Day 30: Monday, June 3

Cowboying in the Cottonwood Creek creekbed (534.9), walked 17.3 miles today

Woke up at six because someone was supposed to come to the house at 7 a.m. to shuttle six of us around the fire to Hikertown (mile 517.6). The ride got there at 8:45. It was Linda from Lancaster, and while she was very kind to drive so far out of her way for us hikers and not charge a cent for gas money, we all agreed afterward that her driver's license should probably be ripped out of her hands and flung into the burning hills. Walking through the fire might have been a safer bet than riding with her. We skipped 63 miles of trail ... This genuinely doesn't bother me except for the fact that at least twelve of those miles were still open, but walking them would lead to a dead end at a probably closed road that would be impossible to hitch from. An hour or so after arrival at Hikertown, Julian walked in ... He had been leaving the Saufleys when I got there two days ago and in the meantime had somehow trail- and road-walked almost the entire way north to Hikertown, including walking through smoldering hills and places where the trail had been completely washed out by slides of hot gravel and sand. The plastic locking mechanism on his trekking pole had melted from spending too much time plunged into the hot ground. He seemed pretty happy about having been the last person to walk through the fire area probably for awhile.

Wanted to leave Hikertown and get moving the instant I got there, but it was too hot and bright outside and water is sketchy to non-existent for the 24 miles after there. Prudence ftw over impatience. Took a two-hour nap, read stuff on my space phone, generally lazed about until 4:30. Walked out finally around 5 with Bow and Andy. The 18 miles out of Hikertown are almost completely flat because it's the desert floor, most people do this in the evening or at night and we had decided similarly. It was a fantastic walk before, during and after the dark set in. No headlamps except to occasionally read trail signs. In the last mile we entered a wind farm and a hundred red lights blinked on and off at us at once. It's not actually windy here, but we're probably just lucky because I've read a lot about the wind in this next 200 miles of trail, namely that it drives one insane. Got here about 11:15. At 4 a.m. a guy named Kelso might, key word might, come by and wake us up so we can pace him for the last 22 miles of his 24-hour, 40-mile hiking binge, but he could have been talking out of his ass. Guess I'll know in 4 hours.

Day 29: Sunday, June 2

Still at the Saufleys' (PCT mi 454.3), a zero day

Woke up at the indulgent hour of 8 a.m., ate breakfast at the Cafe in town with the world's meanest waitress, then waited around all day. Not much more to it than that ... like Judy Collins, I don't know where the time went. Read some, hung out some, nibbled on random bits of food, watched the U.S.-Germany soccer friendly on a pirated internet feed ... basically my life at home in Oregon, except at a stranger's house in Southern California and with a bunch of hikers. The bright spot in the day was figuring out that Kristin's box of fresh-baked banana bread and a handwritten letter had not actually been lost in the post, but had arrived and was sitting in the mail area of the Saufleys' garage mislabeled. Shared the banana bread with the crowd, then went back to my shady cot and read some more. Cream Tea showed up at some point, but not any more of the cool people that I had assumed were a day or so behind me. Got dinner at the middling pizza place in town for the second night in a row ... I couldn't bear to eat pizza for a third time in three days so I got a sub sandwich and it was absolute shit. The Caesar salad was at least okay. Chatted with some firefighters eating dinner in the same joint, they were a helicopter crew from the Grand Canyon over to help out in Cali. They were cool. Afterwards back at the ranch a bunch of hiker dudes who can't really play guitar sat around and earnestly tried to jam with each other.

Could not stand taking a zero day so soon after the last one, which itself was unplanned, although great. This one was just blah and I wish I could've gotten out of here earlier, but it's not very sensible. Tomorrow at 7 a bunch of us are getting picked up and driven to Hikertown at mile 518. Some people say they're going to hang around there for a day, but not this guy. I need to exert myself and move /fram/ or I'm going to lose my mind. At least 20 or 25 miles tomorrow, followed by a nearo into Mojave, followed by ... ?? 145 miles in 5 days? Kennedy Meadows in 7 from now?

