PCT Day 7-12

Hello friends, welcome back to another update from the trail! I am playing around with different formatting during the first few posts, but hopefully there will be some consistency soon! I am currently finishing up this post in the Idyllwild Library and plan to be back on trail at noon to begin hiking up Mount San Jacinto.

Now that I am a few weeks into the trail I’ve decided it might be important to add a dictionary section for all of the new trail terms I frequently use, just so you non-thru-hikers can understand my lingo.

Backcountry Brooke’s Dictionary

trail magic (n): Actions on trail resulting in presents, typically in the form of food and drink. We have received trail magic in the form of beer, oranges, sunscreen, tacos, and watermelon!

trail angel (n): The person who performs trail magic by delivering goodies to hiker trash on trail. So far my favorite trail angel is Hamburger-Helper who surprised us hikers with fresh fruit on a day of extremely low moral.

trail name (n): The name given to you by another hiker either because of your personality, something you do on trail, or a super random interaction with another hiker. You can choose to reject your trail name, but once you accept it it is stuck with you. Read on to find out how I earned the trail name Rainbow Carrot. You can call me Rain, Carrot, or RC for short.

hiker trash (n): The colloquial term for a through hiker who is dirty, smelly, and will likely take you up on any free piece of food you’re willing to donate to them.

hiker box (n): A box where hikers will leave items they no longer wish to carry. Other hikers can then take any items they wish to add to their pack. So far my favorite hiker box item has been pink nail polish which I used to cover up the dirt hiding below my finger nails.

ride bride (n): The phrase given to a female hiker who a male hiker will use to secure a hitchhike. I’ve been mostly walking with men and have become the designated ride bride.

tramily (n): Trail family. Typically formed by hiking the same relative distances as other hikers and getting along well. Currently Dennis and I don’t have an official tramily, but we do have some French friends, Pablo and Florian who are practically tramily at this point.

zero day (n): Hiking zero miles in a day. Rest day. The best kind of day! Don’t be fooled though, zero day’s often include chores like grocery shopping and laundry so there never ends up being too much rest.

nero day (n): Hiking almost zero miles in a day. Typically precedes or follows a town day.

town day (n): Pretty self explanatory, a day spent in town. Typically ends with beer and pizza.

water carry (n): The quantity in liters that one carries between known water sources. A daily debate between hikers in a group is how much water is needed to get from one source to the next.

Backcountry Brooke’s Dictionary of Trail Names

Scrub Daddy: Formerly known as Scrub-a-dub, this man takes a trail shower every day and became Scrub Daddy because he is no longer a boy, and is now a man in comparison to when he did his first through hike.

Hamburger Helper: A trail angel who brought hamburgers on trail for hikers the very first time he performed trail magic.

Rainbow Carrot (me): A girl who earned her trail name at a grocery store when fellow hiker trash came up to me in the beer isle and asked if I wanted to split a bag of rainbow carrots with him. I said yes and now am hiking with 4 carrots up to San Jacinto.

Day 7: 5/17/2025, mile 109 - 116.4

Hello and welcome back to where we left off. On Saturday the lovely Skye brought me Chipotle to the Warner Springs community center where Dennis and I resupplied, washed clothes, and showered. I can tell you with certainty that all of our out of state, out of country hiker friends were extremely jealous of our massive Chipotle bowls. In case any of you plan to become trail angels to Dennis and I on trail:

Brooke’s Chipotle order: bowl with white rice, black beans, chicken, veggies, cheese, corn salsa, mild salsa, medium salsa, and lettuce.

Dennis’s Chipotle order: bowl with steak, black beans, brown rice, veggies, corn salsa, mild salsa, medium salsa, hot salsa, cheese, and sour cream.

Ok Brooke, calm down! No one is driving to the middle of nowhere to bring you Chipotle (except Skye!). Let’s get back to the story. Before leaving Warner Springs Dennis and Skye went to the post office to retrieve a package from the Gavrilenko family that included trail snacks. Gavrilenko Fam, we have already eaten that whole pound of chocolate. Shortly after we left the community center and hiked 7 miles to our campsite.

Skye hiked with us for the first 5 miles before turning back towards her van. Hopefully you read all of the definitions above to understand that today was a nero day.

