Category: Pacific Crest Trail

Date: May 12-14, 2017
Miles: 444.31 – 454.50 on May 12, then for two days, only the miles necessary to go back and forth from Hiker Heaven to the local Mexican restaurant

Some Background:  Back in Swarthout Canyon, I had temporarily said ‘adios, eh’ to the Canadians and headed in to Wrightwood to resupply. They had picked up resupply boxes at the Best Western in Cajon Pass and didn’t need to come with me.  I also left Paul, Roi and Matthew, who had decided to stay behind in a hotel room in order to wait out the weather (they were nice enough to send pictures from the hot tub while I was out hiking in the snow), so I was on my own until we all met up again here at Hiker Heaven in Agua Dulce. I was really happy to see them all again…this hike just isn’t as fun without them.  

Back to the present: I’m going to summarize the last few days so that this post doesn’t drag on forever, but it will probably still be long.  From Acton, we hiked through the Vasquez Rocks. Allen has been talking about this for days because he’s a Star Trek fan and has been dying to recreate the Captain Kirk/Gorn fight scene on location. I’ve now seen the YouTube clip 14 times. It’s the worst fight scene ever. Watch it. 

The rocks were a mesmerizing change of scenery.  All of the hikers slowed down to a regular walk through the rocks to take it all in. 

Right after the rocks, we entered Agua Dulce and immediately stopped at the Sweetwater Bar & Grill to eat and then resupplied at the local grocery store before a trail angel named Sugar Mama gave us a ride to Hiker Heaven. 

Of all the places I’ve stayed so far, Hiker Heaven is my favorite. The Saufleys have trail angeling down to a science…volunteers are there from about 6 in the morning until after dark, they have a tent with computers and a charging station, bath towels and loaner clothes, rides to REI, sign-ups for the shower, and they do your laundry for you. I’ve never looked more ridiculous in borrowed clothing, but my gross hiking clothes looked practically brand new when they were done with them so I have zero complaints. 

We did our best to boost the Agua Dulce economy while we were there by eating at the Mexican restaurant three times, including at their all-you-can-eat Mother’s Day brunch. We all wondered if we could get away with filling our water bladders with horchata. 

A retired Sheriff picked us up in his Gator once to give us a ride there. I asked him if it was legal to cram seven people in a gator and drive them around the city streets, to which he replied, ‘well no, but who’s going to stop me?’  We waved at the current Sheriff as we drove past his house. Lovely people live in Agua Dulce. 

The rest of the time at Hiker Heaven was spent socializing, being clean, wandering around with the chickens and getting some puppy love. Sugar Mama made a red velvet cake so we could celebrate Roi’s birthday and it was so delicious.  All in all it was a great break.

Date: May 11, 2017
Miles: 436.1 – 444.31

My ankles refused to cooperate this morning and the bottoms of my feet felt like they went a few rounds with Mike Tyson.  I sort of half rolled out of my tent until I could get into a standing position, and then did the ‘hiker hobble’ around the campsite while I was getting packed up. Once I hit the trail, though, my feet warmed up and I could walk normally again.  Phew!

Today was a short hike in to Acton, where I planned to relax for the afternoon and then stay the night at the KOA campground. 

 The first order of business was laundry, since the last time my clothes had seen soap was the Wrightwood whirlpool incident and my socks were starting to smell like wet dogs. Next up was a gloriously long and hot shower, and then I hung out by the pool, drinking pop and eating ice cream sandwiches and family size bags of potato chips while I chatted with other hikers and caught up on some blog posts. It was wonderful. 

Later that evening, a bunch of us ordered pizza and watched Armageddon (I never get tired of Bruce Willis) until it got close to hiker midnight (9 pm), by which time everyone had conked out. It’s actually amazing how quiet a camp of hikers will get by that time each night. Some of the ‘regular’ campers were overheard worrying about us wild and crazy hikers staying up and partying until all hours. We laughed at the notion of any of us being able to keep our eyes open after sunset.  I don’t think any of us did.  

Date: May 10, 2017
Miles: 406.7 – 436.1

“Oh look, more nature.” ~ Allen

I have to be honest, not much happened today except a lot of walking. A LOT. Almost thirty miles of walking. Which is not that hard to do if you don’t really take any breaks and you eat snacks and drink water while you are walking and you don’t take many pictures and you don’t stop until it’s getting dark and you’re a little masochistic.

The other thing that happened today was that I learned that brownie powder and a little water mixed together in a ziplock bag tastes awesome.

So, all day we hiked from the Sulphur Springs campground to the North Fork Ranger Station, trying to avoid the noxious poison oak and poodle dog bush along the way.  There was quite a bit of both in this stretch and they hid sometimes in the middle of innocuous plants on the edges of the trail so I kept a wary eye downward all day.

At times, the trail was so overgrown that I just had to plow ahead and hope that there was nothing in there that could bite, sting or burn me. I survived.

