Honestly I don't think I've ever been that filthy. My clothes no longer look good after washing. I have infused them with filth on a molecular level. It was the first time in my life I felt comparable to Blanket Man or other contemporaries of his that roam the streets and search the gutters for gold and sandwiches.
We left Wrightwood with a little more food than normal. Avocado! Cheese! Fruit! The first few days were good eating, heavy packs but good eating. Camped near the summit of Mount Baden-Powell, saw a herd of deer at the very top. I hope they didn't have ticks. I'm pretty sure I don't have ticks. Woke up the next morning with a layer of dust covering our sleeping bags, and not much water to wash the layer that had settled on our tongues. Made it to a spring 6 miles on, meeting up with Rocket Llama and Skip, Not A Bad Day, Dixie and a guy who's name I've forgotten (he didn't have a trail name, and I seem to find it easier to remember trail names. He seemed a good guy though).
This was where we heard about the fire, Rocket Llama said she could smell the smoke the previous night and ran about terrified that she'd be swept up in it during the night. Skip informed us it was after Agua Dulce (about 50 or so miles away), but it wasn't contained and could go on for several more days. It was then we realised the pretty red sunset we'd enjoyed from the summit the previous evening had actually been the effects of a fire that has now spread over 25,000 hectares and resulted in many hikers and an entire town's evacuation. Well it seemed miles away, and I had cheese and avocado so everything was just dandy.
We hiked 21 miles, ate instant mash at a packed campground and bedded down a few miles further on in what seemed like the most stereotypical US scouts-sitting-around-the-fire-telling-ghost-stories campground. Camp Glenwood or something like that. Mixer gave us our first try of Cinnamon Whisky, we loved it.
The next day was very hot, by 10am it was hotter than the hottest day I've ever experienced in NZ. It was so hot I felt like a fried fajita with extra hot sauce. I don't know if they fry fajitas, but if they do I'd feel similar to that. We came across another damn rattlesnake that wouldn't budge, this one wasn't digesting, though we found a dead mouse 20 meters up the trail from it. It was coiled, ready to strike, and whenever we got close it would rise up rattling that burst water main rattle. I wanted a photo, Rebecca wanted to get the fuck out of the sun. We bushwhacked around it, i went back for my photo which didn't turn out very good anyway. Damn snake wasn't co-operative at all.
At about 10:30 we hid in the shade, limited shade. The kind that was disappearing as the sun moved, and you knew it was running out fast. I scouted ahead for better shade, found it, moved and lay down for four hours. Mixer caught up and did not sound happy, he had a cut foot and hadn't been able to keep food down for a few days. He hitched ahead to Agua Dulce at the next road crossing... which was in 11 or 12 miles. And on our limited water you weren't going to make it there if you started hiking before 5pm. We found this out when we tried to hike out at three. At 4:15 we hunker down until 5:30, Coyote Jodie and Vagazzle pass us saying there's a potential water seep in a mile or two. This turned out to be a tiny pool about 30cm by 15cm and 5cm deep, it was wonderful. Cool and you could taste the minerals.
At this point we started encountering bad Poodle Dog Bush, we've heard of people needing hospital treatment just for touching the stuff. Blisters and severe dermatitis. It was everywhere, almost unavoidable. dodging that bush almost doubled our energy output. I hate Poodle Dog Bush. It looks like a Dr. Seuss plant and stinks of marijuana. I heard some guys tried to smoke it, I wonder if they're still around. Basically this stuff grows like mad after a forest fire, completely floods the area. Yet another reason to reduce forest fires.
Finally we make it past and downhill towards a Fire Station for water and rest. We get our first good view of the smoke from the fires, a bit of night hiking and we arrive at about 9:30pm. A voice crackles updates of something over an intercom (someone said fires, someone said bear attacks, it sounded a bit dramatic) but the place is deserted with a sign says we can camp out back. We have dinner, mashed potato with hot sauce, croutons and pumpkin seeds then set the tent up. We're still not cowboy camping, and happy about it. Critters everywhere and your bag gets soaked with condensation.
Up at 4am, see Skip and load up on water. It's going to be 17 miles before the next source. The Poodle Dog Bush is even worse, in one part we walk through a crazy gauntlet of Poodle Dog Bush with hundreds of bees whizzing across the trail. Kinda like Indiana Jones with the poison darts, Rebecca is wearing shorts too! A few miles in there's a detour with a ten mile road walk, half of which is steep uphill. I see a helicopter fly over with what look like massive water containers, maybe bound for the fire that could be coming closer with every minute. But we don't think that, it's a long way off and we find shade under a nice healthy pine. Those have become rare in the last section, so much forest devastated by fires it looks, as Paul aptly put it, like a wasteland. Like The Road. Most people are getting over the desert, we definitely were. It wasn't a very attractive section, too much blackened tree skeletons and Poodle Dog Bush. I'm over dancing around the stuff. Though we can now do a sick Poodle-Dog-Robot.
It actually got cold under the shade by 2 pm, I think we were at 6000 feet so the breeze can be fairly brisk. It had only been 3.5 hours, but it was time to warm up and we wanted to make 25 miles. Of course it got too warm, but at least there was a breeze. We look across and see smoke billowing what seems like miles into the sky, imagine volcanic eruption minus the volcano. Lots of downhill, and too much uphill (it's always too much) later we arrive at the Ranger Station, water time! The Ranger informs us that 60 miles of the trail is under fire and we'll get shuttle around it when we reach Hiker Heaven in Agua Dulce. More Mashed Potato, and off we go for a further 8 miles to try complete our 25 mile day. We only make it 24. 1 mile short of a campground which we find out the next day was full of PCT hikers frying bacon, drinking home brew beer and having showers.
At least we got a shower and some left overs the next morning, thank you Scrub Rat and Doe Eyes! The best hot dogs and fruit breakfast ever. We're there with Meanderthal, White Lightning, Brock and Jordan. Scrub Rat and Doe Eyes (who aren't hiking this year) offer to drive our stuff to hiker heaven so we only need to take minimal stuff for the 10 miles there (they call it slack-packing, a term I'd like to become more familiar with). It was still dry, but we hiked through some rocks that were on Star Trek and The Flintstones! Rebecca and I push on ahead and get to Agua Dulce first, a nice guy who rode the whole PCT on his horse (impressive!) in 2008 gave us a ride from town out to Hiker Heaven (arg I've forgotten his name!).
And here we've been; relaxing, eating peanut butter ice cream and spaghetti bolognese, cereal. Cleaned up and watched a couple of films, a real bed and free internet. This place is heaven, so well organised. No charge and it has better services than most hostels I've visited. It's amazing. Simply amazing. They have bikes to go into town, which we utilised for food shopping and may use again tonight as a place in town is doing all you can eat ribs for $15. The place was pretty packed last night, but I think most of them got shuttled out today to Hiker Town on the edge of the Mojave desert. We're planning to go out tomorrow, might hike through the night and try do the 27 or so miles of the Mojave in one go. Hoping all goes well.
Oh and we now have hiker names, Rebecca is now Concrete Babe and I am Captain America (or Captain 'Murica).
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