PCT Day 1-7

Day 1: 0-20 mi

Today we woke up at 4:30 in the morning to leave for the PCT’s southern terminus! After some breakfast of champions which consisted of leftover Chipotle and a blueberry muffin, we were off! Before I forget, I have to give a HUGE shoutout to my old roommate Zara for driving me to the boarder. She was an incredible hostess for our two nights in San Diego and kindly woke up at 4:30am on her day off to drive us to the start of the trail.

We had the most beautiful sunrise greet us on our drive and before we knew it we were staring at the wall separating Mexico from the US. We took the classic photos at the PCT Southern Terminus (if you’re unfamiliar with the PCT Google it and you’ll see everyone has a picture with the PCT pillars) and began our first of many very hot hikes. My friend Skye day-hiked with us to where her van was parked along the PCT at mile 20!

One of the spooky things about desert hiking near the beginning of summer is a potential lack of water. We decided not to fill up water at the creek at mile 3 because our guide app, FarOut, showed good flow of water at mile 15. When we got to the creek there was still enough water to fill our bottles. However, by the time we left, two hours later, the creek was DRY! We finished day one at 20 miles at Lake Morena County Park where Skye left her van. We all got a campsite and tucked in pretty quickly after a long day of hiking.

Day 2: 20-37 mi

Today was probably extremely different from most people’s PCT experience because my lovely friend Skye cooked us pancakes!!! Day two and we are still living a life of luxury out here. We got a slow start to the morning but didn’t mind relaxing a bit after a long day in yesterday’s grueling sun. It was about 13 degrees F cooler today so we didn’t have to worry about melting. We experienced our first trail magic from a lovely trail angle who was also hiking the PCT. This man offered us the choice of instant Starbucks coffee, caramel candies, or chips. I went with a classic bag of Fritos for the win. Apparently he gifted his 4,000th item of trail magic just the week before!

On today’s hike we found a terrifying geocache hidden on the side of the trail (it was a Halloween monster head with the trail log inside) and were also rattled at by a rattlesnake. For dinner today I ate a dehydrated leek soup that Dennis’s neighbor made for us and it was actually incredible. Prior to rehydration, the bag was pretty much a bunch of yellow chips and it blew my mind to watch it turn into soup.

Day 3: 37- 56.2 mi

If you’ve ever thought the desert is always hot, think again. It was a bit windy when Dennis and I set up our tent last night, but we didn’t think much of it. Around 2am the wind was so forceful it woke me up, and I spent the next few hours trying to remember if we set up camp under a tree with any branches that could fall on us. Thankfully we were not impaled by a branch, but the wind was so crazy that our tent was covered with dirt on the inside when we woke up. The rest of today was pretty chilly and windy, but it was still a welcomed reprieve from the heat of day 1.

Day 4: 56.2-77 mi

Today we woke up late and it was entirely my fault because I needed to catch up on sleep. I’ve been getting on Dennis about waking up late and trying to get us out of camp before 8 AM because all these other PCT hikers are starting super early. To be fair it hasn’t been super warm yet, so we haven’t needed the crazy early morning start but still there’s not much shade, and starting in the morning is probably the best way to go. Today we were barely 2 miles into the trail when a very large mammal baby ran across the trail. Instantly I thought that’s either a mountain lion or a black bear cub and my thoughts went to holy cow mom has to be somewhere nearby. Well, we never did see Mama but I’m still 100% certain that what I saw wasn’t a rabbit or a coyote. It could’ve been an alien. Who knows, but we were safe and we did not get attacked by minimal. Today was pretty hot and we only saw one person on the trail, an Australian woman named Tanya. She was very nice and we spent a couple different breaks chatting with her.

I also fist-bumped two cacti today. That’s a total of 25 spines I had to pull out of my hand! As my friend, the cactus would tell you water is scarce in the desert. That is why so many plants here have evolved with natural defense mechanisms to make sure no other critters can steal their water. I learned this the hard way when I fist bumped my first cactus and then about five minutes later smacked into a second one.

Today was a long one mostly because we hiked 21 miles and started around 8:30 in the morning which wasn’t very early. We ended up hiking all the way to the road and successfully getting a hitchhike into a place called stagecoach RV park.

We ended up renting a very cute little wagon with bunkbeds in it and taking our first shower in four days.

I haven’t felt so clean in a while and already as I’m writing this I’m starting to get dirty again.

Day 5: 77-91 mi

We started a day off today with a hitchhike with a woman named Chris who pulled over because she was concerned that Dennis said we’re walking along the road in the heat. We were very grateful that she stopped because the first five cars we tried to hitch with wouldn’t stop for us. Once we were waiting on the side of the road at the trailhead just gathering our things we had two other cars stop and ask if we wanted to ride into Julian, which is a popular destination for through hikers. We politely declined, saying we were heading up on the trail. We started very late today and it was so hot!! I probably drank 5L of water on my own today. I was sweating buckets. We had our first crazy water cache where a trail angel left gallons of water for a resupply along the trail, how cool!

We only saw 4 people today.

Day 6: 91-109 mi

We finally made it to Warner Springs! Today we woke up way earlier and covered 10 miles pretty quickly. We then rewarded ourselves with a 2 hour nap! Well, I read my kindle (well actually it’s Julia’s, thanks Jules!) and Dennis napped. We passed by the famous Eagle rock too. It really does look like an Eagle.

We made it to camp right at dark and checked out the community center where we would take our showers tomorrow.

Day 7: no miles so far, 5-10 incoming?

We spent the day at the community center washing clothes, showering, ridding ourselves of excess pack weight, and eating CHIPOTLE!!

Shoutout to Skye for bringing our resupply box and fresh food!!! If you’re reading this around 2pm we still haven’t started our hike, but we have enjoyed lounging with the other PCT hikers!

That’s all for now, happy trails!

Backcountry Brooke

P.S. if there are grammatical errors or wonky sentences please forgive me, I’m hiking the PCT for crying out loud!