I called a friend from college (hi Teresa!) the other day and told her we only hiked 7 miles on Saturday. Only 7! She said that was crazy and I told her we hiked 25 miles one day so 7 was nothing in comparison.

Day 8: 5/18/2025, mile 116.4 - 139.7

Today we hiked sooooo far, but I’m getting ahead of myself. We made it out of our camp quite early and hiked apart for most of the morning. I was feeling in need of a bit of mental stimulation, so I took a break to leave a rock formation for friends hiking behind us on the trail.

Around 11am I began hiking with some folks from New Zealand who hiked very very fast. They kept me company until we reached the amazing Mike’s. Can you guess what we might call a guy like Mike? That’s right, a trail angel.

Mike’s is a fan favorite location for PCT hikers because there is a promise of fresh food and cold drinks! Mike’s place is a small house and large outside grill that has been hosting hikers for years. We pulled up to find cold beers, hot burritos, and refreshing watermelon! I also got the opportunity to be the very first hiker to use the newly constructed pit toilet that was completed with a real toilet set. A pee with a view!

After lounging for about an hour we quickly filled up our water bottles and upon returning to the trail there was another exciting gift of free oranges.

I saved one to eat much later when I was struggling. We ended up hiking 25 miles today because the nearest campsite with water was about a mile off trail. It’s time to be a bit real here. Around mile 20 my feet started hurting SO bad. I had no fewer than 5 blisters that all rubbed with every step that I took. I was hiking ahead of Dennis for a while and when he caught up to me I was sitting in the middle of the trail with my head between my knees just trying to keep my emotions together.

Dennis revived my spirits and we finished our hike in to DeBendetti’s trailer/campground, a home to PCT hikers. I was feeling so low when we walked into camp, but was instantly greeted with about 8 hikers that I had met before! My spirits soared and I enjoyed chatting at a table with them until Dennis and I headed to bed.

Day 9: 5/19/2025, mile 139.7 - 159.8

I wanted to properly leave early this morning so Dennis agreed to carry the tent so I could leave at 6:35am. This morning I was so deep in my thoughts that I missed the turn onto the PCT by a quarter mile. Don’t tell Dennis! He’ll find out when he reads this anyway :/ When he finds out I can guarantee he will look at me and say “you’re not directionally challenged, no you’re not” and give me a big sarcastic wink. Anyway, what’s an extra quarter mile if I’m already hiking 20? I hiked alone for the first hour of the day, and caught back up to the New Zealand couple who I spent the next 8 or 9 miles hiking with. I told you they hiked fast yesterday, and today was no different. It was a pretty big day full of climbing, so it was nice to have company and follow along with their consistent pace. We saw a lot of Horny Toads these cool lizard things on trail.

I also recovered pretty quickly from the long day of hiking yesterday and my feet weren’t killing me quite as much. Around 11 am we made it to our first destination, the Paradise Valley Cafe (PVC).

Here I took a break for nearly 2.5 hours because I waited for Dennis before ordering a burger. While I waited, I drank a beer with Scrub Daddy and we shared a giant caesar salad. Later when Dennis strolled in I ordered a burger and was sufficiently full when I resumed hiking at 2:30. I successfully caught a hitchhike (thanks Bart) with the first car to drive by thanks to my ride bride status and was off to climbing again. Today was extremely hot with little shade, so I slowly but surely trudged on. Dennis and I hiked and camped with Scrub Daddy’s tramily for the night and it was so nice to hear voices besides our own for once.

Day 10: 5/20/2025, mile 159.8 - 176.5

This morning I woke up with no desire to hike early. My body was exhausted and I couldn’t even fathom leaving at 6:45am with the rest of the group. I decided to finish my book, House of Earth and Blood, on my kindle and Dennis woke up to me crying because the ending was so good. We slowly put the tent away and were back on the trail by 8:20 am.

I haven’t felt so tired, so lethargic, so slow and so low in morale at all on the trail until today. It’s probably the 160 miles catching up to me in 10 days. I cannot remember a time when I ever went that far in such few days. Today after literally only 2.5 miles Dennis and I needed to filter water. The only water for the next 17.5 miles was at Cedar Creek which was about a mile off trail, all downhill, with at least 1000 feet in elevation of descent. On my way back up this hill, my hands were full of heavy water bottles and I was so tired I was already planning to take a break at the top of the hill. I saw a friend, Quinn, who was sitting at the tree waiting for me. I waved at Quinn just thinking he wanted to say hi and as I crested the top of the hill there was actual magic. Two trail angels in their 70s had hiked in cold beverages, peanut butter and jelly burritos, so many snacks, strawberries, cantaloupe, and watermelon.