Day 28: Saturday, June 1

On a cot in the Saufleys' backyard (PCT mi 454.5), walked 10.3 miles today

Was up and out of the campground by 6:15 this morning. Knew the high was supposed to be 99 and the 10 miles to Agua Dulce were supposed to be totally shadeless (both were true), so there would be no faffing around and walking in the midday hours today. Got to town around 10:15, walked the last bit with a guy named Safari who used to work the g raveyard shift at the IHOP at Gateway Mall in Springfield. He had some good stories, like the brawl between the dysfunctional Samoan family and the lone drug-addled old guy at 2 am. Got to the Saufleys' house after a pit stop for cold drinks and fruit at the grocery.

The Saufleys ... holy shit. This is Ziggy & Bear's house on a x5 scale, and with a few more years' experience behind it. Cot and tent (huge car-camping tent, not backpacker tent) space for 50 in the backyard, Donna Saufley does everyone's laundry, tons of loaner clothes, six loaner laptops, fire ring, an entire trailer with kitchen, about 6 friendly dogs, loaner bicycles to get into town, a grill, incoming and outgoing mail of every variety, loaner guitars, a scale (I've lost 10lb), lawn chairs everywhere, shade miraculously everywhere, all without even he suggestion of a donation. No idea what would motivate someone to do all this.

Hung out for the afternoon with the crew, which now numbers about 25 ... turns out hikers like to stay awhile at places like this. All kinds of stuff was going on - cards, music both live and recorded, an Argentinian lady named 789 producing endless quantities of delicious food from the kitchen, at least 5 haircuts, a hefty amount of bullshitting, breeze-shooting, hooting and hollering. I got a ride in to the grocery store in the middle of the afternoon but didn't get anything important, just some Oreos, a watermelon, a canteloupe and a slab of beer to share with everyone.

Hovering in the background was the fact that the trail is on fire about 50 miles north of here and the detour options all sounded inconvenient--either at least 30 miles of road-walking, or having to take car rides bypassing up to 60 miles of trail. We could see smoke, fire planes and massive steam clouds from the house all afternoon, and when I rode a bike back in from town after dark, the northwestern horizon was glowing orange. At about 10pm the Andersons, the trail angels 24 trail-miles north of here in Green Valley, called to say that the fire had escalated in the last few hours and had overtaken the road and the aqueduct that had previously comprised the re-routing options. Donna Saufley put them on speaker phone and had everyone gather round in the dark to listen ... pretty wild. The only real option left is unfortunately to take car rides around the 60 affected miles of trail; I really didn't want to resort to that because I wanted to connect my footsteps from Mexico to Canada, but that's clearly not going to happen now, and moreover I'm sure there will be more fires and more ride-arounds later this summer. Taking a zero day tomorrow here to give my packages, from Kristin (food) and the Bearikade people (bear canister), time to get to Kennedy Meadows (mile 700, start of the Sierra) on my new accelerated timetable. Before I left for the trail, June 15 was an almost fancifully optimistic date for Kennedy Meadows; now it will probably be something like June 12. At the end of the day, it's hard to really complain about getting to the Sierra sooner than expected.

Day 27: Friday, May 31

Cowboy camping at the Acton KOA (PCT mi 444.3), walked 25?? miles today

Got up and out by 7:15, walked the first two miles or so with Andy, who it turns out is a huge Manchester United fan and goes to England to see matches about once a year. He was at the second leg of the Real Madrid tie this March, so we talked about the Nani red card, then other soccer-related stuff. Good for me to get that out sometime, otherwise it all bottles up in my head. After a few more miles, took another road-walk poodle dog bush detour of indeterminate distance that skipped 9 miles of PCT. Would've been over sooner except that I got lost wandering around an abandoned/burnt-out prison camp for a time. Once I located the camp's helipad and its commanding prospect of the hills, was able to figure out the road bed I was supposed to be walking on.

