Week 1: Campo to Julian

Leave No Trace

 
I met some really awesome people at Scout and Frodo's: one couple from Washington, another couple from Pennsylvania, and M from Ohio. All of them have thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail, and I hiked with them for the first four days and learned so much from them. We arrived at the Southern Terminus around 7 AM. My original plan was to hike the approx. 21 miles to Lake Morena all in the first day. But my new, and much more experienced, friends were stopping after 9 miles to camp and planned on hiking the remainder to Lake Morena the next day. While this is a conservative approach, it turns out to be very wise. M said as we approach the terminus, "You're not going to make it to Canada today but you can *not* make it to Canada today." Under the influence of the excitement of starting an adventure like this it can be easy to push hard, but many people drop out in the first 100 miles because of avoidable injuries. I am extremely grateful to have met these experienced and kind hikers.

On our way to camp the first day we came across an abandoned bear canister filled with miscellaneous items and a three piece trowel. There was a note left inside saying "Needed to drop weight. Enjoy." However, it would be inaccurate to think that this was an act of goodwill. It was irresponsible and a result of poor planning. It's irresponsible because the PCT runs mostly through the backcountry. Anything left in the backcountry stays in the backcountry unless someone carries it out. In the backcountry abandoned equipment might as well be considered trash. If park rangers or BLM employees find trash or abandoned equipment, then it makes thru-hikers look bad.  One of the principles of Leave No Trace on the PCT is to plan ahead and not leave with more than you can out. As a result M and I had to take on extra weight and carry the gear out. It doesn't make sense to think other hikers need the equipment—every ounce matters when lifting your pack with every step over rocky and step terrain. Fortunately we ran into border patrol officers 4 miles down the trail and they took the abandoned gear.

So, on the first day we stopped around 1:30 PM and camped at a little under 9 miles from the southern terminus. The sun was relentless and there was zero natural shade. Fortunately the couple from Washington set up a small tarp and with our reflective umbrellas we were able to forge a makeshift oasis. We had lots of time to kill, and, to my surprise, a philosophy talk was requested. So we passed the hours before dinner discussing personal identity and the relationship between culture, religion, and ethics. Everyone was asleep by 8 PM and we were hiking by 4:30 AM.

View from camp after the first day of hiking.

The Desert

Desert heat is no joke. I had to carry 6 liters on the first day (over 10 lbs of water). This kind of water carry is common for the first 700 miles of the trail. Of course, growing up mostly in Florida and living in Miami over the past four years, I'm no stranger to heat. Heat indexes in the 100s and high dew points are the norm for much of the year in South Florida. Miami summers can feel miserable and gross. During the worst of it, living in Miami during the summer is like living in a shallow pan of water with a heat lamp hanging over.  When people from drier, hot climates talk about how it is where they hail from a common response from a south Floridian is "Yeah, but it's a dry heat." That's a bullshit response. It's like telling someone they can choose between being tortured by being water boarded or forced into a hypothermia chamber. Dry heat sucks the life out of you, especially if you're not used to it. Heat exhaustion and dehydration are real risks on the trail that must be taken seriously. Two people had to be evacuated from the trail because they did not bring enough water.

In addition to carrying water, it helps to start hiking early rather than later. I've been waking up at 4 AM, hiking until noon, taking the afternoon off and hiking a couple more hours into the evening. Also, a reflective umbrella helps immensely, though I've also almost been Mary Poppinsed right off the trail by some of the high winds on the high ridges. 

Mt. Laguna

What is it that makes you respond when your name is called?

When the wind blows, trees sing.

After about 37 miles on the trail and a elevation gain to over 5000 ft. you start moving into the montane ecozone of the Mt. Laguna area. Suddenly the chaparral and rocks of the desert are replaced with Jefferson pines and old forest growth. The buzzing of desert flies is replaced by the sound of the winds blowing through the pines creating a calm and constant sound. I spent the day in Mt. Laguna gathering supplies. I set up camp, went to bed early, and set out hiking before 5 AM. The Mt. Laguna area provides only a short respite from the desert, so I immediately began hiking along the ridge bordering the desert of the Cuyapaipe Reservation. However, even better than beating the heat, hiking early allows you to appreciate the delicate beauty of the desert wildflowers and to catch some amazing sunrises.

