Tentsite (420.8) - Unmarked Tentsite (447.5) | Mileage: 26.7 + 0.6 (Detour to LA RV Resort at Action Camp)

Woke up because both the alarm and Sweet Pea were telling me to get up but I reaaallllly didn’t want to. But turns our Sweet Pea was stage whispering at us from outside our tent telling us to get up because there was an amazing sunrise. We crawled out of the tent half asleep and sat perched on the big boulders on the edge of the cliff in the chilly crisp morning air high about the cloud ocean and watched the layers of pinks and oranges and reds until the sun finally rose above the distant mountains. I’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. And I felt really lucky to be waking up to that. I think the whole day was just one of those days where I repeatedly am feeling really grateful and happy and content that this is my life now. And feeling like this trail is already more than I could’ve ever wanted or expected or hoped it could be. It’s so far away from the too tired sad sleeping in work commute sterile office mornings.

Of course, Sweet Pea was already fully packed up and headed out when he was telling us to wake up for the sunrise because he has an ingrained old man schedule. So we pack up and finally start walking wayyy after him but I know he’ll wait for us, which is so nice and makes me happy but also makes me stressed and feel guilty that we are messing up his optimal/natural schedule.

We go down and down and down and its all easy walking and I do it it kind of a half awake state still thinking about the sunrise and reflecting on our life and what we are doing and what we’ll do after and really come to no conclusions or concrete thoughts but that’s okay right now I feel content and that’s enough.

And eventually we catch up to Sweet Pea (aka we find him sitting in the shade waiting for us because there is a steam and he finished his podcast) and we carry on and chat and chat and the miles fly because today is an all downhill day.

Then we cross a road and walk by some random picnic area that just essentially appears out of nowhere and there’s trail magic! Two people come zooming up to us and say I know you want a Coke, right! And I know Maddie in fact does not want one because the sugar drinks hurt her tummy in the hot temp walking but we obviously both say yes because that is polite and they are excited and you don’t say no to trail magic. And they also give us one snack each. And I am still hugely excited and grateful they are providing trail magic because it is always such a fun break and diversion from the walking but I must be honest and say that everyone on FarOut had hyped up the fact that there was going to be trail magic today at lunchtime and I definitely in my head was picturing a huge spread like the type at tailgates and this was not quite that, oh well. So we sit down at a picnic table (note that this is a huuuge breakthrough for Maddie who has aggressively avoided them since the noro outbreak) and drink our Coke (well I drink both our Cokes) and supplement our one snack (trail mix for me and a Kind bar for her) with our own lunch food i.e. couscous.

And then more hikers come up and we listen to the trail magic people approach them and do their same whole excited spiel of you want a Coke right but then the guy adds oh or we have La Croix too and I just about die laughing because Maddie realllly likes bubbly water and I know she is soooo sad rn hehehehe. Tough luck.

But then it’s time to go because we are trying to get to the KOA early enough to be able to pick up the resupply we mailed ourselves, sit and eat for a sec, and hike a couple more miles to a tent site. Seems most people are really excited to camp at the RV park itself but it’s $25 per person (!!) which seems egregiously high to just put our tent in an ugly field when we can camp for free in a prettier, more nature-y spot anywhere else (to be fair that price does include a shower and hand-wash laundry if you want but honestly those are both so much effort it’s not worth in our opinion, which is admittedly not a necessarily popular opinion. People seem to really like the amenities).

And we try to chat to pass the time faster but Sweet Pea is distracted about Alaina (his gf) who is supposed to be visiting but is having timing issues and he is maybe now seeing her a couple days later than they’d initially planned and his brain is clearly not present at all as a result. And that makes Maddie grumpy because he’s not listening to the story he asked her to share. Plus we are trying to sort out how far ahead he will get when we have to leave for sibling graduation so we can catch him again and aren’t permanently four days behind. And we go through eight billion iterations of possible alternative places we can leave from, like maybe instead of hitching from Walker Pass we can try to speed to Kennedy Meadows while he sees his gf in Tehachapi because that would give us buffer days, but that’s way harder to hitch from because it’s a 1.5 hour hitch from nearest rental car and then our siblings would start hiking with us but run into the scary part of the Sierras too soon and they don’t have the right equipment. So maybe that doesn’t work. And we look at FarOut to sus if any of the dirt roads seem like hitchable places. And we consider skipping ahead and then back later, or skipping Mt. Whitney, but everything has a problem that makes it infeasible so we just go in circles for hours and make ourselves frustrated and grumpy and finally decide our original plan makes the most sense even if it will put us so far behind Sweet Pea we may not catch up again which also makes us grumpy. But I guess maybe in a way it’s nice to know we considered all the alternatives and chose the best one so that we don’t have regret later like we could’ve done it better. And also Chicago is sounding more and more like a vacation break that maybe I really want and need and maybe I miss my family a bit so I’m not actually sad at all to be going and in fact I am really excited about it, just frustrated that it wastes so much time to go in circles on the logistics when I could spend that time looking at the nature or being peaceful or journaling.

