25 Miles Today
93 Total Miles
Two words for today: Hot, hot. I left Rodriguez Spur at five am to get ahead of the heat. It worked, sort of. The first eight miles to Sissors Crossing were relatively cool. It was the remaining seventeen that really got hot. I woke up at three-thirty and began to pack my stuff. It was payback time for all those people who stayed up so late carrying on and so. I started out with eight and a half liters of water because I didn't want to rely on water caches, since they can sometimes be empty. It took me five and a half liters to get here. This is a 'dry' camp, which means it has no water. I have to make the remaining three last until I get to Barrel Springs tomorrow in a little over eight miles. If I leave before it gets hot I'll only need a liter.
Trail Angels had left some fresh fruit in an ice chest under the bridge at Sissors Crossing, thank you! I had a hand full of grapes and took an apple and an orange for the trail. They were all gone within the hour. I played leap frog with four other hikers cross the most desolate and barren part of the trail so far. It is 'real' desert with multiple kinds of cactus, yucca, aloe vera and all kinds of poky sticks and rocks. The trail meanders around and in and out the spurs and ravines of the Anza Borrego Desert. Utterly desolate, unforgiving, hostile to human life. I have only moved a little over eight miles from where I started even though I hiked twenty five miles. I hiked the long way around the San Felipe valley.
This is where I started today
Even though the terrain is so harsh, it is beautiful and worth seeing. Especially from under the cover of an umbrella. I am very pleased with the umbrella I have, the BirdieLite Swing Flex. At only seven ounces its easy to carry and super durable. The wind blew it inside out a couple of times yet it just pops back into shape.
When I stopped for lunch today I reached for my spoon and it wasn't there... Oh man... How am I going to eat? I had thoughts about whittling one out of wood but that just seemed so tedious. So I didn't eat any Nutella for lunch. Super high fat and carbs but it's too rich. Back to the spoon... I thought about where it might be. Maybe it's with my Chapstick. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention it. I lost my Chapstick too. Wow, what's going on. Well, when I backpack I have a place for everything and everything must go back to its place when I am done with it. In the case of my spoon, it's supposed to be clipped to my pack. I remember getting up in the dark and eating breakfast. I don't remember clipping it to my pack, or do I? I don't know, but I ate in my tent... And come to think of it when I was folding my tent in the dark it seemed like it had something in it. Sure enough, when I set up my tent, Yay! There was my spoon.
Then there's my Chapstick gone from my pocket last night. I used it at night and I thought I put it back in my pocket but it wasn't there. When I removed my shirt this evening, I found it! It was somehow tucked into a tiny Chapstick sized corner. It could have fallen out anytime time during the day but it didn't. So I lost two things today and then I found them.
I thought that tonight I might be camped at a spot that no one else wanted to camp at. Perhaps it was the fact that I was camped here. A creepy old guy is camping there, let's keep going. I really am not that creepy. Anyway just before sunset two young ladies, each solo hiking the PCT stopped to camp at this spot. Flanders and Key-Lime are their trail names. They are pleasant companions and it was fun to chat with some people. Instead of being the hermit. Tomorrow we are all planning on getting to Warner Springs where it is rumored that they serve scrambled eggs and or burgers to thru hikers, depending on who you talk to. I will also be getting my resupply box from the Post Office too.
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