Poodle-Dodging

Sunday, May 18
Mile 430, Messenger Flats

Some incredible ridge walking this morning!

On the PCT there lurks a plant that is rumored to have stingers and oil that causes brilliant rashes. It smells conspicuously like marijuana and looks like a poodle's tail. It's name: poodle-dog bush.

Today was spent avoiding this plant, using various strategies. This morning, I danced and sashayed my way around it for five miles. This afternoon, I walked on an old road to bypass a reportedly horrible section of it on trail. The road walking was actually kind of fun; I was averaging 4 miles an hour and had Animal Collective and Radiolab podcasts to keep me occupied.

Poodle-dog LOVES burned areas

12 miles were a breeze, and I got to hike with Leisure Tour for a while; three cool guys called The Byrd, Sideshow, and That Guy. Sideshow has an amazing foam roller that does wonders for sore muscles, so hopefully I'll keep leapfrogging with him. Also I like them, which is important too, I suppose.

Graduation Day

Saturday, May 17
Mile 407, Sulphur Springs Campground

Graduation day! If I wasn't on an epic aadventure today, I'd be donning a cap and gown and accepting my bachelor's deploma with all my friends. Haha, suckas!

Laugh Track and I both graduated from UM today! She's been carrying the tassel this whole hike, just for this momentous day.

I did walk. 24 miles of hot uphill slogs, but a lovely descending afternoon. Spent the whole day with Magic Stick and Laugh Track, who I was grateful to have during some confusing rerouting for an endangered frog. I was chatting with Special Sauce when we discovered my favorite kind of trail magic: a box full of fruit! Snagged an orange, and it was the best. Thing. Ever. I wish I could just eat oranges for the next 3 days.

Tall, Lost, and Grateful

Friday, May 16
Mile 384, Pleasant Ridge Wilderness

There aren't really any "good" days or "bad" days out here. Every day on the trail is a series of highs and lows and boredom and awe and elation and stress. It makes the morning and afternoon feel like separate days.

Summiting Mt Baden-Powell!

Today, the morning (day one) was  high-fiving scout troops and asian tourists on my way to the first (and one of the only) summits on the actual PCT. It was a steep slog with our newly-filled food bags, but Gypsy Town made it to the top of Baden-Powell in good time. 360 views; I love it!

I spent the ridge walk after the peak giddy with altitude and ssummiting, and made up new words to "This Lil' Light of Mine". Twenty minutes later I was in an angry haze as the trail climbed, AGAIN. Doesn't it realize that we've already summited today? At a fuzzy trail junction, I was so happy to see a nice trail going downhill that I took it without a second thought.

A couple hours later, the pseudo-pct trail spat me out onto highway 2, which parallels the pct this stretch. I found a note under a rock that read, "you are off trail. Turn left on the road to eventually meet back up with the PCT."

Well, "eventually" is a pretty ambiguous direction, but I decided to just start walking. What else can we do out here, ever? I was a little freaked out at first, and kept checking and rechecking my maps and Half mile app on my phone for coordinates. The topo maps and compass were indispensable; SO glad I carry em.

I was a lot closer to our agreed meeting spot than I first realized, and only had to road walk for 4 miles before I came to a gully that had footprints leading up the steep scree slope. The Halfmile app said that I was only .12 miles from the PCT, and I knew the trail was up there somewhere. So I trusted my gut and scurried up the goat trail.

Sure enough, it popped me right in front of a major trail junction on the PCT, right before the campground I told Gypsy Town I'd meet them at. Giddy with relief, I kissed the PCT sign and maybe cried a little bit. My first off trail experience, and I kept my cool and made it! The whole experience was like a trust fall with myself and the universe catching, and we both came through. I will try not to be angry with you again, PCT, I promise!

Nearo in Wrightwood

Thursday, May 15
Mile 369, Wrightwood, CA

I sat up in my sleeping bag this morning and took this picture. Seriously!

