PCT Day 36 – Deja Vu All Day

I slept well even though the stick breakers were nosing around my tent last night. And even though I had to rewrite my post when it failed to save properly causing me to be awake until 10:30. Yeah, except for that and a case of jock itch, it was a great night. But sometimes there is no cure for camp like leaving camp.

At least the morning was pretty.

The plan

There is no plan today. There is a trail. There is some water. We will eat lunch somewhere and we will camp at the end of the day. Seven is pretty good with logistics. I will do what he says. Dealer will keep him honest.

Bouquets

The first order of business is water. Bear Spring is near camp. The next reliable water after that is 9 miles ahead. There may be water before that, but we don’t want to be thinking about it all day, so we load up at Bear Spring. Just Matt is there. He said the stick breakers were in his camp too. That’s what you get when you sleep next to water. Animals need to drink too.

We head west on the trail and see ahead of us a surprisingly big lake. It’s Bouquet Reservoir. It doesn’t appear to have an inlet. There are a bunch of Springs in the surrounding mountains. Could they really be the source for this lake? My map shows that a pipeline from the lake connects to the Los Ángeles Aqueduct. I will be walking the aqueduct in a few days, but more about that then.

I see about a dozen of these guys today. This looks like my friend Hubert. I hope he is reading this!

Same same

Every photo today looks like this.

All day I will circumvent these green canyons. I mentioned yesterday that I like this kind of hiking, but come on, I did not mean that I wanted the rest of my hike to be like this. One interesting thing about the photo above is the brown patch on the opposing mountain. That’s where I camped last night!

I do like this picture though. That tree is right out of an eighteenth century landscape painting.

The trail all day feels like it is cut into the canyon walls. Of course, most trails are. But today, the incision seem especially deep.

Diversions

Look at this cool bench where we eat lunch! It’s shady and cool here. Too cool. Soon we are stretched out on the ground basking in the sun. Our hour is over before we want it to be. Doolittle is making Dealer hike before she’s ready. Mean old Doolittle.

I finally, finally, FINALLY get a good picture of this glowering succulent. It’s one of my very favorites this year.

These fuzzy purple fellas crowding the trail are also pretty fine.

I get some disturbing news from home. It casts a pall over the end of the day. We still have to find a place to camp. It is windy in the bottom of the canyon. We climb up to see if we can find anything better.

There is nothing at the top of the climb. The wind is really bad up here. There is a road, but it looks like it is used frequently. We don’t want to be run over by a 4-wheeler in the middle of the night!

Just then Seven sees a tiny path up into the bushes above the trail. He follows it to a place where someone has camped. The site is desperately overgrown. But we are desperate too. Seven and Dealer pitch (squeeze) there tent into one spot.

I dig out a ditch big enough to lay my quilt in. I can cowboy here if the wind stays low. If the wind increases, I will be covered with dirt by morning. We shall see. We shall see.

• June 9, 2023
• Starting marker: 462.8
• Ending marker: 479.9
• Miles hiked today: 17
• Total PCT miles: 450