PCT #2: First town stop, Miles 40-77
Me and one of my favourite pieces of gear - my sun umbrella! We were about to walk across that valley below and as you can see, there is no shade in sight nor a cloud in the sky! The road to Julian is in that valley floor and we would take our first hitch into town to spend our first night in a hotel.
We are camped two miles from our first trail town, Mt. Laguna. Mt. Laguna is a small mountain town with a restaurant, convenient store, post office and a few motels. The town lays parallel to the PCT, so we will leave the trail to walk through the town before returning to the PCT further ahead. Town means one wonderful thing - we can get clean.
The big events of the day will be laundry and showering, both of which will be done in a campsite bathroom. We are in no rush this morning, so don’t set an alarm and sleep in. To our surprise Eric left before we awoke, quietly packing while we slept. This would be a theme with Eric - he would consistently slip past us in the early morning hours.
We arrive at the state campsite and realize that, unfortunately, we need quarters for our showers. Since I lost the rock-paper-scissors battle for walking to purchase water in Lake Morena, Syd volunteers to find quarters. However, there’s no resting for me! I’m on laundry duty in a tiny, metal campsite sink. A cloudy, warped mirror sits above the sink and staring at my squeezed reflection makes me slightly nauseous. I separate our clothes and I have 5 loads. I start with the most important items first as I’ll get bored of filling the sink, swirling the clothes, adding the soap, waiting for the clothes to soak, swirling the clothes, draining the sink and rinsing the clothes. I lay the last item on the pavement in the sun outside the bathroom when Syd returns with quarters.
The state of my hair before arriving in Mt. Laguna. I learned that Dr. Bronner’s soap is a bad substitute for shampoo and gives your hair a lovely coating.
With a special bounce in our step from clean clothes and showed bodies, we head to town for lunch at the only lunch spot. We both order massive salads to maximize our vegetable intake. We are adults after all.
The last stop in town is to the convenient store to resupply. We have 35 miles to Julian, which we figure is three days, two dinners worth. In typical fashion, I buy wayyy too much. My move is to buy a token vegetable that I never eat. For Lake Morena that was a carrot, in the past it’s been spinach, a cucumber or an avocado. I’m proud to say I luged a carrot the first 20 miles, up and over many hills only to throw the soggy, brown thing out at my first chance. To my horror, this store has no fresh vegetables so I’ll have to skip tradition this time.
These town days fly by - trying to upload photos on awful Wi-Fi, book hotels, plan out the next section, connect with loved ones and get clean. I don’t manage to do it all but I come close.
We leave Mt. Laguna around 3pm, knowing there is a wind warning for the region. It’s a great temperature for hiking and before we know it, the views are unbelievable. We walk along cliffs that overlook a flat dessert, skirted by mountains. The sunlight has become a soft yellow and large shadows cast by mountains become visible. The maps say it is almost a 1000 meter drop between the cliffs and the desert floor. We can see Mt. San Jacinto in the distance which sits at over 10,000 feet and we will be climbing it in over a week. The wind has stirred up the sand, so the mountains are fuzzy. Syd and I laugh as the wind whips by. We can only shout to communicate. The wind is fun now, but soon we will need to camp.
While in Mt. Laguna, I wore my camp shoes, a lightweight pair of sandals. In theory, camp shoes are awesome because they give your feet a break from socks and the friction of your hiking shoes. The winter of Canada didn’t prepare my feet for sandals though, and I developed pain across the top of my left foot when walking from the straps. The pain was getting worse as we walked out of town, nothing worrying yet but uncomfortable. The irony of getting a foot injury from my camp shoes!
With sunlight fading we begin searching. Originally I had only wanted to do 4 miles out of Mt. Laguna but the walk has been lovely and we are now past the sheltered sites, uh oh. The designated sites on our map our 8 miles apart and the first one has a review of “Last night’s storm has such high winds it collapsed a lot of tents. 8 of us had to be rescued from here” - FvStar.
We pass it and hope we can find another protected wilderness spot. From our maps, we can see that we will be near flat land in a couple more miles so we walk on. We pass many slanted sites and then we come across a meadow with bushes. Perfect! We both carried over 4 liters out of Mt. Laguna, anticipating we wouldn’t be at our next water source until midday tomorrow, but surprise, we are here now! Lucky us that we carried an extra 10lbs of weight. We have enough water we don’t need to fill up. There is enough sheltered space for one tent, so we setup my two person tent complete with backpack and rain jacket barricades for wind protection.
The alarm goes off at 5:15am and for the first time, I’m not already awake. I’m cozy and warm and sleepy, but it’s time to begin the hour and half process of getting ready to hike. I had an awesome sleep, which makes it hard to start moving.