We hit the next water source and plan to quickly fill up and keep moving so we can stay on track for getting to the KOA early. But Sweet Pea puts his feet in the water and raves so much about how good it feels that we begrudgingly take off our shoes and socks and do the same. And it’s totally worth it after all. The water is icy and feels so refreshing and the hot sun which was too too hot while we were walking suddenly feels comfortably warm as it dries out my drenched in sweat shirt. And we eat more snacks and it’s like a mini little oasis all of a sudden here. And since we aren’t going to shower at the KOA we figure might as well do an approximation while we’re just hanging out, so we start scooping up handfuls of water and I wipe down my grimy grimy legs and Maddie takes off her shirt and wipes down her entire body. And it feels nice to be clean (obviously relatively speaking). But then I wonder if removing my dirt calf sleeves will make me more susceptible to sunburn so I layer on a new coat of sunscreen which I know makes my legs sticky such that they instantaneously pick up all the sand and dirt particles I just washed off. Oh well. Five minutes of clean is still nice.

We leave the happy little oasis and hike up a mid-sized hill and almost immediately see what really appears to be the KOA down in the valley below. There’s a bunch of RVs all parked near each other and a thing that looks like a field with trees and maybe a river? But it looks like it cannot possibly be more than a mile away so it can’t be right? We still have 6 more miles to walk…

Oh yes. As you probably guessed, it is our destination, but first we have to circle three different mountains before we can go down to the valley to the KOA. A real PCT classic.

So finally we’re walking into the KOA and a huge billboard greets us at the entrance shouting “Action Camp RV Resort” in mega sized font with slightly, but not that much smaller text below sharing that this is “Metaverse Theme Park #1.” Which of course set my expectations really high, because that is quite the claim to fame.

We walk in and we hit the mini mart to pick up our package, which has a depressingly small selection of fun snacks and no bars which is too bad for our plans to supplement our box. But it does have ice cream (!!) so we debate whether we should each get an ice cream bar or if we should full send for the Ben and Jerry’s pint, which is obviously more ice cream and better value but also eating an entire pint and then immediately starting to hike seems like a risky idea.

And for once we settle for the rational cautious choice of moderation and get the ice cream bars. But when we walk outside and finish our ice creams in approximately 3 seconds flat we (and especially Maddie) do some serious regretful second guessing.

So we repack our resupply and cold soak some Annie’s Mac and Cheese for dinner (to call it soupy and al dente would honestly be a glorification) and eat it sitting in the weird concrete patio next to the large dirt field dotted with tents next to the huge parking lot dotted with RVs next to the smelly ditch river.

And there are so many other thru-hikers who are doing their laundry and showering and sitting at the picnic tables and very very excited about this RV park and they say they spent the entire day here and zeroed and it’s so nice to have amenities. And they think we are crazy that we are planning on doing more hiking tonight because it’s so awesome here. But we have different, definitely uncommon and possibly incorrect priorities and we want to camp for free in the pretty nature and we are dirty, yes, but the effort of laundry and showering is not worth it, we think, since we are just going to get immediately dirty again and Maddie is scared of all the germs that accompany amenities. So we start to pack up to head out so we can go 3 more miles and still get to our site before it’s dark.

But Sweet Pea apparently has been unable to find an available outlet this whole time and he really wants to charge his camera. So he is not ready to leave and clearly wants to stay and charge and hike just before dark so in another hour. And we could leave him and meet him at the site later but we think, he always waits for us every day on account of our late wake ups, so I guesssss we can do the same for him just this one time. And hmm if we are waiting another hour with nothing to do, well, I guesssss we should probably fill that hour with eating a Ben and Jerry’s pint, right? Seems like the most productive use of time? So we go back in and buy a pint and eat it all.

And then it’s time to go and I am overstuffed with ice cream and as predicted it does make it a bit uncomfortable to hike but still definitely worth it and not so bad. And the hike out is beautiful and it’s all dusky and hazy and it’s nice to be in the quiet nature sounds. And it gets dark but the moon is big and we don’t use our headlamps and even though dark seems scary when it’s coming it’s actually beautiful and peaceful when it’s here, we find out. And we finally arrive at a tiny tent site, on a ridge, and set up our tent, alone under the stars surrounded by only the cicada chirps and the wind.

And if you are wondering why you didn’t ever get to find out why this KOA self-described itself as “Metaverse Theme Park #1,” well, I am also wondering the same.