Cooper Canyon Campground (395.2) - Tentsite (420.8) | Mileage: 25.6 + 0.2 (For Katie’s cathole emergency)

We woke to the alarm at 5:30 and it was already getting light but Katie shut it off and rolled over off of her pad so she fit against me with her head under my chin and it was warm and so much comfier than however I had been lying before and I listened to the quiet thundering of the stream and it wasn’t much different than the wind or the ocean. I wondered if we wouldn’t need so much therapy if there wasn’t so much noise pollution and wherever you settled you could find soothing nature sounds and I decided thru-hiking is like spending 130 nights at a beach resort and I tried to ignore the nagging thought that our friends were all packing up and leaving and we needed to move or hike alone again all day.

We didn’t move for another 20 minutes because that’s what happens when I decide we need to go and by the time we had changed (it’s actually hot in the morning now?) and packed and retrieved the bear bag and reallocated food and brushed our teeth and headed out, it was 6:35 which was not a record but still somewhat respectable. Plus a lot of other tents and a guy sleeping on top of a picnic table (but none of our friends) were still there. We stopped to pee into a bush and shed our coats approximately two minutes into the uphill so technically we cheated the pack up time but oh well. The uphill sprint yesterday about decimated my hips and quads so I moved about half my normal speed up the switchbacks even thought they weren’t that steep and I already move like a tortoise up hills, but there was a nice gradual descent and we talked about what gear we never use that we should drop in Chicago (the pot handle, the can opener, my contacts, some stuff sacks, the journal and crosswords and pencil and pen) and other things? and Katie announced she needed to cathole but could wait until we made a bit more progress and I was finally feeling well rested and happy.

We hit a steeper and longer and sunnier ascent which immediately created an emergency cathole situation but the hill was all rocky and burned and exposed because the trail just cut back and forth across it so when we hit the road, Katie ran down it looking for a spot to dig and ended up going in what was definitely a dry runoff bed which was protected from the road by a large wall of dirt but might result in hazardous fecal bacteria leeching into the water for many years because shit takes forever to decompose in the desert. I couldn’t find a good spot (this is a regular problem every morning about two miles in) and waited until there were some nice bushes and surprisingly sandy diggable dirt, but the entire process of running around like frantic chickens scratching at the dirt really slowed our morning progress.

There was a long long downhill that wasn’t uncomfortably steep and that made me very very happy. We had accidentally over carried (or under consumed) water like usual, so we skipped the trickle where we had planned to fill. The trail pulled up and out of the forest and onto a desert ridge and we passed an older couple wearing trail runners on a day hike and wondered what day of the week it was. We stopped at the national forest picnic area across the road which was really just a dusty parking lot in full sun and we dumped our trash and put on the dry shiny spray zinc sunscreen that’s impossible to rub into your dry cracked chafe skin and Katie refilled our hand sanitizer bottle from the big thing in the vault toilet and then she was hungry so we sat in the gravel dirt under a big tree and spooned almonds and dried tropical fruits with the rind still attached out of the big ziplock bag until I felt like I had adequately clogged my throat. We wandered around the parking lot for a bit until we relocated the trail between some bushes up a side road and then we were going going going up the switchbacks in the sun.

I felt hot and hungry and frustrated that we were behind was not at all excited about the skittering lizards with stump tails that just ask to get stepped on and I kept playing out these scenarios in my head where Sweet Pea and Madi had joined Flow’s squad and were too cool now and didn’t miss us at all and we needed to hurry and wake up at the crack of dawn tomorrow so this wouldn’t happen again and we wouldn’t get dropped forever. And I said something along these lines out loud and then we were arguing and Katie said that was stupid and if we wake up earlier we just take more breaks and use up the hours so we don’t actually get into camp earlier and she was sick of me stressing and speed walking but that was why I wanted to try waking up earlier so I didn’t understand where we disagreed and this went on for a while with her marching in front and me shuffling and whining behind and then she said that I always want something different or better and that shut me up and we walked in silence and I tried to sit with it and not shoot back mean retorts in my head because I know it’s true but I felt sad and mad at her for existing and mad that we had to keep walking and mad that nothing’s ever good enough for me. I just wanted to be done.

I was considering sitting down in the the trail to regroup when the dense green fluffy plants that mean water came into view below and we wound down around the corner to the spring and an older man I didn’t recognize waved from under a tree and crushed the little bit of hope I had that maybe we could catch someone here. I slouched and watched my feet and blamed Katie and we hit the bottom and came around the tall grassy plants and Sweet Pea was sitting on the ground with his purple pack and his camera and he said hello and debunked all the things I had been telling myself and I felt safe and happy and valued. Apparently he had left just after Sin Nombre and Madi but she needed a break from Sweet Pea time after yesterday because they didn’t talk much and she left the last water source ahead of him and One Town had said we were coming so he waited for us. I think Katie was relieved and excited too even though she wouldn’t admit it because she was all happy and hyper and chatty all of a sudden and squirted water all over the place after claiming she could backflush the filter better than me and we made instant coffee but she foamed it up until it was overflowing out of the Smart water bottle and we were slow of course but Sweet Pea just hung out patiently and then there was more sunny uphill but it felt easier now and I felt like we could stop for electrolyte cola water in the shade of every tree. I asked Sweet Pea about his family and he said his grandparents and uncles are horrible but he’s really close with his mom which was already obvious from how much he’d already talked about her. He didn’t ask us any questions back which frustrated me again but that’s okay men are hard and he likes us for real and we have a friend. I led for a while and these tiny fuzzy blue things with wings and noses kept hovering around my feet and zooming across the trail and I asked if they were birds or bugs but Katie and Sweet Pea couldn’t see them so I thought maybe I was crazy but I think they were just not looking carefully enough because everyone took turns leading and eventually they saw them too and said they must be bugs but agreed their noses make them look like humming birds so I squatted in the middle of the trail and waited for the bird bugs to return and they did and I put my face really close to them and took some horrifically blurry photos but collected enough evidence to confidently report that they were in fact just nosed flies that have lots of personality from five feet up but are much less cute up close.

