Mileage: 24
Camp: 424.8
Ive been moving pretty decently these last couple days. It's been nice hiking alone. I'm not seeing many day hikers at all. In the solitude of the forest I have nothing but the wind on the mountain to listen to.
I'm really tired at night now. It's like as soon as I'm done eating I wanna knock out and it's hard to keep my eyes open. I'm usually already in the bag while I'm cooking because of the cold nights. As soon as I'm full, it's lights out.
These mountains have been really pretty.Even the burned areas have their own creepy character. It's always kind of like seeing the skeleton of a forest that used to be. I had no idea how much wilderness area is this close to L.A.! It's hard to think that Hollywood is probably twenty or thirty miles as the crow flies. It might as well be a million.
05/02
Mileage: 20
Camp: 444.8
8:00am
So there's a KOA campground twenty miles from here. Why is that important, you ask? Because in that campground, there's a miniature store. And in that store, they sell FOOD. The trail notes even say there's ice cream. It doesn't even matter, I'll eat whatever's there! I only have the bad food left. I'm gonna pack up and move out.
10:00am
There's this new problem here in these old burn areas, a plant called poodledog brush. Its a resinous plant that if you rub against it has the potential to rash and blister horribly. Thing is, it can happen up to ten days later. Apparently it puts some people in the hospital. I'm trying to go fast but it's infested with this stuff here. I spend alot of time weaving through it, but it's impossible not to touch. Im Wearing long pants and keeping my sleeves down though. I should be ok. What I'm really worried about is I won't make it in time before the store closes.
3:00pm
Met a trail crew. They think the store's open til 9:00pm to serve the people in campers who live there. Nice!
5:45pm
I got off the PCT and practically ran the half mile or so down the road to the KOA.
I didn't make it. :( I stood there staring at the door to the shop, devastated.
There's food on the other side of that door.
And I can't have it til morning.
So frustrating.
I'm about to find a place to camp when I meet this guy, I think his name was John Coburn. He'd hiked parts of the trail before and was out to hike the section I just did with his dog. They were camped nearby.
Having hiked on the PCT John probably had a pretty good idea of what was going through my mind when he walked up and saw me staring through the glass door of the closed convenience store.
He offered me quesadillas and an ice cold Sierra Nevada pale ale. He even paid the $5 thru hiker rate for me to sleep there that night, because I had no cash and would have had to hike back to the trail!
Talk about true trail magic. Thanks for making a bad night pretty good, John. I'll make sure I pay it forward.
05/03-04
Mileage: 10.1
Camp: 454.9
John and his dog left early in the morning. I woke up in my tent when he said goodbye but I didn't feel like I had thanked him enough, I was half asleep. Really nice guy.
I got to sleep on grass last night, that's so unusual. You never see grass on the PCT like the grass in towns.
I packed my camp before the store opened and waited patiently in anticipation. Ok maybe crazily in anticipation. I felt like a fiend outside of Walmart on black Friday at 3:59am.
As soon as those doors open...
GO!
Snickers. Check. Gatorade, check. Fast breaks. Grab 'em. No Oreos. Damn. Chips Ahoy! That's fine, I'll take those. The famous ice cream chest. I look around, ready to throw elbows. No one's gonna stop me.
Wait. There's no one else in the store.
I buy my junk food in peace and head back down the road to the PCT, pint of ice cream and mini wooden spoon in hand.
Happy. Full.
My solar charger didn't get a good charge yesterday, and my phone's gonna die. That's ok, only ten miles to the Saufley's. Then I can get more food in Agua Dulce.
Maybe pizza. :)
My phone did die. Really bad timing too because the last few miles before the trail runs into Agua Dulce were amazing! The Vasquez rocks were stunning and a complete change of scenery from what I've seen in the mountains so far. The rocks there looked more like they belong on the bottom of the ocean. Nothing but giant sandstone boulders that tower over you like sculptures with caves and pockets that catch the light in peculiar ways.
It actually wouldn't be bad to check out from the road, you can walk right into it and see it all in an hour.
I got into Agua Dulce, a nice little equestrian town, in the afternoon. I got pizza at the pizza parlor (AMAZING) and called Donna Saufley, a trail angel who hosts thru hikers at her 'hiker heaven'. I didn't want to just show up unannounced. Maybe she needed time to prepare?
Donna laughed at that and thought it was nice that I called first, people rarely did.
I took two steps onto her street and some gentlemen picked me up in their MULE!!!
When I got to her house, I see why she laughed.
Donna didn't need to prepare for me. Donna was prepared for the apocalypse of thru-hikers.
I got there, and there was a system. As soon as I closed the gate behind me, I was ushered through and given the treatment.
"To the left, loaner clothes tent. Here's your basket. Pick out some loaner clothes, bring dirty's back to me, I'll wash them."
She took me to one of several trailers, where I got a nice room with a clean bed, and a towel and a shower.
She had every type of shipping box and mail supplies in the garage. There was no post office in Agua Dulce, Donna was the post office for us thru hikers. USPS and UPS deliver right to her house. She even has a postal scale!
Soon my clothes were clean and washed and returned. She even knew to air dry the wool!
SQUARED AWAY. That's what I have to say about the Saufley's.
I didn't get many pictures. I was enjoying my rest too much to remember to take any.
I took a zero there and met Steve, Orange Ranger, Jesse James and Pockets. I got to pet Donna's horses and learned all about them. They're massive!
Pockets' dad came and bought us all pizza. That was incredible trail magic. It tasted great and was much appreciated. We had the first campfire of the season (at the Saufley's) that night. We couldn't believe we had the place to ourselves. We found out they're prepared to deal with 50 hikers at once for peak season, and they can handle more. They'll stack hikers like firewood.
We were lucky. I had my own bedroom.
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