Even after the detour was over, that shit (the poodle bush) was everywhere and the trail was overgrown with other weeds and falling apart for long stretches. Wildfires suck. (This is all from a 2011 fire.) We could see the new one burning big off in the distance to the NW. Literally a half-mile after the poodle bush let up, I was still scanning for it when I noticed I was in the middle of a huge stand of poison oak. Arb Crew at Carleton confirmed that I have a urushiol allergy, so even though someone tried to tell me that you can react to poison ivy but not poison oak, I suspect my legs will get itchy in the next few days, regardless of whether all the poodle bush had any effect on it.

Was walking with a French-speaking Swiss guy named Julian for a time, we got to the North Fork ranger station and its water at about 2:30pm and found literally a dozen other thru-hikers hanging out there in the shade. Most of them I knew already, some I didn't. All of them planning on this KOA for the night. Morale was clearly low and you could feel the realization sinking in that some days, like today, the trail isn't going to be very fun or interesting, might even be actively miserable for awhile. At least for now, there are fun things in the future (the Saufleys tomorrow, town food delivered to the KOA tonight), but in the future when people feel low there might not be anything but a few more days of walking to look forward to. I'm aware that it can happen, and that the best possible solution is to keep moving, but maybe others are just seeing it now.

Last 8 miles were the hottest on the trail so far, was probably in the mid-to-high 90s. Didn't matter at all that it was all downhill, I could feel the heat everywhere. Around 6:30, got to the KOA, which is kind of a shithole, but they did have ice cream and Dr. Pepper and cold Vitamin Water in the camp store. You could also call for delivery pizza, which I did. Much like in Big Bear, I ate 80% of a 16" pizza by myself, only this time it just made me feel satisfied but not even full. So this is going to get exciting in a month or so. Chilled around the picnic tables and in the camp hot tub for a bit, am calling it a night now. Got to get up early tomorrow and do the ten utterly shadeless miles to Agua Dulce before the temp climbs to the forecast high of 99.

Day 26: Thursday, May 30

Cowboying near Mill Creek Ranger Station (PCT mi 418.8), walked 23.7 miles today

Got out of camp in record time (21 minutes eyes open to walking), stopped after a mile to fill up water at a campground, where I talked to a family from Leavenworth, WA for a bit. The water was for the next 16 miles, at which point there was a dubiously reliable spring, after which point it was another 8 to more water. I grabbed four liters ... as soon as I left the campground I knew that wasn't good enough because it was 8:00 and it was very easy to tell already what the middle of the day was going to be like (hint: hot). Luckily after about 8 miles there was a very small cache and I was able to camel a liter there, otherwise I would have been stretched a little thin for most of the day.

Morning passed mostly without incident; there was yet another 1000-foot, steep, seemingly arbitrary climb and descent in there, making me wonder if the ATC had a hand in the last 20 miles of trailbuilding. Met up with The Captain, whom I had last seen in town. He walks about .5 mph faster than me (I do 3mph or just over for reference) at his relaxed pace, and today he was hurrying, so I didn't see him for long. Was sleepy all morning and at about 1pm I was flagging in the midday heat and brightness so I took a 3-hour break, including about 2 hours of napping, under a huge shady pine tree. Was much improved upon returning to the trail at 4pm. The temp was actually probably hotter then than when I had stopped, but there's something about the midday directness of the sun that just sucks all the life out of you, even if, as I was, you're dressed for it and not walking a particularly hard portion of trail.

Made it to the spring in question in 4 miles and it was flowing fine, which was a relief, but in the half-mile before and after it there was a gauntlet of poodle dog bush overgrown around, above, below and on the trail that was impossible to avoid. My legs and hands definitely brushed against it several times. As the Sri Lankans say, what to do. We'll find out the consequences in a day or so.

Crested a hill for the last 6 miles or so of trail and was immediately hit with a wall of smoke from what I later found out is a wildfire that started today near Green Valley, home of the Andersons, a big trail-angel family. The smoke blocked out the sun for a while and made for a weird and certainly very beautiful evening light bathing everything. The trail would have been stunning and not a little eerie anyway, seeing how it traversed a massive burn area from a 2011 fire, but the smoke from the new fire just made things all the more exceptional.