Desert Flora

Sunrise over the Cuyapaipe Reservation

Back into the desert.

The move into the Anza-Borrego desert was not disappointing.  After hugging the ridge of the reservation for a few miles the trail moves back into the pines and finally winds down and out of the forest onto the western ridges of the Anza-Borrego. The views did not disappoint.

Me overlooking the Anza-Borrego desert.

At this point on the trail I ran into a fellow hiker that I had met in San Diego. We were discussing the challenges of a thru-hike and at one point he referred to thru-hiking the PCT as a sport. I imagine for a lot of people it is a sport. But for me this hike is a meditation, not a sport. It is an opportunity to cultivate patience and gain a deeper understanding of my values. Of course, it is also a chance to experience beautiful things and learn to appreciate the aesthetic qualities of things that I might have otherwise missed, the desert is perfect for practicing just this. I stop often and take a lot of pictures.

Desert flora.

There is an interesting dilemma that I've been facing on the trail. On the one hand, if I stop and take a picture of every beautiful and inspirational thing that I see, then I'll never make it through the Sierras let alone to Canada. On the other hand, if I race through the trail and don't stop to appreciate the awesome things on the trail, then I'll regret not fully appreciating the beauty, especially of the desert, if I end up having to quit the trail early. Many people quit the trail in the first 100-200 miles because the push too hard, too fast. I think the tragedy of this is not so much that you end up having to get off the trail, but that you end up wasting an opportunity to fully experience the beauty of the desert.

Shit Gets Real

The sunrise out of Mt. Laguna was a beautiful start to what ended up being the most challenging day on the trail so far. Pooping on the trail is a reality, but a reality I did not face until my third day thanks to two restroomed pit stops at Morena and Laguna. When the boss needs to talk to you in the office, the responsible thing---i.e. minimizes impact on the trail and surrounding areas so that others can enjoy it and be healthy while doing so---to do as a hiker is to dig a 6-8" hole in the ground at least 200 ft away from the trail, campsites, and water sources. In addition, if you use TP, you should pack it out in a double bag. (TP is biodegradable, but it  generally doesn't do so on the trail before it gets washed out by rain or dug up by animals. The amount of TP on the trail I've seen so far is shameful and gross.) As I left the Mt. Laguna area I felt the urge, and I was actually excited about my first trail bathroom break. I found, what I thought was, a remote area of the trail. However, it was terrible experience. The town food from the day before destroyed my intestines, and I had absent mindedly squatted over some tallish grass---I'll just say that I spent about a half hour sanitizing everything with hand sanitizer when I was finished. To add insult to injury, while I thought I had found a remote area to do my business, as I squatted I looked up to see a (thankfully vacated) picnic table, and, after I *heard* a car drive by, realized I could see a nearby road. Argh!

The rest of the morning and afternoon were not that bad. I hiked about 12 miles to the next water source, which was a horse trough:

Note the spigot. Thank god.

This trough had a spigot which ran from a fire tank that is often refilled. Still, while some do not treat their water, most do and are advised to. I don't want to get knocked off the trail by E. Coli, so I treat all of my water with Aqua Mira.