We arrived at the ranger station with a little bit of daylight left – enough to see the giant transmission line towers extending over the campsites, looking like alien sentinels in the fog that was rolling in. Even if we wouldn’t have been able to see them, the loud hissing and crackling of the electricity running through them would have given them away.  I set up my tent, cleaned myself up a bit and fell asleep pretty fast despite the noise. Up to today, i hadn’t been sleeping very well at night…I guess the thirty miles did me in.

Date: May 9, 2017
Miles: 379.5 – 406.7

“I’m pretty sure that after this mile, there’s going to be more miles.” ~ Strongback

I guess it had to happen sometime…I turned 40 today.  Or as I’m preferring to look at it, it was the first of many anniversaries of my 39th birthday.  I hadn’t planned for it, but it happened that I reached the 400 mile mark today shortly after 4 pm, which felt special.  I’m not really into signs, but that could have been one. Of what, I don’t know.  At the very least, the auspiciousness seemed to  soften the blow of entering another decade of life.  That, and the cosmic brownie that Allen gave me. 

Going back to the beginning of the day, we continued on from our campsite through the Angeles National Forest. We had to take a detour around a portion of the trail that is closed in order to protect an endangered frog and it meant about four miles of road walking which was hard on my feet and hips after being on softer surfaces. Hurry up and get it on, frogs!

The signs in the campgrounds that we passed warned that we were now in bear country, which I was super excited about. If I could have spotted a bear on my birthday it would have been complete, but alas…no bears. I think it’s too cold yet. At least it would be for me if I was a bear. 

We entered the Pleasant View Wilderness section of the forest and eventually reached the Sulphur Springs campground where we set up for the night. It was a busy place, with about 20 other campers already having arrived. A couple guys from the LA area were just out camping for a few days, and they chatted with us for a while and offered us the rest of their strawberries. My brain has not yet fallen for my attempts to trick it into thinking that Gummy fruit snacks are actually fruit, so the fresh strawberries were a very satisfying treat. 

It was another great night for cowboy camping, with a really bright moon and lots of stars. I fell asleep content and hopeful that my food was safe from any bears hoping for a midnight snack. 

Date: May 8, 2017
Miles: 369.3 – 379.5

The owner of the Inn made us all a lovely breakfast of eggs, fruit, cereal and toasted bagels this morning, and after a second breakfast of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, Allen and I got a ride in to town.  I ran a couple errands, got a big sandwich and then we hitched a ride back to the trail.  Since it was already well into the afternoon, we only had enough time to summit Baden Powell (in the sun!  Yay!) and set up camp a few miles up the trail.  It was my first night sleeping on snow and I was surprised to feel the cold seeping up through my inflated sleeping pad, but the view of the sunset on the icy landscape was so quiet and peaceful that I didn’t mind. 

Date: May 7, 2017
Miles: 347.2 – 369.3

*Fair warning to the young and/or sensitive – there’s a bit of explicit language in this post. In my defense, the weather made me do it.*

My thinking this morning was that I would hang out in my tent for a couple hours and wait for the rain and wind to stop.  My first realization thereafter was that I hate hanging around in a tent.  It’s boring. My second realization was that the wind and rain was not going to stop.  The third was that I was going to have to hike through the crappy weather for about 20 miles in a skirt because my shorts were soaked and I didn’t plan on needing rain pants until Washington.  Awesome.

So I got dressed, stuffed my soaking wet tent and everything else into my pack and marched up into the hills toward Wrightwood in the hopes that fast walking would get the blood flowing to my fingers and toes again.  

Within a few minutes, the overgrown brush had soaked everything from my waist down and I just kept muttering at the plants, ‘Are you fucking serious??’ – because that was surely going to help.  A mile or so later, I came around a bend in time to hear someone yell, ‘Fuck this shit!!’ into the wind. That’s when I met Sugar Tits (Josh), and we decided that hiking in misery together sounded better than hiking in misery alone. 

We hiked from the canyon at 3500 feet up to about 8000 feet through rain, sleet, sun and snow. Our breaks were just long enough to put food in our faces. 

By the time we got to Wrightwood, a snowstorm had started.  The locals we talked to said they had never seen this kind of weather in May before. Lucky us! 

The first thing I did in town was find a hot cup of coffee, and then I reserved a room at The Rhinestone Rose Inn where Josh and his friends Emily and Urs were staying – in the Romance and Roses room, no less!

The Inn didn’t have laundry services so I soaked my clothes in the whirlpool tub. I thought the tub jets would move the clothes around like a washing machine, so I hit the button to start them and gallons of water shot straight out of the tub and hit the wall, flooding the room before I was able to stop yelling and find the off button. Awesome. 

