Last night I slept better than at any time since leaving home. I only woke twice. I even short-circuited a nightmare. I dreamed I was about to give a big presentation in front of hundreds of people on a topic I did not know well. I had put together some notes, but moments before the presentation, I lost them. As people waited I looked frantically everywhere.
Then I entered my own dream and told myself that to solve the problem I should just wake up. The crisis was not real. It was a dream. I opened my eyes, drank some water and went back to peaceful sleep.
The test
Yesterday was Keith’s worst day in the trail. His toes were better but his heel pain is back. He blames himself for leaving his inserts in his old shoes which he gave to Rebecca to put in the hiker box in Julian.
On a whim we text Rebecca to see if she might still have Keith’s old shoes. And then we leave camp.
You don’t always get what you want…
Our first destination is Mike’s Place. We hear he has a big tank full of water available for hikers. It is just 2.5 miles from our camp. Through good fortune we find an unexpected stream running across the trail a short ways before Mike’s Place. We fill up with the water here. A bird in hand…
Not long after we pass the sign to Mike’s Place we see a sad little trail angel station with an almost empty water jug and a chewed up shoe insert. Wait! What? A shoe insert? Keith grabs it. The insert is for the shoe opposite to the foot that hurts, but he doesn’t care. He rips off everything but the under heel and crams it into his shoe. It’s a long shot, but he is desperate.
The route
This morning we enter the avanza-Borrego Desert State Park again. We are angling toward state road 74, where tomorrow we will detour to the Paradise Valley Café for a cold drink and lunch. Today we will pass to the east of Terwilliger Valley and head for the gap between the Table Mountains and Black Mountain.
The early trail
These mountains are arid and sunny.
Pines start to appear at higher altitudes.
And then as we round a bend we see in the distance San Jacinto – all snow-capped and glorious. It is still three days away, but it gets me excited.
Here is a better picture of it with Black Mountain to the left of the peak, and the Table Mountains to the right.
And now I owe you an apology. A few days ago I said San Jacinto was the tallest peak in Southern California. That was wrong. There are other peaks that are taller. San Jacinto is the tallest peak along the PCT in SoCal.
I have never seen so many wildflowers this close to the trail. The desert is really blooming this year.
The afternoon trail
We find a shady spot to eat lunch. We are exhausted from the heat. But we have managed to hike 10 miles before noon. Keith’s foot is doing OK. That whacked-out insert is doing the job!
We reach the “spring” – our next water source. It flows through a gully below the trail. The water is barely moving. The stream bed has a slick red algae growing on it. The water tastes like saliva. We collect some anyway. There is no more water ahead today except for this cistern we heard about.
Desert weather is so weird. Check out these clouds. Why do they all seem to have the same shape?
We get to the cistern. It is disgusting. People have to run the water through their bandanas to remove the big chunks before they run it through their water filter. The cistern has a fiberglass lid covered by a thin layer of concrete. The fiberglass collapsed, opening a hole in the lid. To get the water you have to reach down and pull it up with a cup or pump it up like Keith is doing.
We are happy to see our German friends again, Hannes and Micah.
Delirium
Our camp is still three miles away and almost all of the trail is uphill. Climbs at the end of the day are hard. The heat is getting to us, but we can’t drink too much because we will need our water for the long waterless hike tomorrow morning.
We plod along, dutifully putting one foot in front of another. Mentally, we try to go to our happy place. That door is hard to open. The world feels strange.
We stumble into camp, hot and dehydrated. However, there is some good news. Keith’s feet held up well today. Are they perfect? No. But he did 18 miles. And he kept up with me most of the day. It’s a win.
You could tell he was proud of himself when he began asking how many 67-year-olds could do what he just did over the last ten days. You’re right, Keith. Not many.
- May 15, 2023
- Starting marker: 124.9
- Ending marker: 142.9
- Miles hiked today: 18
- Total PCT miles hiked: 143