Day 14: Mile 151.8 - 164.8

Today begins the climb over San Jacinto. The PCT doesn't go to the peak--that's an extra half-day off trail if you want it--but it does get to 9000+ feet and circling the peak before heading back down into the desert.

The Dream today was to make camp at Apache Spring. Barring that, the Backup Dream was to make camp at Fobes Ranch Trail, about 3 miles earlier.

I didn't make the Backup Dream either. Instead I'm camped about 2 miles before even Fobes Ranch, in a beautiful campsite where there's a separate "Kitchen" (i.e., I cooked down a little slope at this separate little overlook that gave a beautiful view of Lake Hemet and the setting sun), separate "Bathroom" (i.e., a little slope in the other direction), and where the Wind has been quiet so far. Only problem is the soil is a bit soft: put some rocks over my spikes just in case.

But beautiful campsite notwithstanding, not making my measly 15-mile backup goal for the day at Fobes, but instead coming up 2 miles short, doesn't feel good. And watching other hikers pass my campsite makes me feel even worse. The nagging niggling thoughts start to resurface: are you sure you can do this? Maybe you're too physically weak. I stopped because my feet started to feel it again: pain is always there, that's just hiking, but where it persists a bit too long before rotating to the next spot, or when it's a bit more intense than usual, that's when I stop. Logically I know my slower pace today is likely a combination of the elevation gain on the day (about 4000 feet), the absolute elevation (just shy of 7000 feet), the heavier pack (6 days of food), and getting back into it after a day off. But still, I feel like a wuss when the other hikers continue on past me, doing what I could not, getting to where I wanted to go, but couldn't push to get.

But I know my rules: no pushing it (that got me hurt last time), and no fighting the trail (the trail *always* wins).

In the morning, I got my last shower, got my last warm breakfast at the Red Kettle with Randy "Arrow", then got a hitch from Randy out to the trailhead. I was feeling good in the morning: the conversation with Randy was good, even got some good solid guffaws out of him with some of my dumb stories, which is a Good Thing. I'm very grateful to Randy both for the conversation, and for the ride: the former is just plain fun, and the latter provides a certainty (compared to a stick-your-thumb-out hitch) that just is so incredibly nice for a thru-hiker. In a world of so many unknown challenges--the trail, all the chores in town, gosh just making sure you didn't forget anything in the hotel!--assuaging just that one concern--getting back to the trail--is just such a Big Thing.

As for the trail itself, this morning, standing in the parking lot at the trailhead by Randy's car, I looked out to the grassy expanse ahead and felt almost home in a way. Yeah, this world, this world is the world I want to be in, this world is the world so rich in its own reality that I can walk and wander forever and a day, and never fully have explored it. This world is where I'm supposed to be. And so, pack on, I walked back to the Highway and got back onto the PCT. (The PCT is that way, Randy had said, pointing north as I headed south to the Highway. Yeah, but I want to start exactly where I'd left it, I said, it's an engineer OCD thing. Yeah, I did the same, he said with a laugh.)

The trail started out walking along the desert foothills, a desert of the big-boulders and solid-grit-dirt variety. After a bit it started climbing up to a ridge; at the top of the ridge, we breaked to get water down in Tunnel Spring. From there, the trail continued up, climbing more in earnest, and passing through sometimes woods, sometimes manzanita groves, sometimes alongside rock fields. Towards the end of the day, the first snow appeared--nothing serious, just stubborn slushes clinging to the bases of trees--and the pine trees too. And here, up around, say, 6000 feet, the views started becoming spectacular. To the east, the desert, with its mogul hills below eventually giving way to flat land now populated with Palm Springs and Coachella and, even farther down, the green squares of fields spreading out from the Salton Sea. To the west, a different world, green though dark green, with golden valleys and bouldered hills interspersed, and Lake Hemet shining in the distance. It's really beautiful out here, and for the second time I found myself thinking, man, Ismael, you gotta get out here!

