Written Sunday, 16 May 2021

What a crazy day!

Very chilly and breezy overnight. I was cowboy camping on the porch of the little camp cabin at Camp Glenwood last night, and for the first time, I sort of regretted not putting up my tent to get a little relief from the wind.

Woke up in a mist that descended overnight. Packed up as quickly as I could and got on the Trail to get my blood flowing by just after 0500.

By 0630, I was at Three Points, which is where I would have been yesterday if I had taken a ride around the closure areas. As a reward for my diligence, I found a cooler with 2 cold Coors Lites.

And then there was 1... Barley Bagel for breakfast.

The next several miles were pretty easy. Quite a bit of up and down, but nothing radical. Some good views. I'm carrying about 2 liters of water, but I'm looking for a fire station ahead that has a water spigot that they allow hikers to draw from.

Right around lunch, I hit the spigot, and I can see about a tenth of a mile ahead. Below me, in a parking lot next to CA Hwy 2, is a gathering of hikers.

Shazam! Looks like trail magic ahead!

Sure enough, when I get down to the gathering, there's a bunch of hikers arrayed in various positions of relaxation around an SUV, out of which a nice couple are serving all manner of high-calorir food and drink... including beer, of which I had a Coors Lite.

The host of this event looked vaguely familiar, and he introduced himself as Keys (a trail name). As soon as he said his name, I realized we had met 2 years ago on the AT! Keys now lives in LA, but before he hiked the AT, he was a marketing exec for my favorite baseball team (and yours, I'm sure), the Washington Nationals.

Today, Keys and his significant other, Emily, and their adorable and very clever standard poodle, Atlas (not a trail name) decided today would be a great day to come out and do nice things for hikers.

What are the odds?

Even better, while Keys and I are catching up, Brandon, a hiker I met in Julian, hikes up and asks, "Hey, Otter, are you missing a shoe?"

Why, as a matter of fact, I am.

"White Rabbit has it, and he said he would bring it to you."

Wut? You have to be kidding me!

Here's what has to happen to get to this point:

1. Someone I know has to find the shoe

2. That person has to recognize that it's my shoe

3. That person has to be willing to carry the extra weight a long way to get it back to me

After the Trail Magic (and profuse thanks to Keys, Emily, and Atlas), we start climbing back up onto a fairly tall mountain. The views are nice, but the Trail itself would be unremarkable, except for the fact that for long stretches, it is completely overgrown.

By overgrown, I'm not talking about minor intrusions of foliage onto the footpath. I'm talking about 7-foot high, pointy, poky chaparral on both sides of the Trail growing together in the middle. It's like this section of the Trail hasn't seen a maintainer in a couple of years.

The overgrown sections are anywhere from 5 feet to 100 feet in length, and there is no way around them. The only way out is through.

So, in we plunge, getting poked, stuck, and slapped in the face by scratchy leaves and branches, over and over again for about 15 miles. Yes, I might have said some swear words and thought some unkind thoughts about the people who should be maintaining this particular stretch of Trail. So sue me.

On top of all that, it's a fairly warm afternoon and I'm going through my water a little faster than normal. That means I definitely need to reach a water source before stopping for the night.

It's approaching sundown when I finally get to one, a trickling stream near a very little used Forest Service Road. It takes me some time to fill three liters of water from this small source, and I decide to just set up for the night on the road. There's already one hiker (Jukebox) there and over the next 30 minutes we are joined by several others, including Resupply, with whom I have been leap-frogging for the last couple of days.

Resupply has also hiked the Appalachian Trail, and we chat and joke while setting up for the evening and eating our dinners.

I also meet Hoss, who started the Trail almost a full month before I did. He's a big fella, and he was an even bigger fella when he started. He's not moving fast, but he hasn't quit, which is all that matters.

I don't have any cell service here, but during the afternoon, White Rabbit and I have been carrying on a slow conversation via text, trying to coordinate a shoe handover. Haven't got the details worked out yet, but at least I know that my second camp shoe is okay and coming to join its mate sometime soon.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, at some point today, the Trail overgrowth poked a huge hole in the knee of my brand new running tights (that I wear under my hiking shorts). Gosh darn it, I have a run in my stockings!

Anyway, I hiked a little over 31 miles today, (my longest day ever), and I'm bushed.

I'm safe, dry, and warm tonight, cowboy camping on the side of this little Forest Service Road in the middle of nowhere.

NOTE: Pix on the picture ribbon today are in reverse order of when they were taken during the day. Not sure why that is happening.

Miles Hiked Today: 31.3 (new PR) Total Miles Hiked: 431.9

Sea Otter Fact of the Day: Unlike all other sea mammals, sea otters have no blubber. Sea otters typically carry about 2% body fat