Well, this is it…9 more days until the PCT and we’re just about ready to go. We have everything packed, unpacked, checked, and packed again – and so on, until we get on our flight to San Diego. We are currently at Matt’s parents’ house hanging out for a few days before heading to my parents’ house and eventually leaving Detroit to fly to Southern California and start hiking. I feel pretty ready despite the fact that I haven’t had much time for hiking/biking/running or fitness in general. I’m now done with school forever, so I don’t have to worry about that, and I successfully gained 10 pounds, so I won’t have to worry about losing weight the first month we’re out there. We have all of our gear, we’re 3 days out from buying our food for the first week, and now all we have to do is wait. Thanks for taking the time to read our newest blog. As you can see Matt added a few new features, including the where are we now map so you can follow us up the trail. We should be making updates almost daily thanks to our iPhones, so we’ll be way more consistent than we were with our paddle journals. Be sure to check out our sponsors, they’ve been a huge help to us! Thanks to Downwind Sports we were able to afford this year’s hike. Superfeet also did great things for us, our feet will be forever thankful for their support. And our we are once again working with our friends from Headsweats to keep the sun out of our eyes in the desert and our noggins toasty in the mountains. Thank you everyone!

Neither Matt nor I slept much last night between the excitement, stress, and packing list running through my head. We woke up to go to the airport after only a few short hours of sleep. The trip to San Diego from Detroit went well enough and the bus to trolley to bus ride that we took to get to Campo was way easier than I had anticipated – thank you San Diego public transit for being prompt, reliable, and clean. In Campo we purchased a couple gallons of water from the store, which looked like it had easily enough stuff to supply for the first few days of the trail, then we got all of our gear into our packs and started the two mile walk to the monument that marks the beginning of the trail. On the way to the monument another hiker and his friend offered us a ride (his friend was driving him to the trail head) so we hopped in their truck. After a quick picture at the monument and a brief exchange with Scott and Sarah (hiker and friend) we set off to find a campsite where we weren’t in danger of being hit by a border patrol truck. The trail took us back to Campo where we ran into Scott again and the three of us set up camp on the hill just out of town. Now it is off to bed withe the real hiking waiting to start in the morning.

I didn’t sleep very well again last night because of the border patrol, owls, chickens, and ice that formed on my sleeping bag. We hit the trail at about 5:45 am after breaking up camp. The morning hiking was cool and beautiful with all of the desert plants flowering. We crossed a couple small streams, the highway, and a set of railroad tracks before beginning our first real climb, about 900 vertical feet. I was surprised at how gentle the climb was because of the many switchbacks. The day wore on and as the sun rose in the sky it began to get hot and my energy waned. The trail ran back down the hill we had just climbed and crossed a road, where we caught a couple border patrol guys off- guard and mid-whiz, and headed down into a valley with a small creek and a large sign showing hikers what poison oak looks like. The climb back out of the valley was similar to the first, however it was much hotter so each switchback seemed longer. About 1/3 of the way up the second hill we found a perfect little cave to rest in for a little while. We finally reached a saddle where the trail stopped climbing and started to head toward Lake Morena, our lunch destination. 2 breaks and 5 miles later we arrived at the Lake Morena campground where we ate lunch, dried our sleeping bags, called our families, and generally relaxed for about 4 hours before hitting the trail again around 5:30 pm for 5 more miles of hiking on the day. The last 5 miles went easy after the long break, but I know I’m going to have some serious aches and pains tomorrow. We had dinner and camped with Scott again, it has been nice to have another hiker to chat with, and even nicer that he’s not insane. Now it’s off to bed to rest my aching bones.