Finally, if there was a theme to the day it was lizards: lizards lizards everywhere on this section. These were smarter: they scramble away *perpedicular* to the trail rather than along it. Not that they all scatter: at a break, one lizard challenged me, eyeing me suspiciously, then doing push-ups to exert his dominance. And I, well, I conceded the point--I mean, I can't do that many push-ups, even without the pack!--and went along my way. At another junction, there were all these little flying insects--they reminded me of when ants nests release winged queens--and a lizard had perched on a rock, and was just opening his mouth and food was flying into it. I watched him for a bit, chomping away at this smorgasboard, until he became so full that in the end the flying insects would be bumping into him--food was hitting him in the face!--but he wouldn't care, but would just sit there, looking out over the deserts below. And digesting, I'd imagine!

And that was the hike. Again, a short day mileage-wise, and one where I feel both like I belong--the trail is home, in a real way--and out-of-place: the low mileage, the tougher going than usual, and the fact that I'm meeting all new people (see below) rather than the ones I've come to know. Just unexpectedly tough. But I'll sleep and we'll see how it is tomorrow.

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Some notes:

-- Idyllwild > Paradise Valley Cafe > Tunnel Spring > Cedar Spring Junction > Makeshift campsite

-- Today I met Flamingo, who actually hands out little plastic Flamingos on the trail. Met him at the start of the day, picking up the PCT at the Highway. Flamingo's an artist, works in acrylic, and the story is that he did a painting of Medusa with Flamingos instead of Snakes and had planned to frame it in plastic flamingos, but then felt the painting stood well enough on its own. But then what to do with 200+ little plastic flamingos? Well, hand them out to your 200+ closest friends on the AT! And continue that tradition on the PCT! Evidently it went even farther on the AT--he carried a large flamingo too, which he would set up outside his tent--but that was too cumbersome so he dropped it for the PCT. As he had done the AT, and was doing the PCT, I asked him the natural question and, yes, he does intend to do the CDT. He's essentiallytaking a break from art, got a bit burned out in art school producing art all the time, so sees these hikes as a way to step back, recuperate, maybe recharge. And it gets plenty of stories! Flamingo's a talkative guy, plenty of topics from books (he carries a paperback with him) to movies to random AT stories. And he's fast too: I kept up with him for the first hour or so, but then took a break and let him take off.

-- Today I met Jay, who's ex-Air Force where, among other things, he trained the K-9 units. Jay retired this year on April 1st (and, yes, he explicitly chose that day), and started the PCT not three weeks later (21 April I think) (man, I was with the 18ers, now I'm with the 21ers!). His wife is also military, so his family is ok with him taking the time away, just his sons made him promise to post videos so that's what he does when he's not hiking. Jay's also a talkative guy and his stories hint at a pretty interesting 20+ years in the military. He saw me taking photos--I was trying to capture the bees drinking atop the algae at Tunnel Spring--and asked if I was going to collect them as some sort of creative endeavour. Like another hiker, who was taking pictures of hikers mostly, and was going to collect them into a hardcover book. No, I said, no such aspiriations, the photos are mainly so I don't spend all my time looking down at the trail. And honestly, I haven't found the time to edit any of them on trail, so haven't published any either. Eh, oh well, there are only so many hours in the day, and most of the extra I spend here, in words.

-- Today I met Hungarian Paco, who's done the Camino multiple times, but says this is not the same as that. I met him at Tunnel Spring, as he was slowly coming up the steep slope with water. Hungarian Paco's a funny guy, constantly complaining about how tough it is, how much suffering there is, he seems very negative at the outset. But then I met him again, farther on down the trail, where he was tired and resting by leaning on a boulder. Look how incredible it is over there, I said, gesturing ahead to some boulder-peaks, and look how incredible it is over there, I said, gesturing east to the deserts below. I'm only thinking of ice cream, he said. Well, there's a shop in Idyllwild that sells homemade ice cream, I told him, you should stop by there. That seemed to cheer him up some, and as I left, he called out to my back, yes, the view ahead is very beautiful. See, positivity! (I wonder if it's possible to grind through the entire PCT being truly negative; I know I can't, but maybe there are people who can. Or is it that we all have that little positive spark, even though we may hide it under layers and shades and curtains of grumbling and complaining, that little spark that kept so many warm?)

-- And the rest of this group: Jessica (who also has an Instinct Solar and also appears to be vlogging), Bear Mauler (or Wrestler or Wrangler or something about physically defeating a bear, I can't remember), Gee (who's bloody fast), and two ladies who's names I never got. A whole other group of folks that seem to have history together while me, well, I'm just passing through.