Day 21: And I Thought I Used To Drink Too Much Coffee

Tentsite (347.2) - Tentsite (367.1) | Mileage: 19.9

First journal I am actually doing live!! I am so on top of it! Actually what is happening for real is that we looked at hotels for Wrightwood and they’re all super expensive so we are going to camp just outside of the hitch spot tonight and go in tomorrow morning to save money. So today we can go kinda leisurely-like instead of racing racing racing to get into town as fast as possible.

So anyway we are sitting mostly on the trail overlooking some valley thing and it’s all misty and pretty down below but hot and burned out and grassy up here and there are tall snowy mountains ahead again and I am taking notes because I need a long break because today is hot and 100 percent uphill and there’s no water so we are each carrying 5 liters which is HEAVY and I didn’t eat enough breakfast bars so I totally energy crashed and moved like a sloth the last couple miles. But now I really have to go to the bathroom so I gotta go hike again to find a spot bye.

Apparently I really had to go to the bathroom because Maddie drugged me with caffeine. And by that I mean she mixed an entire thing of instant coffee with an entire thing of protein powder. And by that I mean apparently it wasn’t mixed at all so we’d just been drinking protein powder and now I just drank 45 servings of instant coffee all at once. So my stomach is hugely upset (but at least it’s not noro, had a two min panic about that before I realized what’s up is actually down), I feel very jittery, my head is fuzzy, and I am zooming (but not that zoomy) up the hill. Yikes I do not feel great.

Mostly I am hiking in silence because I’m tired and it’s hard to have energy to think of conversation topics which makes Maddie grumpy because she says she feels lonely and bored.

Maddie cinched my backpack better and said now it actually looks like a normal school backpack size which she said makes me look cool. But she also said it now looks like those roundkids backpacks that are the turtle shell ones which makes me think it doesn’t look cool so I am confused. We decided Sweet Pea and I should try on each others backpacks because he also has a ULA Circuit but his looks skinnier and taller than mine and then we can see if it’s just our respective body shapes that make them look different or if they actually are somehow differently shaped.

I really like taking breaks in the shade because afterwards I feel awesome. My sun shirt is soaking wet from sweat and after a while in the shade the soaking wet of the shirt makes me cold. So then when I start hiking again in the hot hot sun it’s that beautiful feeling like when you’ve jumped into the ocean and you get out and you feel all cold and chilly from the water but the sun’s warmth is baking you and you feel so good.

Also sometimes the wind blows and it’s really cold I assume because it’s coming off of the super snowy mountains up ahead and it feels like when you’re walking on the sidewalk past storefronts in the summer and it’s hot and you’re roasting from the inside out and the outside in but then you get occasional AC blasts from the buildings next to you.

We can see Mount San Jacinto again far off in the distance and it looks pretty far away and it’s kind of cool to see where we came from. And also to the west we can see the small mountains and the valley we’d hiked in since Big Bear so right now we can totally see the winding path we took for the last week which is wild. We decided the PCT was definitely not made by the same people who made the AT because those people were definitely men who were like we want to conquer nature and bulldoze a straight path up the whole coast and go over all the peaks. And the PCT people were more like running back and forth side to side winding about like oooooh look at that pretty view here, ooooh look at that pretty view over there, oooooh how many pretty views can we fit into this section and not have it be too steep or strenuous because we want to enjoy these pretty views and made some silly winding path back and forth to hit all the sites and make minimal forward progress.

Now we’ve come just over 10 miles I think and it’s noon which is pretty good timing because it means we can do the next 10ish miles with zero rush and a lot of breaks and maybe some long breaks that let us miss the hot afternoon hours like yesterday because that was really nice and made the day so much happier rather than a horrible slog through the heat feeling kinda awful which we did in mission creek.

Now it’s 1:37 and I am sitting on a log that juts off from the side of the trail that overlooks a panoramic vista of more valley and snowy mountain and misty foothills and Mount San Jacinto in the far off distance. And we are eating a cold soaked lentils and peas mix and also a tropical trail mix. So many people have passed us today, maybe fifteen, and two more men just passed us right now. Maddie asked if I think we are the slowest on the trail today and I think maybe we are. But we have nowhere to be and feel zero rush and there are so many pretty views and we are hungry and want lots of food breaks so it’s really nice to go this slow and relaxed and stop whenever we want. It makes thru-hiking feel like a vacation instead of an ultramarathon.

