PCT catch-up blog part 6

After coming back from dropping off Hedgehog and Boo Boo, I met up with team PRT (Pacific Rest Trail) again for a night at a cabin in Wrightwood. It was nice to spend some time again with Mr. Green and company. Mr Green and I played a few games of cribbage, but team PRT lived up to their name and it was an early night.

Rachel’s boyfriend Jon was on his way to see us, and I drove to LAX again to pick him up. I didn’t have passengers in the car this time, so I couldn’t use the HOV lane. I decided to get to the airport a day early and stay in a nearby hotel. It was a smooth pickup, and we were back in the mountains again for a five-day hike vacation for Jon.

I went ahead to the Acton KOA, where I cowboy camped (!) and slept soundly through the night (!) despite lions and tigers roaring in the distance. (There are some big cats about a half mile from the trail. Not sure if it’s a museum or zoo or preserve or what, but I’ve never had to sleep with lions that close.)

One of the days at KOA, I found a thru-hiker, Fun Size, and he had decided to take some of the day off. He came out to the PCT road crossing with me, and together we did some trail magic. It’s really great when hikers do trail magic, especially considering it’s their day off from walking. The fact that a thru-hiker would be willing to use their day off to help other hikers is a testament both to the person and to how great the community is out here on the trail.

Team PRT showed up that afternoon, and several of us went to La Cabana for mexican food. It’s not easy keeping up with eight hikers and their oversized driver, but somehow the staff at La Cabana took care of us. Fun Size bought my dinner. Those hikers love trail angels. I seem to be the most visible trail angel, and therefore enjoy most of the benefits of their reciprocation. They just want to give back, and often times I feel like they’re doing me a favor instead of the other way around.

Robin arrived the next day, and along with Lion King*, I picked her up and we all went out for Mexican. The following day, Robin wanted to do some trail magic too! So we went up to the Red Carpet water cache and gave out sodas, beer, Capri Sun, grapes, and chips. Oh, and gourmet cupcakes that Robin had picked out. I thought they were amazing, and I hadn’t even been hiking all day! The hikers were very excited about having chocolate.

We stayed at the KOA that night, and looked forward to meeting with Rachel and Jon for a day and a half of rest in the city.

*Not sure how I ended up with Lion King again. We met up several times over the course of a week, sometimes by blind luck. He was doing the relay for life in San Bernardino in between section hiking some of the PCT. The order of the places we went together is starting to blur together a little bit.

PCT catch-up blog part 5

The next day in Big Bear was a zero day, but it was also Date Night for Robin and me. Robin was having no cravings on the trail at all, so I thought I’d take her someplace fancy. I found a neat little French restaurant, but it never seemed to be open, so I couldn’t make reservations. This turned out to be a good thing, because when I saw Robin at Onyx Summit, she said she finally had a craving - chicken wings!

So for date night, Robin chose the restaurant, and we went to a sports bar.

Best. Wifey. Ever.

We ate $10 hot dogs and the best wings we’d had since Bozeman, and closed up date night with a trip to the North Pole Fudge Factory and an oversized hot fudge sundae.

The next day the girls went back to the trail. I spent some more time in Big Bear, and on my last night there, I finally found Pukie and Voodoo Cheese (and now Stephen), who were staying with Darin at Darin’s family lake house. They invited me to stay with them, and we watched basketball, drank Old Fashioneds made with Crown, and I taught three more people how to play cribbage. It was a great night for me, but I haven’t seen them since.

The next day I drove to Wrightwood to meet up with Hedgehog and Boo Boo, who were heading to the east coast to go to Boo Boo’s graduation. Along the way I saw someone hiking along the freeway. It was strange because I knew the trail was quite a distance from the highway, so I pulled over and offered him a gatorade.

Turns out it was Lion King, who had thru hiked the PCT in the past, and in 2009 thru-hiked the ADT. ADT thru-hikers are rare, and when he met up with Toots later they had some notes to compare about the trail. I gave Lion King a ride to Wrightwood and found Hedgehog and Boo Boo.

The two of them took care of me for the next day and a half. They got me a room at the NICE hotel, and took me out for dinner and breakfast. This trail angeling thing is hard work, you know? Seems like whenever I see Magic Man or his daughter I get spoiled.

The next day I drove them to LAX for their cross-country flight, and went back to the mountains, once again safe from city traffic.

PCT catch-up blog part 4

After dropping off Toots and Tears on the trail, I drove to Banning, where I holed up in a Holiday Inn Express. I ended up staying two nights, getting over some kind of strange head cold. Finally on the third day, I felt well enough to venture back to the trail.