I managed to dry out the bathroom, myself and my clothes, so I joined everyone else who was laying around in the huge hotel bathrobes watching a movie until no one could stay awake any longer.  It was a nice warm ending to a long cold day. 

Date: May 6, 2017
Miles: 328.1 – 341.9

“Don’t leave any town without an extra cheeseburger.” ~ Saunter

The weather I didn’t know was coming came in today.  We left Cleghorn under low-lying clouds and stayed under them all morning. 

It was eerie to walk under crackling transmission lines that disappeared into fog. 

And exciting to walk along ridge lines with the wind blowing my hat into the grasses and forcing me to lean into it in order to stay on the trail. 

Around noon, we reached what everyone had been talking about for the past couple days…the practically on-trail McDonald’s in Cajon Pass.  I had a breakfast meal, a Churger (a McChicken smushed in the middle of a McDouble), fries, a strawberry shake, and ordered two breakfast sandwiches to go. 

Rain was predicted to start around 3 pm, so guess what time we ended up leaving McDonald’s?  Some people decided to get hotel rooms in Cajon Pass and wait out the weather, but we figured that, as people from wetter northern climes, we could handle it, right??

We hiked another five miles in the wind and rain with cheeseburger shaped rocks in our stomachs and camped in Swarthout Canyon, hoping for a break in the morning. 

Date: May 5, 2017
Miles: 307.9 – 328.1

Today was an exercise in umbrella futility.  It was hot and muggy, which we found out later was due to some inclement weather moving in to the area, and it made for a tiring day.  I tried to shield myself from the sun while I was hiking with my UV umbrella, but it would either turn inside out at every gust of wind making me look like a walking satellite dish, or the sky would become overcast, rendering it unnecessary. As soon as I put it away, the sun would come back out and the wind would die down. I gave up. 

The trail passed through some less scenic areas, none of which are ever included in promotional materials for the trail or anyone’s photo albums, but are no less a part of the experience.

The destination today was Cleghorn picnic area at Silverwood Lake. It didn’t actually click in my brain that we would be camping at an actual lake until I walked over a ridge and saw the dark blue water stretching out across the vista. It was such a welcome contrast to the dusty brown from moments before.

When we were about three miles from the park, we heard a voice coming from the roadway above us yelling, ‘Beer and tacos up ahead!’  Tacos!  I set a personal land speed record in those last few miles.  When we got to the park, we met Breanna, who had a cooler full of cold beverages and taco fixings on the grill.  Katie took a turn grilling vegetables and we all ate huge, delicious tacos. And ordered pizza.

After the two dinners, Paul found a stretch of sand for us to camp on and we ended the day with hot chocolate and slept under a bright moon.

Date: May 4, 2017
Miles: 298.5 – 307.9

I think the earth moved a few thousand miles closer to the sun today.

I slept in until nearly 6:30 this morning, thinking that it wouldn’t take long to hike the 9 or so miles to the Deep Creek Hot Springs, which is where we planned to spend the whole day. It was true that it didn’t take long to hike, but it also didn’t take long for the sun to come up and start crisping me like a holiday game hen.

The creek theme continued, as it was just too hot to resist crawling into every cold body of water we could find.

It was a relief to get to the hot springs and find a cold pool to swim in as well as pools of varying heated degrees. I blew up my air mattress and floated around on it until I was nice and pruny.

We probably could have racked up some miles today (the McDonald’s right off the trail in upcoming Cajon Pass has been calling our names for DAYS), but we figured that we won’t be back this way again and we don’t want to regret missing out on some of the more memorable parts of the trail. It was worth it.

Date: May 3, 2017
Miles: 279.2 – 298.5

“You know what I love about my life right now, man? All I have to think about is where I’m going to camp and what I’m going to eat. So simple.” ~ Lieutenant Dan

Today’s theme was creeks and spending as much time in them as possible.  We packed up and left camp early so we could get some miles in and still have time for all of the breaks we like to fit in to a day. 

We came to Little Bear Springs Camp which, according to the Guthook phone app, contained a ‘composting privy with an interesting structure,’ but it just looked like a toilet with some walls around it. I used it because it was there and that meant I got to dig one less hole in the forest. 

Some dry and dusty hiking followed, and then we found a shady spot on Holcomb Creek with flat rocks perfect for sitting and the shoes and socks had to come off. 

More dry and dusty hiking happened before we got to the Deep Creek Bridge where we met Splash, a trail angel of sorts who brought a cache of Dr. Pepper and left us with Pringles, Krispy Kreme chocolate donuts, and some of the best homemade chicken soup I’ve ever had. I mixed it with mac n cheese and bacon bits, because why not?

We decided that the beach under the bridge was a great place to end the day, so we got some more creek time in, then set up camp and fell asleep to the growing frog chorus. I hoped that the snake I saw swimming in the river wouldn’t get curious about the lump of sleeping bag lying on the beach close to its home.  If it did, I slept right through it.