They had the cutest and funniest sign that said actual trail angels not actors. I have never felt such a boost morale like I did in that moment. They also had the exact things I needed!! I’ve been talking about needing spf sunscreen and mustard packets and the trail angels gifted me some:))))

The rest of the day was still pretty brutal. Over 19 miles we gained 5,000 feet of elevation. I walked for most of the day with my friend Quinn and I couldn’t have done the hike without him. We spent so much of the day climbing that it felt like it would never stop. I really enjoyed chatting and had high spirits all day after the lovely trail angel event.

Although the last 5 miles were steep and brutal, the terrain in San Jacinto Wilderness looked so much like Yosemite that I was feeling at ease.

Day 11: 5/21/2025, mile 176.5 - 179.4 (fyi all distances listed here are official PCT miles. any extra miles are redacted)

Today was our second nero day on trail. We were so so so excited for the town of Idyllwild, it had been hyped up so much on the trail. Before descending into town, Dennis and I hiked up to the Tahquitz Peak Fire Lookout.

We left our packs below, thank goodness, and the views were worth the extra side trail. We had to descend 2.5 miles from the PCT to get into Idyllwild and caught a hitchhike so quickly. This was my first hitch in the back of a truckbed, and it was so exciting. As soon as we entered town we decided to order a large pizza. There wasn’t a scrap remaining when we were finished, yum.

Since it was a town day we began with the most important chore, laundry. The Idyllwild laundromat had a box of borrowed clothes that PCT hikers could wear while they did laundry. Check out Dennis and my town fit for the day while we got everything clean!

Around 3pm we checked into our hotel, showered, and spent the rest of the day hanging out with our friend Sasha who came to spend the day with us from UCLA.

We ate more pizza at a different pizza place for dinner and headed to the grocery store to buy a six pack of beers. This is where the night got interesting. We walked into the grocery store with one mission, to buy beer. Immediately Dennis got sidetracked because the store had little orange signs in all of the locations that had hiker friendly food and that amazed him. Then our French friends unexpectedly walked in and distracted us for a bit. Finally we made our way to the chilled beverages and the most PCT thing ever happened. This guy came up to me and asked if I wanted to split a bag of rainbow carrots with me. I was a bit taken aback because all I really wanted was a beer, so I politely declined because I planned to shop for the next round of groceries the following day. When we made it to the check out area I ran into the same man, and decided what the heck, I love carrots. He was so excited that I wanted to split some carrots, so I chipped in my $2, got my carrots, and he asked, “what’s your trail name?” I said I don’t have one and he said you’re Rainbow Carrot now. 

Day 12: 5/22/2025, zero miles hiked

We liked Idyllwild so much that we decided to take a full zero day and spend another night. I am so glad we did because we were able to relax and finish our chores. We grocery shopped, wrote postcards, called home, and ate ice cream.

We went on a walk, got some coffee, and later in the day we met the mayor! Idyllwild is an unincorporated community and has a golden retriever named Max as the mayor.

We finished up our town day with the most fun dinner at la Casita with 5 other hikers, Sam, Sky, Quinn, Pablo, and Flo.

I also finally met a cool female hiker my age (I seem to be hiking mostly with men) and I felt so excited to make a new friend.

Her name is Zoe and she came up to Dennis and I after dinner and asked what our real names were. Are you brooke&dennis from FarOut she asked? Apparently she has been chasing us since Dennis leaves all of the reviews at water sources under our FarOut account. Great flow apparently is our most commonly listed comment.

That was a lot of writing and I have about 5,000 ft of elevation gain to climb, so that’s all for now!

I’m stealing a line from Dennis’s blog (follow his adventure on Substack at adventurewithdennis) and posting the nearest post office location below. If you send me mail I’ll send you a postcard from the trail!

PCT Hiker - Brooke Giorgi

1440 State Highway 2, USPS

Wrightwood, CA 92397

Sending love and stinky hugs from the trail,

Backcountry Brooke, Rainbow Carrot