The views right out of camp are spectacular. We walk beside a drop off, getting views of the dessert and further mountains every few minutes. We walk along a portion of the trail that has barriers set up for protection against the eroding cliff. I didn’t realize Southern California was this beautiful and recommend Mt Laguna trails for hiking if you are ever in the area! They are mostly flat, well maintained and offer beautiful views.
We are beginning to get faster. Our new speed record this morning is 2.7 miles per hour. In the morning we go on cruise control - enjoying the soft sun, the cool temperature and our rested bodies. My foot still aches when I step, but the pain feels manageable. I swear at my camp shoes and vow to never wear them again.
Water for today is from a tank, a quarter mile off trail. We use an app called Far Out to plan our days. It includes a map of the trail with various symbols for camping, water and landmarks. It also allows hikers to add comments or reviews to each of these items.
We keep passing spigots near trail heads and that is how we realize that water is also available at roads. We start checking each landmark on our map for comments about water and to our delight, we find hilarious comments on ordinary things. Portions of the trail pass through private land and there are gates between properties. Typically a gate would be connected to a fence, so you have to pass through the gate to get to the trail. More often than not, the gates on the trail have no connection, so we just saunter around the gate giving it an appreciative pat as we past it. Some favourite comments are:
“If I was a gate, I’d like to be this gate” -Ridge
“This gate seems to be made of gate” -Gingerhikes
“This gate knows more than it lets on” -baby_steps
A typical lunch on trail - cheese, summer sausage and a tortilla. To really mix it up, we would swap out the tortillas for bagels.
We arrive at the water at the heat of the day, and decide to spend the afternoon eating and sleeping in the small slice of shade provided by the water tank. The goal is to crush out 8 more miles to camp, heading down hill the entire way. Hiking in the afternoon is the exact opposite from morning - it’s hot, you’re already sore and just want to stop. We trudge along, stopping a few miles short of our goal and sleep beneath a wolf sanctuary. As we fall asleep, we can hear the wolves faintly howling.
The next day is town day. We are headed into Julian! A town known for being very hiker friendly and for the free pie for pct hikers. Getting to town will require our first hitch, as it sits about 12 miles from trail. We have just over 12 miles to town, and we figure we should be in by lunch. Perfect!
What we didn’t anticipate was the heat. We are hiking down to the desert floor and the lower we get, the hotter it becomes. We end our day with a 2 mile portion straight across the desert floor, no shade in sight. A highlight to the day was seeing all the desert cactus and their flowers. There is a much greater variety of cactus than I expected and each has a different brightly coloured bloom. The flora changes each day, and one plant that might be everywhere one day, we will never seen again.
At the highway, we run into another pair of hikers hoping to hitch so we decide to all try together. It isn’t long before the trail angle of Julian, Raingle, spots us and pulls over so we can all climb in. Raingle gives us advice about the PCT, as he hiked it in 2017, and a quick tour of Julian. He’s been picking hikers up every hour and shuttling them to and from Julian. He really is an angle! Raingle tells us about the food options and the brewery sounds perfect - BBQ, pizzas and beer. We kill time before checking into our hotel for the night - a mattress with clean sheets and a pillow and a shower.
We make the obligatory stop to Mom’s pies where I have the most delicious cherry apple crumble pie with cinnamon ice cream and an authentic, American iced tea. It’s all free - I don’t know why, but Mom’s Pie must really love PCT hikers. We are stinky, so we hide far in the back and try to blend into the wall. Julian is a tourist town and we arrive on a Saturday, so the place is packed with people. Despite us having walked 6 days to get here, it is a mere 45 minute drive from San Diego.
Our room isn’t ready on time so we pick up beers, drink them on the veranda outside our hotel and connect to the Wi-Fi. Ahh civilization!
Once inside, we begin the impossible task of removing dirt from ourselves and our clothes. No matter how many times we fill the tub with clean water, our clothes stain it brown. The dirt is a part of the trail we will take with us everywhere. Once we are clean and our clothes, strategically laid out across every mental hook, rod or bar in the hotel room, we head to the brewery for some much needed dinner and of course, more beer.
What I enjoy most about the brewery is the music - it’s amazing how music can transform you, bring you together and lift your mood. When hiking, I rarely listen to anything other than the sound of my breath and the birds going by. What do they say - absence makes the heart grow fonder? The first week of the PCT has flown by and although it has been harder than expected, it is also everything I had dreamed of.
As usual, check out Syds YouTube channel for videos: https://youtube.com/channel/UCBWYJWLOt09i-t3ACGfd-Pg. We are both behind in our documentation of the trip, but will continue to try and catch up. As for knitting, I haven’t been able to knit much - as mentioned, not enough time in the day! My YouTube channel is katknits, where I’m hoping to make videos of the hike when I get home.
Thanks for following along!
Section Stats
Day 4: April 28th 39.9-48.8 (11.1 Miles)
Day 5: April 29 48.8-65.7 (16.9 Miles)
Day 6: April 30th 65.7-77.3 (11.6 Miles)