We had a late lunch of oats and peanut butter sitting in a row up the trail under the shade of a tree because after you catch Sweet Pea there’s so much more time left in the day. We talked about his photography and plans for a book or a series of zines about the trail in which we will now feature prominently (apparently the PCT is an excellent in to an outdoor modeling career) and we told him about Grammy Ruthie and how much our families love art and we pulled water from a trickle of a stream buzzing with little bees that love our packs and clothes but never sting. The trail skirted the edge of a steep slope and grew more foresty and we sat so I could tape my heels because there are now gaping holes in the backs of my socks and in the cushion of my shoes so the hard plastic inside bits were cutting into my ankle skin. We popped out onto a high ridge with big boulders and bushes and views of the clouds and the layers of distant hills in the haze. Sweet Pea told us about how he used to be a stoner but he quit and has feelings again and Katie told him about the time she had two edibles in the strawberry spring in Steamboat and could hear every drop of water in the spring and all the stars twinkling and sat in the front seat like a wax figurine.

It was the best time of day but I was too hungry to really appreciate it so I fast walked down down down and we hit the tentsite at 4:30 but there was no shade and no one was there so we decided to walk a few more miles and hit the KOA tomorrow evening. We found a partially shaded spot on an overhanging rock just down the trail and soaked two rounds of red skin mashed potatoes with our outside temperature water and sliced a jalepeno directly into the jar. I ate sitting against a somewhat pokey rock backrest with my tired legs propped up on the side of the trail. Sweet Pea adds potato chips to literally everything he eats (think cheese wraps, instant rice with a chicken packet, pasta, etc.), so I dumped the remains of our stale tortilla chips into round two which really improved the instant mashed potato texture.

The roads we cross tend to be deserted, but this one was bumper to bumper with rush hour traffic up into the mountains from LA. It was mostly fancy little European cars and small SUVs probably carrying white dads back to their extravagant homes and perfect little families and it was so familiar that it made me kind of homesick for the first time. Not for the corporate jobs or the easy lifestyle, just for our parents and the way that they take care of us and show us their love.

This is what I thought about the entire way up the shaded switchbacks on the other side of the road. It got me so bad I actually stopped to write this live which is something I never do. Who knew there was so much I didn’t understand about myself.

And then I was walking up and away and the trail turned to fine white sand and there were huge bushes with tiny white flowers that grow in big puffs and it smelled like church on Easter and a thick white smog hung stagnant over the hills and the reflection of the setting sun was blinding even through my sunglasses and the intermittent engine roar grew quieter and quieter until I was alone again.

I walked thinking, eyes downcast from the glaring light, and the miles passed faster than I expected. I caught Katie and Sweet Pea somehow and the trail finally leveled out and went through a grove of stubby bush-like trees that formed a covered archway, and I actually walked past the turnoff for the tentsite and they had to call me back. One Town and Lucky were already there, but Madi and Flow must have gone farther? The site was a tree-lined slope down toward some boulders and a view point out over the valley and the clouds with some levelish sandy spots carved out of the hill. We changed and set up our tents (Sweet Pea keeps saying he’s going to cowboy and chickening) in the widest area at the top and Katie inflated our pads so we wouldn’t have to do it in the dark for once and then we sat on the rough sandy rock ground between the boulders at the bottom watching the sky turn yellow and orange and red between the thick puffy clouds hanging over the valley and the high wispy ones way above our heads. I squeezed two packets of veggie korma into on top of our little bit of brown rice and it was delicious even though it was cold and I could read all of the ingredients and we picked some of the tropical dried fruit out of the nut ziplock and ate the other Hu chocolate bar which was mostly just bland and salty and not nearly as good as Tony’s Chocolonely. And then I chugged some more water because the processed foods always make me so thirsty even though we only have about a liter left until the next water five miles away but that’s okay because we don’t really stop to drink any in the morning anyway. And then I struggled back up the narrow sand the way a slug might if slugs lived in the desert and we brushed our teeth and watched the tiny blinking lights of all the previously invisible wind turbines on the opposite mountain and the development in the valley appear out of nowhere and all of the people lights were so much brighter than the stars because it was really only dusk and the wind picked up but it was still mostly just a light breeze and a distant white noise and then I sat backward into the tent like normal and peeled off my toe socks that are so threadbare they are very close to not being socks at all and I remembered to pull out my insoles and dump the rocks out of my shoes so I don’t have to do it in the morning and my legs and arms and middle felt a little sticky in my sleep clothes but the outsides should be sweat and dirt free and keep my quilt mostly clean and the tent is safe and comfy and warm so everything’s okay I guess. I think there are showers at the KOA campground we’re going to tomorrow but cleaning myself and my stuff honestly sounds like a lot of effort because I am a dirtbag now.

To all four of our parents (and our uber-involved grandparents): Thanks for being so invested in us and supportive of everything we do. We wouldn’t be nearly so happy without you.