Category: Trail Journal
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Day 33: A KOA Never Looked So Good
If it sometimes seems like our journey alternates between desire for the open trail and desire for creature comforts, well, that’s about how it feels to us, too. So far, it’s been a good rhythm: just about the time we start to get really smelly and gross after hiking for several days, we end up…
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Day 32: Running the Poodle-Dog Gauntlet
This trail changes so fast, it’s unbelievable. Yesterday afternoon, we were freezing our butts off, wading through slush and snow as it was 33° outside. This afternoon, we were sweating in the hot sun, trying desperately not to touch any of the poodle-dog bush that was absolutely everywhere on the trail. Last time I mentioned…
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Day 31: So Beautiful
We’d only been asleep for twenty minutes when the storm started. The sound of snow landing on our tarp was new to us, yet we both knew that’s exactly what it was. The wind howled, the tarp bucked, and the snow kept coming…for hours. We were warm in our sleeping bags, yet couldn’t fall asleep,…
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Day 30: Right Inside the Clouds (And Freezing Our Butts Off)
Yesterday, we got to look down on oceans of clouds from high above. Today, we were inside oceans of clouds. And you know what those oceans of clouds are? Cold. We’re in Southern California in May — in Los Angeles County, even! — and we, and all of our fellow hikers, were freezing all day…
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Day 29: High Above the Clouds
Most people only get to see what we saw today from inside an airplane — and airplanes are a whole lot less pleasant than where we were. Once our road walk back to the PCT was done this morning, we spent the entire rest of the day hiking on high ridgetops above the clouds, looking…
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Day 28: A Zero to Reunite
Everyone’s back together again! After bouncing back and forth with a number of people we truly love over the past couple of weeks, Wrightwood turned out to be the place we all got back together again. We took a zero here today, spending two nights here (last night and tonight) — and, as a result,…
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Day 27: Poodle-Dog Bush and Road Walks
Believe it or not, “Poodle-Dog Bush” is a real thing. And it’s horrible. A large bush that thrives after wildfires (of which California has been known to have just a few), it’s something like a super-duper version of poison oak: if you even brush against it a little bit, you get blisters considerably worse than…
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Day 26: Perfect Moments
Sometimes, all it takes is a single moment to make you remember a day for a very, very long time. Today’s was what you see above — except that, trust me, the pictures don’t even come close to doing it justice. You’re standing on top of a mountain nearly as high as the ones in…
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Day 25: Hot Springs!
It’s not all bad, you know, hiking this trail. For example, we get to see beautiful things, take glorious showers…and, today, sit in natural hot springs in the middle of the desert. It was awesome. What? So, it turns out that the Pacific Crest Trail runs directly through the middle of
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Day 24: Elements of the Desert: Fire, Water, Dust, and Gnats
We hiked twenty-two miles today, through desert mountains that were different than anything we’d hiked through before, and beautiful in their differentness. I know I wrote before about how the terrain always changes out here, but today really demonstrated it: we walked through
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Day 23: Donuts and an Easy Day
We had the best of intentions, really — plans to wake up early enough to catch the 5:36 AM bus across town to get breakfast, then hit the trail. But you know what?
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Day 22: Zero Miles Was Never So Tiring
Most of our learning happens along the trail, but, today, we learned quite a bit about what it’s like to be in town. Big Bear is the first (of four or so) stops along the trail where we decided to buy food to resupply, instead of picking up a box that had been mailed to…
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Day 21: On the Next Episode
(Cue up your very best Jeremy Clarkson impression) Today, on The Pacific Crest Trail: Clare sees a lion; Andrew drinks a cola; They both sit on a couch Yes, all of the above really happened today. Plus: we went farther than ever before, and did our first “twenty” — 21.5 miles, to be exact! It…
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Day 20: Trail Names!
Rally. Treeman. Squatch. Hedgehog. Dude. Etch-A-Sketch. You’ve heard me referring to people with these names…but, no, the PCT isn’t completely overrun with hippies. When you’re hiking any of the big tree long trails (Appalachian, Continental Divide, Pacific Crest), people end up taking on trail names — nicknames based on their character, appearance, experiences, or anything…
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Day 19: Sunshine and Desert Canyons
Oh, what a joy it was to look outside our door this morning and see blue skies! After getting rained out all day yesterday, the sun looked so, so good. When we returned to Ziggy and the Bear’s place, it was completely unrecognizable from just twelve hours before: sunshine everywhere, the carpets were all drying,…
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Day 18: Rained Out!
Normally, you don’t stop hiking just because it rains. But, then, normally, rain doesn’t happen quite like this. The weather forecast last night said we’d get “light showers” from about 3 to 4 PM today. OK, no big deal — we got hailed on two days ago, so this is going to be a piece…
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Day 17: Descent to the Desert
Our descent down Fuller Ridge was both brutal and incredible. Brutal because we spent eighteen miles going down the side of a mountain; incredible because the views you get from a trip like that are just spectacular. We woke up this morning at 8,800′ with 31° chill in our tent and ice in our water;…
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Day 16: Snow!
Did you know there were 10,000-foot mountains two hours east of Los Angeles? Me neither, but I certainly won’t forget again. We got snowed on today! And hailed on! Isn’t this supposed to be the desert? We’re camped at almost 9,000 feet tonight, and it was 31° at 7:00 PM. This is the slope of
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Day 15: Good Food, Great Friends, and Fires
No, I don’t mean wildfires, either — I mean the kind you start in your fireplace, in your hotel room, at night. Because you can, and because falling asleep in a real bed in front of a crackling fire in a warm room (and with indoor plumbing!) is wonderful. Today was our first
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Day 14: It’s Finally Cold! (Just in Time For Us to Be Indoors)
Our hike this morning was the strangest yet for this trip: it was cold! It’s the first morning yet that I actually wanted to leave my hoody on for a while after I started hiking, and, even hiking up hills with a big pack, there were times I was a little too chilly. It was…