November 11

Distance: 13.5 | Ascent: 2740′ | Descent: 1110′

Mile marker: 2592.2

Lunch: J – burger with apple jelly and bleu cheese (A+), A – chicken and waffles (A+)

Dinner: J&A – strawberry rhubarb pie (A+)

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It’s nice to have a bed to sleep in, maybe. Jason is so used to his camp pad and sleeping bag that the incredibly comfortable bed at the hotel was a challenge for him to get a full night of sleep. He’ll adapt back to normalcy again, probably.

We got coffees to sip as we soaked in the rest of our hotel room, our last real break before finishing the hike. We were glad to be somewhat frugal in Washington and Oregon because we feel slightly less guilty about getting hotels and buying food in town as we crawl to the finish line. The only room available in Julian was a bit pricier than we had hoped, but we couldn’t really avoid the holiday in peak apple season.

We divided out our resupply box. Since we only had a few days left to the end, we were picker with the meals. We donated our least favorites to a hiker box. We only chose to carry exactly what we need. There is no more carryover between boxes nor next section.

After leaving the hotel, we walked into town to find a few of our friends sitting outside the pie shop. They had gone hard, harder than we did, in the pie shop. We chatted about all the things we chat about: how to get back to trail, how tasty the town food is, how many people are crammed into this tiny town, and where we plan to camp that night. We saw them off as we went to find lunch. But before they left, one of them went back inside the pie shop to order an entire pie for the road.

Across the street was a little bakery/café/restaurant. We ordered takeaway and waited. While we waited, Jason went to scout for an open electrical outlet to put some last minute charge on our electronics. He also stopped in at the pie shop to get us our own whole pie for the road.

We ate on the sidewalk. We’re basically fancy hobos at this point. We can be civilized, but we stand out like a sore thumb amongst the clean insta-ready tourists. Might as well embrace it, right?

We got a ride to trail with two other hikers we know. The day was beginning to cool a bit and some clouds were shielding us from the sun. We had a moderate climb out of town, par for the course, but it wasn’t unbearably hot.

Of course, the sun set and we finished the hike in the dark. The short days are a mixed blessing. On one hand, the hottest part of the day is relatively mild. On the other hand, we have to hike in the dark a lot. Pushing 25+ miles in only daylight hours is not possible for our comfortable walking pace.

We stopped by a water source where two friends had setup camp. We chatted, ate some pie (they had purchased one in town too), and filtered some water. We pushed on a bit further, but didn’t quite make it to our planned campsite. We didn’t want to climb the last hill, our legs were weary and it was getting late. We’ll just do the hill as a warm-up first thing in the morning! We ate more pie as we made camp. The pies in Julian are very good, though, they are a bit heavy to hike with.