Next up was Big Bear. There is Big Bear City and the city of Big Bear Lake, and both are hiker resupply points and a few miles off the trail. Which meant there were plenty of hikers that were going to need rides. I met many, many hikers the week in Big Bear, and met up with many more that I'd met at Lake Morena or kickoff.

The first night in Big Bear I slept in my car in the parking lot of Nature's Inn. The second night I was over at the hostel in Big Bear Lake, and I ran into Mr. Green from Minnesota. I hadn't seen him since kickoff, and he and some other hikers were pooling together to stay at a cabin.  For fifty dollars I got a bed, laundry, and a steak dinner prepared my Mr. Green himself, including his steak sauce made with half a bottle of Jack and a jar of honey.

I met Manchurian, Dishcloth, and Awesome that night, and Whispers was there as well - I hadn't seen him since Mt. Laguna. We stayed up late, teaching Manchurian and Dishcloth how to play cribbage, and listening to what Mr. Green called "babymaking music" from the likes of Barry White and Marvin Gaye.

The next morning I went out to Onyx Summit and brought a bunch of hiker goodies out to the trail. Beer, soda, chips, and cupcakes. Also chairs! I offered rides but everyone decided to hike through to the next road crossing at highway 18, so I got to stay there all day and meet thirty great people. In the early afternoon, Toots and Tears came through and took a break with me. They planned to stop four miles short of highway 18, but they breezed through the next section and called at about 5:30 to tell me they were going to be ready to go to town that night.

I started scrambling to get everything back down the hill so I could go meet my girls. There were five hikers on the hill with me including G-Dub and (I think) Sensei. They all offered to help me get everything down and I nearly had a Tears for Beers moment. In one trip we got everything down the hill and I was so grateful to the hikers for helping me that I nearly cried.

I picked up the girls at highway 18 and we spent the night at Nature's Inn - the hotel of a thousand stuffed animals and the high-powered nipple-removing shower...

PCT catch-up blog Part 3

The ADZPCTKO (Annual Day Zero Pacific Crest Trail Kickoff) started five days after Toots and Tears hit the trail. We drove back to Lake Morena from Julian for a weekend of information and hiker trash.

We set up camp quickly so we could make it to the shelter to watch Condor present his tips for keeping a journal. Entertaining, as was to be expected. Condor was a PCT "thorough-hiker" in 2011 and his journals prove it.

The three of us spent the night walking around with "#2", a hiker from Wisconsin, and found the large Reunion Bonfire and got plenty of tips from tipsy former trailsters. The current thru-hikers were a little more concerned about hydration, and so we turned in early - but not before bumping into Alienmarch again.

Alienmarch thru-hikes the PCT every year on a shoestring budget. When I first met her, she was swapping out the soles from some sandals and putting them into her shoes that she found in a tree! Hardcore. This time, she was trying to get reception for a radio show called Coast to Coast. She walked around with us for a while, a little suprised I was walking around in the "cold" wearing just my shorts and Hawaiian shirt.

Sunday morning I brought Toots and Tears back to the trail and went back to pick up Pukie, Voodoo Cheese, and Condor. Pukie and Voodoo Cheese went back to Scissors Crossing (after treating me to Frosty Burger), and Condor and I headed to Santee near San Diego to rest up for a few busy days.

How I Met Your Mother-style flashback within a flashback: while travelling through Oregon, we stopped in Bend to meet Condor, and he just happened to mention that he had a storage unit in Pasadena with items that he wanted to get to Bend. Well, I drove moving trucks for three years, and had nothing but time, so it made sense to get this taken care of.

We got the rental truck on Monday morning and went to the storage facility, an old building that used to be a bunker during WWII. It even had a freight elevator with only two buttons - up and down - and lines painted on the walls to try to help you line up the elevator when you got to your floor. After only five hours of loading, we had the 16' truck full, and Condor bought us In & Out Burger - the Double-Double animal style with a neapolitan shake!

I dropped off Condor at the airport Tuesday morning and began the drive to Bend. I had assumed about six hours of down time for some sleep on the side of the road, but I'd forgotten a couple things - first, the truck speed limit in California is 55, instead of everyone else's 70. Second - weigh stations. All but one of them were open on my route, and there was NO ONE at the weigh stations. So I plodded along at 3 mph trying not to do anything stupid, and wondering why the weigh stations were open in the first place.

Either of these things - the truck speed limit and the weigh stations - I could have probably ignored. I know most of the big rigs on the highway couldn't care less about the 55 mph postings. However, had I been stopped, I do have a CDL and I really know better...so I played it safe.