At dark, made it down here to the ranger station, which for tonight is housing a bunch of firefighters from L.A., and was pleasantly surprised to find they let hikers camp nearby. Got some company, Didi and Stealth, whom I've met before, and a guy named Andy that I first saw today.

Day 25: Wednesday, May 29

Cowboying near Cooper Creek (PCT mi 394.4), walked 25.8 miles today

Slept very well on my air mattress, left the house at about 7:30 and we were driven to the town coffee shop, where I had a cappuccino and an English muffin. I was actually tired of town food by this point and didn't want anything heavier. I had heard that Charlie, the French guy, had come in there the day before and asked for just one egg with his coffee, so I had told him the "Oh, you're French, you don't eat much for breakfast because one egg is an oeuf" joke, but he just gave me a blank Gallic stare. I probably pronounced oeuf wrong or something. I'm probably spelling it wrong right now. Anyway.

Paul dropped us off at the trail at 8:15, I walked the easy first four miles and then holy mother of God did the trail get steep. This was the climb up Mt. Baden-Powell, named for the founder of the Boy Scouts, and it was a dandy, 3000 feet up in 4 miles. There was an Arctic wind at the top as well, which I nabbed (summit was .3 miles off the PCT). I didn't hang around long, though the view was a fantastic 360-degree panoramic. After that I kind of bumbled along for ten miles or so, not much happening of note, although the views were unbeatable.

In the evening I had to take a detour around part of the PCT, which is closed to protect some endangered frog species. The options for the detour were the "official" detour, which bypasses 6 miles of PCT using 19 miles of lousy trail with a billion feet of elevation gain and loss, or the "old" detour, a flat 3-mile road walk followed by a flat 2-mile trail walk, bypassing 4 miles of PCT. I took the latter, as everybody does. I only saw 4 cars in about 50 minutes walking the road, and it is a fantastically scenic road, Highway 2 (or THE 2 if you're from SoCal). Good times ... I almost always really, really like walking in the evening if it's warm enough, whether it's in the more deserty parts or up in the high-elevation forests, like this. Finished the detour right around dark, grabbed some water from the creek and found this nice flat spot. Tomorrow all the water and shade goes away. Boo.

Day 24: Tuesday, May 28

At Paul's house in Wrightwood (PCT mi 369.5), a zero day

Woke up at 6:45 very uncomfortable from the heat and stuffiness of the bunkroom, decided not to try to get back to sleep, packed up and headed into town for some breakfast with the intention of hitching out afterward. When breakfast was over, my body was screaming at me, and it was something along the lines of "What the fuck are you thinking trying to hike right now?" Legs hurt, had a stuffy head and I was seriously sleep-deprived from the last two nights. Walked back to the hostel, found it thankfully mostly vacated, and was able to sleep a few more hours in a dark cool corner until about noon. Woke up a brand new man.

Replayed the morning scene where I packed up and headed into town to eat with the intention of hitching out afterward. This time, the intentions were foiled by the owner of the Yodeler, Paul, inviting me and two other hikers, Slider and HB Special, to his house for the night. He said we would stop at the grocery store along the way and cook on the grill at his place. Then Slider mentioned he was a chef in Portland. So things began to look somewhat zero-shaped. I stayed there on the deck of the Yodeler until 5, shooting the breeze with the ten or so thru-hikers who stopped by at various points during the day.

Once he was off, Paul did indeed take us to his house, and it's a very nice one. He's got the mountain view out the back and the desert view, all the way to Vegas on a clear day, out the front. I made spaghetti al limone while Slider off the cuff made the best grilled vegetables I've ever had in my life ... I don't understand how so many people I know, many of them perfectly good cooks, have made so many grilled vegetables that just pale miserably in comparison. And HB made Italian sausages wrapped in bacon, which were also excellent. The food and beer kept coming out, and we shot pool as Paul played records that he'd amassed during his years as a music industry executive. Then he showed us newspaper clippings of himself with Ronald Reagan and lots of other very famous people from his time as a California state representative. He occasionally went on long, intelligent but extremely pessimistic discourses on the nature of American politics and society in general. Finally we all went to bed at about 11:30, which is like 4 a.m for hikers. I'm on an air mattress for the night.

