5 mile hitch along highway 74. Mileage: 18.1 Day: 9 When the light returned around 5:45, the rain and wind we still working full time and we were still in our sleeping bags dreading the moment when we stepped back […]
Miles: 115 to 140.3 (plus 1 mile to get water) Mileage: 125.3 Day: 7 We camped in a rare forested area next to a flowing stream. Once we started hiking, that didn’t last long. The whole morning was a long, slow climb through boulder-pocked desert scrub. The first few hours were cloudy and cold above […]
Miles: 61.7 to 82 Mileage: 20.3 Day: 4 Body status update: Day one felt great. We made good time and nothing seemed to slow us down; not heat, not liters and liters of water, not five days of food. Day two was painful. Sore feet, hips, shoulders, the beginnings of blisters, etc. My energy […]
Despite feeling nervous and excited, I slept well at Scout and Frodo’s. We set the alarm for 4:45 a.m. By 5:15 we were packed and sitting down to breakfast. Twelve hikers loaded into three vehicles and we all headed out to the trail head just as the sun was rising. We made it to the […]
We’ve made it to San Diego, have been welcomed, feed and bedded by the lovely and talented Scout and Frodo, and are ready to start hiking! Scout and Frodo thru hiked the PCT in 2007 and have been kind enough to host hikers at their home ever since. We are eternally grateful for their generosity. […]