Day 6: Mile 59.5 - 77.3

Another day where I pushed it, ostensibly to get water: from Pioneer Mail (the last place to reliably get water) to Scissor's Crossing (where I'm effectively at) is about 24 miles, all dry. So when I left Pioneer yesterday, I was carrying 5 days worth of food and 5.5 L of water: that made for a pretty heavy pack! Now I'm at Scissor's Crossing, or actually, I'm at Stagecoach RV Park about 4 miles down the road from Scissor's Crossing, and there's water. But at two days of long miles, I'm finally starting to pay: my left ankle is starting to act up, the tendons across the top of the foot complaining enough that it slowed down my stride. Tomorrow should be a shorter day--maybe 14 miles?--so I'm hoping I'll be able to recover some tonight, and then baby it a bit tomorrow.

I had come to Stagecoach to get out of the wind: the day was beautiful up until the end, when the wind in the desert just picked up tremendously. I looked for a campsite around Scissor's Crossing out of the wind, but it's flat there and the only available spots seemed to be under the bridge. But there are possible stormclouds above. So here I'm at Stagecoach, where at least I won't get drowned out if it rains (I think), but the wind is still crazy out there. I don't think the tent will blow away, but fingers crossed!

The day started out so beautiful too. I woke early, around 4am, and decided to get going since I had spent the last day paralleling the "Sunrise Highway" so I figured it would be good to see a sunrise. And it was! Climbing out of my campsite, back to the PCT, suddenly fog started rolling in from the west, so that when the sunrise broke out east, it did so as fog from behind me barreled in. Just looking out over the landscape, as the sun rose out over the rows and rows of blue mountains out east, the orange light of the sun kissing the tiny white flowers of the bushes around me, as white fog streamed in, it was a spectacular sight! Hiking along, even as the wind howled around me, driving the fog to its inexorable doom in the desert, I laughed out loud and realized there really was no place I'd rather be.

From there, the trail continues, now descending down into a canyon or two, before finally coming out on the northern rim of the mountains, overlooking the desert valley below. Here the trail becomes a shelf trail, winding back and forth amongst the big boulders and sparse scrubland, until it finally drops to the valley floor and crosses over to Highway 78 and Scissor's Crossing (which is where the trail crosses the highway). And for most of that I was doing well: keeping a good pace, barreling along. Until I reached the valley floor, and suddenly my left ankle started acting up. It felt like maybe the tendon across the top of my ankle was flaring, and it started affecting my stride.

This was, I must say, incredibly discouraging. I'm not good at the camping part of the PCT, but the hiking part, that has been my strength. To now feel that starting to slip away, something I had taken secret pride in up to this point, was quite a blow. By the time I reached Scissor's Crossing, the ankle was hurting, and it was near to injury-pain rather than recoverable-pain.

At Scissor's, there was the additional debacle of trying to find a place to stay for the night. I wanted to get out of the wind, which was howling down the valley, and out of the cold, incurred by a looming cloud front above. So first I hitched a ride to Julian, only to find the first hotel booked. I tried the second: also booked. But the receptionist said try these other places, so I called: also booked. The entire town was booked! Resigned, I decided to head back down to the trail and possibly check out Stagecoach RV park. How do I get a ride? The receptionist had a bunch of numbers: I tried the first, no answer. Second, no answer. Third, no answer. At this point, one of the hotel patrons took pity on me and offered me a ride down in her own car. Which I gladly took. She was in town with her sisters, celebrating their mom's birthday (I think it was), but she was an avid hiker, had done lots with her boys in scouts, so was willing to help out a fellow hiker, even if he was a perfect stranger. So I got my ride out to Stagecoach courtesy of Tara, where their cabins were full but the tentsite was open. And so here I am! 

It's been a long day, and one which started out elated, but ended with pain and failure after failure. The entire time hitching rides and wandering in Julian, I felt completely out of my element, almost as if I was having an out-of-body experience the whole time. Maybe it's the inexperience, but it was a pretty rough time, only to end up in a tent, still in the wind. A disheartening end to such a promising start.

Previous   Next

Some notes:

-- In the morning, coming out of my makeshift campsite, I headed up the pasture-creek, knowing that it was bounded by a trail on two sides, and the highway on the third. Bumped into the highway, and saw 3 headlamps coming towards me in the fog. These would turn out to be Laurie "Halfpint", Masako, and Doug. They're a group from Bellingham, WA. Halfpint was out front, and in the beginning I tried to keep up with her but she was *fast*: I think to keep pace, I'd've had to jog down the trail! And she was quite talkative: I would have talked more, but it was too tough to keep the pace! Masako and Doug, on the other hand, were more my speed, and we would leapfrog each other throughout the day. They're a couple, Doug retired, Masako thinking about it, and all three are being supported by Randy "Arrow", Halfpint's partner who is driving around and helping them resupply, even with his recent knee surgery. They were a fun bunch to be around: Doug's been dreaming of this for years, and he's still amazed to be out here. And Masako, like me, is just breathless for all the beauty out here.

-- I also met Jim, an older gentleman, who came up as I was taking down my tripod. Taking video?, he asked. No, just taking stills, I said. We got to talking: turns out Jim is videoing his PCT experience and putting it on YouTube, as "Haole Hiker on the PCT". He captured some video of myself (name, where you're from, etc) and also of Halfpint as she came up. Might be worth checking out? 

-- Finally, today I met Ghost, one of the trail angels around here. He was helping Randy, had driven up a dirt road to deliver water to folks before the final 10-mile push down to Scissor's Crossing. Big beard, very knowledgeable. Would have hiked the PCT himself, he said, but for his knees. Talking with him, I get the impression that he's a bit of a legend around here; I don't have any proof of this, but for some reason it feels like this is the case...