Day 23: Monday, May 27

In a bunk at the Camp Wrightwood church hostel (PCT mi 369.5), walked ~27.5 miles today

Left the hotel way early, at 5:30am, walked over to get some McDonald's breakfast, got back on the trail by 6:15 or so. Crossed the San Andreas Fault after a few miles. No earthquakes struck ... boring. Caught up to an older fellow named Scott who moves quite quickly, and who had beat me out of the hotel that morning, though for him getting up at 5 is normal. He had started at Campo May 14 (much like with Hacksaw before, start doing the math and it seems unfathomable). He has a botany degree and manages student labs at UT-Austin, so he was a good guy to talk to about many things, including the poodle-dog bush which actually became an issue today, as opposed to before when I had been misidentifying it (he had too, which made me feel less dumb). People had recently reported "unavoidable" poodle bush over a 4-mile stretch of the PCT and had suggested a detour on some fire roads, which I took. It didn't add or subtract any mileage to the PCT, as far as I could tell.

After the detour, there was an enormous new water cache, at which I met two Utahns, Wolfpaw and A.J. We walked about the next ten miles together, Wolfpaw and I having a pretty good discussion about religion the whole time. He was raised Mormon and has gone on his mission but has a Buddhist father, and currently has a view of religion that basically lumps them all together into varying manifestations of the same basic human reaction to what he called the divine. He was an accountant for several years but now wants to go back to grad school to learn more about ancient religions, if not for an academic career then at least to help formulate and solidify his own beliefs about religion. I think to him it's not a bad investment, although in a strictly financial sense it almost certainly is, because the expansion of his own knowledge is the ultimate goal and essentially the most beneficial thing that he or anyone else with a belief in the divine can do for themselves. I really liked that way of thinking, and moreover his way of talking about religion and his own faith and the questions that he wrestled with, along with apparently lots of other young Mormon missionaries, was really intelligent and easy to follow. He and A.J. and Scott didn't have plans to go into Wrightwood, so I lost them, but I'll probably catch back up at least to the first two at some point.

Put in headphones for the last five miles to Highway 2, the Wrightwood exit, and busted it out, got there at 4:45 or so. Quickly got a ride in with a local family (names forgotten now), they dropped me off at the hardware store, where I picked up my maildrop from Kristin, then went about finding a place to stay for the night. Tried calling some trail angel numbers but they were all unreachable, went to the grocery store still with no plan, when a man named Dan came up to me in the parking lot and mentioned Camp Wrightwood, a church hostel on the edge of town that was free to stay at. Got some mediocre Mexican food for dinner then headed over to check it out. The first thing I came across was three dudes playing poker, smoking and drinking beer and listening to rap on the back porch, which suggested to me that this wasn't the typical church hostel environment. The next person I saw was Bow, from back around day 2 or so, and he and I walked back down into town for a drink and because he knew some peeps who were already down there. These were Plato and French Charlie, the former of whom I had met before. Long story short, we drank some in town, then headed back to the church place so they could drink and smoke more. I was exhausted and didn't make it up much longer. Going to bed in a crowded, snory, hot bunkroom.

Day 22: Sunday, May 26

In room 201 at the Best Western at Cajon Pass (PCT mi 342.0), walked 10.8 miles today

Woke up to people walking by my semi-concealed cowboy camping spot five feet from the trail but not noticing me. Only one guy did, his name was Guino, short for Pinguino, and he is a full-on nut job. Within a minute he was rambling on about how when I get "to the old highway 40" (this is 800 miles away, but he didn't say that), I should go to some dive bar that put him up and gave him free forties at some point in the past. This conversation, if you can call it that, was about two minutes after I had woken up. When I walked into McDonald's later he was drinking something out of a dropper from his backpack, which he explained as "therapeutic tincture of cannabis." He would not shut the hell up the entire time we were there, until he left to take a ride 150 miles up the trail to a trail angel's house, where he was under the impression that there was naked oil wrestling tonight, as apparently there always is on Sunday of Memorial Day weekend. He may or may not be clinically insane. He was a good person to be around for about 10 minutes, but for God's sake I'm glad he yellow-blazed ahead.