I didn’t sleep that well again last night. We woke up at about 5:30 and we were hiking by 6 am. Our first stop of the day was at Boulder Oaks campground for some water. The campground was closed for Arroyo toad breeding season and the water was supposed to still be on, but apparently the pit toilets had overflowed and contaminated the water so the rangers had shut the water off a few days before. So we hiked on, hoping that the next stream, which doesn’t always flow, would have water. As we hiked on along the ridge we had a great view of a valley with a gushing river flowing through it. What we thought was the next stream had only a tiny bit of funky water so we hiked on a ways before taking a break. The day wore on and we began to think we were making awesome progress when we reached the next creek, but as it turned out this was a creek not mentioned in either of our books and we were still far from our destination, Mt. Laguna. Our moods started to sour as we started to get tired and we weren’t coming across any of the landmarks we expected. We finally reached the series of roads before the town and started to realize that we still had about 4 miles to go. When we finally rolled into town my feet were extremely tired and I wanted nothing more than to take a break, but we had to rush into town to get some food before the store closed. At the store we purchased 2 icy cold drinks and 2 Lipton dinners. It was very overpriced, but I guess you have to expect that from a camp store. We sat and talked with Scott for a bit while we relaxed and then we made dinner once he took off. A hot meal seemed to be just what we needed. After dinner we packed up and took off for another 3 miles or so. The last bit of hiking was fairly pleasant. I wore my crocs to give my feet a break from my shoes and they worked better than I expected. We found a nice campsite about one tenth of a mile off the trail and set up our tent. I am now tucked safely and comfortably inside, hoping for a good night of sleep.

I didn’t sleep very well again last night, but aside from that I was feeling pretty good when we took off this morning. The sun seemed to get hot earlier today and blistering heat was upon us by 9 am. We stopped at the Rodriguez spur road to get some water out of the 500 gallon tank that someone graciously placed in this hot and dry 24 mile stretch that has no natural water features. The desert section of the PCT is supplied with water by local “trail angels” in the form of water caches that are placed in the same location year after year. These caches make hiking through the desert much easier, however they can be dangerous if hikers rely on there being water at these sources because they often run dry. Our entire morning was spent hiking downhill toward the desert floor where highway 78 runs through the valley. The long descent was frustrating because the trail would go down 60 feet and then gain 40 before dropping another 60 feet. When we finally reached the desert floor it was about noon. We really should have taken a long break under our tarp to get out of the sun and heat but we wanted to get to the road so we could catch a ride into the town of Julian for lunch and some groceries. The desert floor was about 105 degrees and very sparsely vegetated – even the cactuses didn’t seem to want to grow down there. Matt got an atrocious sunburn on his legs despite the application of sunblock every 20 minutes. We finally reached the road around 1:30 and quickly got a ride into town with a middle-aged couple who were heading home from vacation. The guy told us about how he got a ride from Nat King Cole when he was hitch-hiking at ten years old, he never told his mother because he wasn’t supposed to be talking to strangers. The couple dropped us of in Julian, a cute little wild west sorta tourist town and we proceeded to get lunch at the Julian Cafe. I felt a little bad going in there with dirt all over me, greasy hat hair, and a huge dirty sweat ring on my shirt where my pack sits, but I got over all of that as soon as I got my food and started focusing on eating. After lunch we walked around town to get our groceries, fuel for our stove, and some aloe for Matt’s legs. Then we sat around and talked with some other hikers before heading back to the trail around 6 pm. An older gentlemen who was originally from Maine but has lived in California for many years since the army shipped him out here as a kid gave us a tide back from the trail and told us a bit about desert life, including a brief rundown of the local plants and animals which was very interesting and informative. When we got back to the trail we hiked about 3 more miles, back off the desert floor and onto the mountainside before setting up camp in a dry stream bed.

Sorry that this is out of order, my awesome cellular telephone decided that it didn’t like my first attempt at writing this and deleted it – so here is a synopsis of what happened yesterday ( day 4). The morning was fairly uneventful. I slept well so I was bright eyed and bushy tailed when we took off at 5:30 am. At around 10 am we stopped at the Pioneer Mail Picnic area to get some water from a cistern they keep full for horses, the only water source we would see all day. We treated the water even though it looked really clean. The trail came to an amazing view of the desert floor and surrounding mountainsides shortly after the picnic area. Eventually I will add a picture, but I think that is what killed my post last time I tried to upload it. We took a mid-afternoon break under our tyvek ground cloth to get out of the sun and heat for a bit. I caught a bit of a nap during our break, which felt so nice. At about 4:30 we got back to hiking. We went about 7 more miles, but my knees were hurting pretty badly because most of those 7 miles were downhill so it was slow going. By the time we got to a good camping spot it was getting pretty dark so we set up the tent, ate a quick peanut butter and honey sandwich and headed to bed.