And then we are walking again going up up up and it is getting tiring and monotonous a bit. But also it’s getting a bit colder as we get higher which feels sooo good and the ground is turning to pine needles and the burned husks are becoming actual pine trees and the big snow covered mountain is RIGHT THERE and the foothills and far off mountains are shrouded in mist even though where we are it’s clear and sunny so that as far as you can see it’s just mountain tops peeking out of shimmery blue pink mist (which I guess could also be LA haze?).

And now we are back in the snow, well patches of it at least that cover bits and pieces of the trail and it’s like deja vu to the day before our last zero at Idyllwild. We are talking about people’s attitudes on trail because so far everyone we’ve chatted with has been pretty peppy and positive about the trail, even if they are injured. And I feel like in most other contexts people are negative about whatever they’re doing even if they actually like it because negativity is a conversation starter and people commiserate by complaining together. But I guess that’s not socially or culturally how the PCT is? And we also haven’t heard anyone being actually depressed or homesick or ready to leave the trail which is also cool and surprising.

Ok also we haven’t seen anyone the last couple hours which is weird because we were seeing so many people in the morning like it was the beginning of trail all over again. But now suddenly it’s totally empty except for us and we just passed a campsite where a bunch of people told us they’d be stopping and no one is there either. And the trail is wholly snow covered now, and it’s silent and still, all of which gives that sort eerie unsettled vibe. Which I know isn’t real, but still, that’s how it feels. And there was just a loud thud, which sounded kinda like how I’d picture a large bear ramming a tree would sound, and we sort of stopped and silently mouthed to each other “what was that” and pictured snipers hiding in the trees which is super ridiculous and unreasonable but I guess that’s the sort of scary thing your mind projects while feeling alone in the woods with scary unexpected sounds.

But of course we keep walking because that’s what we do. And Maddie makes a woahhhhh wumph noise behind me and I turn and she is on her butt in the snow, looking like she narrowly avoided sliding down the snow hill, which isn’t so steep she would’ve been injured but is steep enough that it would’ve been very unpleasant to struggle back up. And I’m like jeez be careful because I do trust her, she is more balanced than me, but I get paranoid fear thoughts about her falling off a real cliff. And she always is looking off and tripping and falling more than me because I am over-cautious. But then of course because I am tired and not paying attention I wipe out in the snow the same way. And then I get up and a few steps later I wipe out again and now I am grumpy because that one really hurt my quad which had been feeling so much better all day and now it hurts hurts hurts again.

And all of the sudden there is a ski lift in front of us and a sus looking fenced in pool of water and weird debris and suddenly we are walking down a ski mountain? Which compounds the eerie feeling because weird abandoned human infrastructure in the middle of pristine nature always gives that weird vibe.

And then we intersect a gravel road and we see a woman walking down it who we’d seen on the trail before McDonald’s. And she tells us in a wavering voice that she just had a mental breakdown because the hills were really hard today and so was the snow so she is road walking this bit instead of the trail and she’s going into town and she might be done with the trail. And then we separate from her again as we pick up the trail and I’m like omg Maddie you jinxed her.

And finally finally we are at the campsite and it is right next to the ski lift and it’s still kinda eerie but Sweet Pea is there sitting on a log and he tells us it’s not eerie at all and we’re like okay so we sit in the sun and eat our dinners and discuss the food we’re gonna munch tomorrow and think what if we hitched into town for dinner and back and then someone else rolls up and his name is Numbers and this is his third time hiking the PCT and he’s hiked all the long thru-hikes but he shakes out the condensation from his tent onto us and our ground sheet twice which was gross and rude and a very odd thing for an experienced guy to do. And we all sit and eat dinner (all the rest of our food including potatoes and chili quinoa pea protein mix and tortilla bits and a protein cookie) and then the sun goes away and then it’s freezing cold asap just like that so we hurry hurry hurry and set up our tent and get in our quilts and it’s warm and we chat through the mesh with Sweet Pea about how we met and our identities and coming out to ourselves and it’s nice to have real friends and real conversations and I am happy and sleepy and then I asleep.