The nearo (nearly zero; we hiked just 7 miles into town) I took in Wrightwood was easygoing and left me all charged up for another four days of hiking. Grams even helped me go through my pack and pull out a few things to lighten it up just a little... A Tupperware container, a pair of gloves I don't like much, and casualties from a trimmed-down first aid kit were among the forsaken items.

Care package from Grammy.. So sweet!

 Tenacious Rainbow, who's taking a few days off to heal her gnarly, infected feet, got a cute little motel-cabin in town and I got to sleep on a cot! It was so luxurious. Even the deep crater in the middle seemed to perfectly cradle my body. We attempted to watch Remember the Titens, but we were all asleep twenty minutes in. Hiker midnight: nine o clock.

Itis came into our room at 6am, and then proceeded to bulldoze us in our beds, go into the bathroom, and take a very long dump in our toilet. Not a choice way to start the day, especially holding my morning pee while we all took turns after Itis. But that was quickly remedied by some coffee and a lazy morning start.

Full Moonshadow

Wednesday, May 14
Mile 355, near Mt Baldy (elev. ~8660)

The sun and the moon are in perfect synchronicity right now, with the milky light replacing the golden seamlessly. The full moon cast intense shadows as I climbed into the hills surrounding Mount Baldy. It was a perfect opportunity to practice wolf-howling at the headlamps bouncing across the shadowy draws and step carefully; more mindfully than if I could see what my feet were contacting. Leaving my headlamp off turned my walking into a tactile activity. It felt deeply meditative and rhythmic.

We hiked deep into the night, climbing for fourteen miles before settling on a rare flat spot with a sweeping view of Mount Baldy and the cities below. My calves are aching, my shoulders feel used, and I couldn't be more grateful for the loveliness of night.

Sunset over sandstone

The Longest Day

Tuesday, May 13
Mile 335, in some shrubbery on a hill somewhere

Twenty miles by lunch? We got this. I felt reborn this morning; no pain! Anywhere! The morning flew by as Magic Stick, Tuneboost, Laugh Track and I rocked it in our freshly-recharged bods.

Rainbow bridge with Tuneboost!

The beautiful Deep Creek Canyon was a stark contrast to a weird traverse of a hydro-power plant, huge concrete tunnels, chain link fences, piles of dirt... It was a reminder of how the human-wilderness interface is so well represented on this trail.

Our lunch spot was absolutely epic; a huge reservoir that sparkled an inviting, crystalline blue as we crested the hill above it. I dove in as soon as we reached the picnic area, of course, and then spent a leisurely three hours eating, yoga-ing, blogging, and gazing into the miracle that is a huge body of water in the desert.

Now, a nighthawk is cooing me to sleep. After my longest day yet, 28 miles, being horizontal seems like a gift from God.

Zeroing at Deep Creek

Sunday & Monday, May 11-12
Mile 307, Deep Creek Hotsprings

Rowdy red poppy!

"Zero" Day in hiker slang is a loaded phrase. It's a simple concept: don't hike. In fact, do everything that involves little movement, like eating, sleeping, soaking your bod in some delicious mineral hot springs.

Tuneboost went to school in SoCal and has been talking up Deep Creek for weeks. It did not disappoint—six pools of varying degrees, all overlooking a wide, gentle creek with a slackline pitched over a section of it... Totally surreal to hike into, all delirious and bone-tired. Got used to the nudists and eventually joined them, of course.

My lungs have healed, too! Those antibiotics did the trick and that cough is done-zo. I broke out my flute again during a pre-dinner soak with Moxa and Laugh Track and it felt so perfect.

Monday was my first zero of the hike, and it was actually a bit of a struggle to convince myself to not walk on later in the day. The trail has such a pull for me now; it's magnetic! But the healing soaks in the hot springs were so essential, and I'm going to bed with a happy heart and gelatinous muscles. Heal up, buddies! Tomorrow we hit the trail again!

Goodbye, beautiful Deep Creek!