I woke up this morning to the sound of footsteps past our campsite, another hiker had beaten us to the trail! Around 5:15 we rolled out of bed and went through our morning routine of packing up camp. We started hiking around 5:45 and I could immediately tell that today was going to be hot because of the warm breeze blowing across the desert and the complete lack of early morning moisture. By 8:30 I was ready to take a break from the sun, but we had to keep pushing on because it was only going to get worse and we had to make it to the third gate water cache before the sun was out in full force to conserve the little bit of water we had for the trip there. Both of us were concerned that the cache may be empty, which would mean that we would have to hike another 10 miles on the 1 liter that each of us were saving in case of such a situation. For the first time on this trip it turned out that we were closer to our destination than we thought. We arrived to the cache 45 minutes before we had expected and found about 60 full gallon jugs of water there and about 40 empty jugs. Whoever hauls all of that water up here is a saint, the closest road is about 10 miles away and water weighs 8 pounds per gallon – that’s a lot of work to make sure that a fee hikers are well hydrated! Upon our arrival at the water cache a voice chirped hello from behind some juniper, so we ducked into the bushes to be greeted from a man named Daniel who introduced himself as “Jersey Fresh” and went on to clearly define that it should not be shortened to just “Jersey”. It is common on long distance hiking trails to adopt a trail name that is different from your given name and allows you to differentiate yourself from other hikers, some people even go as far as to adopt a whole new persona. After speaking with Jersey Fresh for a few minutes we headed to a shady spot of our own to make some lunch and relax. We had angel hair pasta with Alfredo sauce and lazed about for 4 hours, both catching a short nap and doing some online/phone stuff. At 4 pm we decided we shouldn’t sit much longer so we made a quick dinner of rice and beans and began to pack up our things. On our way out, a kid named John rolled up looking absolutely spent. John hiked all day through the heat, couldn’t get a ride into Julian, walked miles without water, and now was collapsed in the shade of a Juniper with a gallon jug of water in hand. We talked with John for a bit while we filled our water bottle then said our goodbyes after making sure tha John didn’t need anything. The last 9 miles we hiked went super fast. My legs were feeling great after so much rest and our pleasant chatter was keeping me distracted from the task at hand. We saw a whole bunch more horny toads, these ones much larger than the others we’ve seen, and our first deer of California. Now, I know deer aren’t rare anywhere, but I hadn’t seen one in 6 whole days so it seemed a bit more special than back in Michigan. Now we’re camped in another dry creek area. All I need to do before bed is take care of some pretty serious desert dust boogers.

We woke up a little late this morning because it was foggy and cool so beating the heat of the sunshine didn’t seem so important. By 6:30 we were hiking along a foggy canyon and it looked like there was nothing below the trail but a swirling mass of white, every direction I looked was pretty much the same story. By 7:30 we reached Barrel Spring and the fog became more patchy. We saw “Jersey Fresh” at the spring and said good morning, but continued on our way because we didn’t need more water. From Barrel Spring to Warner Springs the scenery changed dramatically from the scrubby small mountains we have grown accustomed to into rolling meadows full of cows. About 6 miles into our hike we reached Eagle Rock, a pile of boulders that looks like an eagle spreading its wings. Compared to most of the rocks that are supposed to look like animals that I have seen in my life, this one was very recognizable and took fairly little imagination to find the eagle.

I’m posting these seperately and just a few at a time so they don’t kill my journal entries. They’re all from my iPhone so they aren’t awesome, but they’ll give you an idea of what we’re seeing.

I didn’t sleep again last night. Between my z-rest being uncomfortable and Matt rolling over all night because his z-rest is uncomfortable I probably only got 45 minutes of sleep all night. Not a recipe for a good day. It was misting a little when we packed up the tent and continued to drizzle lightly the whole morning. Most of today was a fog for me. I was so over- exhausted that it took all of my energy to attempt to remain emotionally stable and continue to put one sore foot in front of the other. We did walk through a boulder field that was cool enough to catch my attention, I think it was Lost Valley. We took a long lunch so I could take a nap, but 5 or 6 hikers stopped in to say hi so I didn’t get a nap. I got more frustrated all afternoon until my mind finally snapped and I couldn’t hold back the crazy anymore. Matt said something that I percieved as slightly mean and the hot, shameful, over-tired tears began to flow. About 4 miles later we stopped for the night. Matt was extremely kind and let me lay down while he made dinner which made me feel much better, not because I got to lay down, but because he spilled dinner and throught a shit-fit of his own. All things pass, tomorrow will be a better day.