After, I refilled, I took a brief break to stretch and chat with other hikers in a nearby picnic area. I felt good, so I figured that I would hike another 6 miles to the Sunrise trailhead for more water and to camp. I was going an easy 2 mph, however about a mile, mile and a half, away a pain on the side of my left knee started up. I slowly made my way into the Sunrise trailhead area, which is located directly on the highway, around 6 PM. This area was in a valley and the wind was super cold and gusting well over 25 mph. To make matters worse a layer of low clouds and dense fog started blowing in from the west. I didn't want to camp in the cold, wet, and windy valley exposed to the road (scenarios from horror movies were manifesting in my imagination so fast I now have some marketable script ideas). I hobbled a half mile back to the PCT thinking I'd seen a flat spot to camp on protected from the wind. But this was only wishful thinking. There was no decent area to camp. So I hobbled back to the Sunrise trailhead. In addition to the physical pain, I was confronting my first real mental challenge of the trail. As I limped back in the frigid, relentless wind in the dusk, I started thinking fondly of sunny and balmy Miami. Now, anyone that knows me halfway decent, has probably heard me complain and moan about how much I don't like living in Miami. But as I reflected on Miami while heading back to the trailhead, I couldn't help but think that I was simply a goddamned ungrateful asshole for ever saying or implying one negative thing about Miami. That's how bad my mental space was. And while in the background of my thoughts the possibility of my left knee being so bad that I would have to quit was depressing, in the moment I also felt a sort of ambivalence towards the trail and even a slight hope that I was so injured that I would be forced off the trail. It would be an easy way out.  After I hobbled back into the trailhead I managed to find a spot tucked between two hills just south of the water tank (thanks Halfmile!). I fought the obstinate wind to set up camp and comforted myself with a Snickers bar.

Clouds and fog rolling in from the west.

When I woke up my knee felt a bit better. However, I only made it four miles before the pain returned. I decided that best thing to do would be to take a nero (a day where you only hike a few miles on the trail) and rest my knee up. The wind was still a bully, but I managed to get my tent set up in a nice campsite near a dried creek bed. Two fellow hikers from Canada were passing by on the trail and stopped in to chat for a bit. We were also joined by my first rattlesnake:

My tea time friend.

I took some anti-inflammatories, rolled out my IT band with a baseball, stretched, and went to bed early.

A Day of Rest in Julian

When I woke up the next day my knee felt much better. I started the decent from the desert mountains into the desert valley just 12 miles east of Julian, a hiker friendly town where I planned to take a day of rest. As I hiked I thought about how much I loved the trail and the challenges were merely just that, and I was praying to whatever that the inflammation in my left IT band would subside if I slowed down. But lost in these thoughts as I descended down the winding switchbacks in the biblical hot winds and sun I felt like I was in a Cormac McCarthy novel and imagined the wraith of some wizened old desert trailhand manifesting out of the desert dust and telling me,

Cain't make no deal with the Lord. The Lord done had the course o yer life mapped out when she made her first breath. Go head and try an make a deal. Get whatcha ya done asked for? Then maybe the Lord already set it out. Then maybe you only wasted yer time. But maybe you just made a deal with the Devil. Maybe you done lost your soul. Nothin you can do bout nothing anyway. Least I imagine it.

Fuck that guy. I hobbled down onto the desert floor. When I got to Scissor's Crossing I set up camp with some fellow hikers under a bridge and planned to hitch into Julian the next morning.

Sometimes the line between hiker and gutterpunk is blurred. My tent collapsed in 40+ gusts of overnight winds.

Moisture trying to creep its way into the desert.

I hitched into Julian the next morning with a fellow hiker from Wales. We had an amazing breakfast and shared trail stories. I stayed at the Julien Hotel, which is an amazing bed and breakfast that gives hikers more than half off their regular rate. The décor is fancy. Hiking makes you really dusty and really smelly, so I didn't feel like I was allowed to be there. But the people that run the hotel were super kind and accommodating. As I walked into the tea room, the radio was playing a big band version of Duke Ellington's Satin Doll. The angels were singing.

Back to the Trail

After a couple day of taking it easy, my knee feels much, much better. My aunt Donna also came up from Menifee for lunch!

So I'm going to go get some free pie at Mom's and hitch back to the trail. I'm going to continue my meditation, continue to be patient, and hike slow and steady. I can't wait!

Free pie at Mom's.

On the valley floor on the way to Scissor's Crossing.