I got to Bend at 8 AM Wednesday morning after driving through the night. Condor graciously let me crash on his upstairs bed for three hours while he unloaded the moving truck. At noon, the truck was empty, and I needed to get back to the trail. I drove for five hours to Weed, CA and stayed at the Hi-Lo Motel. I even had my wits about me enough to stop at Weed Brewing and get the girls a growler of ETW, the beer that tastes like a milkshake!

Another day of driving, and I got back to the trail late Thursday night. At least, I think I did. I remember very little of the two nights and one day I was in Idyllwild. Many hikers say that they met me there and I gave them a ride. At first I thought it had to be some other guy with a green Vue with a Skybox and a red Hawaiian shirt. But looking back, I barely remember dropping off Toots and Tears on the trail a couple days later. Other than going for pizza and one or two memories of the cute hotel rooms we stayed in, I remember nothing. I'd been on a three-day bender and I was about to pay the price with a three-day hangover...

PCT catch-up blog Part 2

Woke up at the Acton KOA this morning. I slept like a baby last night, about nine hours of sleep despite the roaring lions in the distance. About half a mile from the campground is a wild game preserve, which has some big kitties. Anyway, I cowboy camped last night, and it was the best outdoor sleep I've had in my entire life.

Today I am at Sandy's Coin Wash in Lancaster, doing the laundry and excited to head out to Acton to do some trail magic. It was 74 degrees at 7:30 am...it's going to be a warm one and those hikers are going to need a gatorade when they hit Soledad Canyon road.

Back to Lake Morena - I left Lake Morena campground on day 2 of the hike. It was exciting because I didn't know where I would end up that night. I drove out to Highway 8 and got cell phone coverage. I had a message from Magic Man - we'd met him in Seattle during the road trip - offering me a place to stay for the night at his rented cabin in Mt. Laguna!

I met several hikers that day, including Hedgehog and Boo Boo. Boo Boo is Magic Man's daughter and Hedgehog is her boyfriend. Magic Man not only got me a place to stay, he took me to dinner in Julian! A well-earned reputation for that Magic Man. (Try, try, try to understaaaaaaand...)

The official kickoff weekend came up quickly and I got an email from Pukie and Voodoo Cheese, two hikers from Louisiana that I'd met at Lake Morena. I picked them up at Scissors Crossing at 9 am to bring them back to Lake Morena for KO, planning on returning at noon to pick up the girls - but the girls got to Scissors Crossing EARLY, as usual! They hitched into Julian and I met them at Mom's Pies.

Next time - Kickoff, and a real BENDer...

PCT catch-up blog Part 1

What a ride.

It's been about three weeks since Robin and Rachel began their hike. Or should I say, Toots Magoots and Tears for Beers. I have even earned a trail name - Aloha - though some hikers farther along the trail have taken to calling me Budweiser.

And so we go back to the beginning. Toots and Tears (TNT) started on April 22. It was a little strange just after they left, because the world felt so wide open to me. For the last five weeks we'd been driving toward Campo. For the previous two years we'd been preparing. So there was always a direction. Suddenly, there was nothing.

I felt so aimless that I just drove around Campo for a bit (it's a SMALL town), and found my first thru hiker to help besides TNT. He introduced himself as Red Bearfield. I drove him three miles to the monument that marks the southern terminus of the PCT and went back toward Lake Morena, where I was to meet and camp with TNT after their first day on the trail.

While waiting for them to arrive, I made some friends that had started the trail earlier or had made it to Lake Morena faster than TNT. The fact that I had Budweiser waiting for them may have had something to do with why they were so friendly. I met Pukie and Voodoo Cheese, #2, Luke and Ellie, Paul and Amelia, The Kid, Taylor and Wildfire, The Swedes, Darin, Rocky, Peter Pan, and several others that I would be seeing many times over the next couple weeks.

All I could really do - besides hand out free beer - was offer rides to the convenience store. It was only about a ten minute drive away, but every hiker was very grateful not to have to walk there. It was so exciting to help out, I just wanted to take everybody. Finally, when night fell, hikers began to go to sleep and the rides stopped.

TNT came into camp about an hour earlier than expected, so they had a strong start. A few of us stayed up until after dark sitting around the fire and talking. We stayed up until Hiker thirty and turned in for the night.

Pukie hangs out with TNT after a hard first day on the trail.

I've got three weeks to catch up on. The start of the hike seems like yesterday and last year all at the same time. I have never been so busy, happy, tired, grateful...nor have I ever felt more useful than I do right now. So many of my past occupations have prepared me for this role.

I am so looking forward to tomorrow. Just like I have every night for the last three weeks.