November 8

Distance: 27.0 miles | Ascent: 3990′ | Descent: 3720′

Mile marker: 2530.9

Lunch: J – chicken and potatoes (A), A – sausage stuffing (B+)

Dinner: J – Thai red curry (A), A – cheesy orzo (B)

---

Despite how cheery and chipper we might appear through these blog posts, this hike  gives us a lot of more personal challenges than we let on. We don’t talk about them because that would make it sound like we’re never having fun, and we don’t want parents to worry about us. We might allude to them from time to time in a jokey way. Any way you cut it, this hike is hard physically and mentally. We’ve had our share of tummy aches, painful feet, blisters, cuts, bruises, and general exhaustion. Sometimes the hours are mind-numbingly boring. We’ve gone through moments where hiking is a grueling task and we’d love nothing more than to stop. It’s not all rainbows and sunshine. Well, it is a lot of sunshine now that we’re in the desert. No rainbows, though.

We left our porch early in the morning. We had to rearrange the furniture back to how it was when we left, disassembling our fort. We started walking the road back to the trail when a car pulled up and asked if we wanted a ride. We didn’t listen well enough to our moms. We immediately said yes! Fortunately, we weren’t kidnapped! He hiked the PCT in 2021 and 2022, and knew the whole hiker thing. He saved us a 20 minute walk back to the PCT.

On the trail, we were crushing it. The path was fairly cruisey barring a few sections where it got rockier. The real difficulty of today was the sun, heat, 26 mile water carry, and the heavy food store from our resupply that we divied last night. Heavy packs makes for harder hiking.

There was another billboard for hikers. It advertised a hostel accessible at the next junction.

We had planned our water carry to avoid a questionable cistern. It was somewhat unreliable, and hikers had reported poor water quality. When we saw it, we were happy with our choice.

We saw a lot of neat and new cactus plants. Jason brushed against one by mistake. We can’t believe most people hike the PCT in shorts. Although we don’t get to show off our muscular legs, the protection pants give us has been crucial to our wellbeing. That being said, Jason’s pants are rapidly deteriorating. The stitching is coming apart in several places. They’re ripped and stained and rigid with dried sweat and dirt. Jason also caught his shirt on a branch snag today and got a big rip in his left arm. If we weren’t so close to finishing the hike, we’d probably spend the time to mend these things. As we’re so close, though, we’ve taken the attitude that things will just be run into the ground to the end – including us.

We found another unexpected water cache! Since we were conserving water in this hot 26 mile dry stretch, we cheerily chugged a liter of the water we had been carrying and then replaced it from the cache. We feel like that’s a responsible way to use a cache.

We hiked into the cooling day to the next reliable water. Not quite a cache and definitely not natural, four huge water tanks were plunked on a dirt road just off trail. A fellow named Mike apparently manages this. We later learned that in the northbound season, they have cookouts and parties for the hikers. We were just glad to have the water. We ate dinner, refilled what we had used, and pushed on just a smidgen further, getting us closer to our offramp to Julian. We’re racing to get there Monday before the post office closes. We lost track of time and didn’t realize that Tuesday the 11th, our original target date for Julian, was a holiday.

It was dark when we got to camp. We didn’t pitch the tent. We just slept under the stars. The moon, bright though waning, woke us up throughout the night.