Anyway, my legs were a little weak during the easy 11 or so miles this morning, but not screaming in pain from the 33 yesterday, which is good. Got to McDonald's and the interstate right at 12:30, walked up to the counter without a plan and just started reading out random items that I saw on the menu, sometimes adding "oh, two of those." This worked out well and I was sated, and it cost me about $10, although the two return trips for McFlurries added another $5. Hikers, including bat-shit Guino (his name should maybe be Guano) had taken over one corner of the place and we were having a pretty good time. Reunited with T-Cozy, who said he wanted to spend the night at the Best Western across the way. That sounded good to me so we went over with another hiker, Luckywinner (or at least that's what Guino said her name was, who knows what it actually is) and got rooms. Drank beer and watched basketball and baseball all afternoon/evening. Good times. Gonna try to get out of here earrly and pull 27 uphill to Wrightwood tomorrow. This could easily fail. Stay tuned.

Day 21, Saturday, May 25

Cowboy camping on a ridge (PCT mi 331.7), walked 33.4 miles today

Slept kind of poorly, too cold and damp right by the water and not very tired from the previous day. Felt like pushing pretty hard today, which I clearly did ... my longest day of hiking til this point had been 26 somewhere in PA with Perro on the AT, now I've got a thirtyburger to my name.

Everyone had left by the time I woke up at 7:15ish, so I packed up alone and hit the ol' dusty trail at 7:45 or so. Caught up to Lenny (now Captain 'Murrica at my suggestion) and Becca after five miles, passed them, made it to the Deep Creek Hot Springs an hour and a half later. Whatever the opposite of wholesome family fun is, this was it, Saturday of Memorial Day weekend at the hot springs. There was a lot of skin and an overpowering and diverse array of smoke aromas. I was ludicrously overdressed and my tan was put to shame by most of the people there, many of whom I guessed were regulars judging by the absence of tan lines on their bodies. When I walked out, I passed an older gentleman hiking in on the PCT who, aside from his sandals and his backpack, was naked as the day he was born. Probably won't see that again until June 21, if then.

Not wanting to hang around much longer, I pushed on and very nearly shredded my right ankle in about 5 places on the footbridge pictured below, specifically that part with the missing panel. It was by far the hardest I've ever rolled it hiking, and the shock of it was so intense that the rest of my body apparently couldn't keep its composure and I got nauseous and almost passed out right away, which is a stupid and unhelpful reaction to have to a rolled ankle. I've rolled that ankle a bunch of times, but that's never happened to me before. I had to sit down and fight off the nausea/blurred vision feeling for about ten minutes, even as my ankle stopped hurting for the most part. It didn't swell up, and was a little stiff for the next few miles, but after an hour or so I had forgotten it had even happened.

Took a 1.5-hour hide-from-the-midday-sun break at a shady water cache after 16 miles or so, then decided to cut loose. Was feeling strong and a marathon would have put me in what I thought was a decent camping area. My first test was dodging a hail of gunfire (literally), as I got to a point where I could look down at a road and see two Californian rednecks skeet shooting, with live rounds and an alarmingly powerful-sounding rifle, aiming right up at the trail. Halfmile had warned about this exact place in his notes, so I wasn't surprised, but it wasn't comfortable being up there as they were actively firing so I got a good quarter-mile of trail running in before the terrain shielded me. Eventually got to my 26-mile point at dusk. Turns out it wasn't so great, and the next five miles or so either didn't have good camp spots or were way too close to the crowded car-camping areas around Silverwood Lake to be appealing. I felt good even around the 30-mile mark, and only started to feel tired in my legs once the trail began to climb after that point. Didn't have to turn on my headlamp for a lot of the night-hiking because the moon is so bright tonight. The temperature is ideal as well, maybe in the upper 50s. I didn't like night-hiking on the AT because it's all in forests and really the only thing you can see is what's in the beam of your headlamp, but on the open parts of the PCT, with a full moon at your back, it's a pretty bitchin way to get around.