Brad's Adventure

I’m alive! It feels weird to be finally hiking the trail. The first 3 days have been tough but not in the ways I expected. Here’s a little rundown of what happened the past week.

Sunday:

Flew into Sacramento, met up with my friend Seth at his grandparents house and hung out for a day, did some last minute shopping for food + gear.

Monday: drove down to Santa Barbara with Seth and Lynn (his mom). California drivers are in fact crazy. Camping in the national Forest outside Santa Barbara.

Tuesday: drove through LA and camped on the beach just north of San Diego. Got to play in the ocean a bit and saw some dolphins.

Wednesday: PCT Time!! Got to the terminus, overshadowed by the big beautiful wall around 9. Had a grueling 20 mile day because we weren’t smart. Lots of lessons were learned on day 1. We ended up having to hike in the dark for 2ish hours and by the end I could barely move my legs. The desert is very hot even when it’s only 70. Had our first rattlesnake encounter around mile 8. It was very cordial. He gave a polite rattle and slinked off into the bushes. Rough day but we got to stay at lake morena campground.

Thursday: an “easy 7 mile day. I had started to feel sick in San Diego and it was getting worse.  Every mile was a struggle. Turned in early and popped some NyQuil I bought at lake morena. We somehow squeezed both Seth and I’s tent into a small campsite only to find out 100 feet up the trail there were 4 more sites not on the Farout app. Another lesson learned!

Friday: My first good day. The NyQuil + an easy day yesterday helped and even though we climbed 2000ft and did 15 miles it was nothing compared to day one, but still we felt we pushed a little hard, especially considering I’m sick . Felt great all the way to Mt. Laguna. We met some really cool British guys Sandy and James and hung out for an hour or so in the shade. We need meal deals in the US! Mount Laguna is a great respite from the desert. At 6000 ft there are actual trees!

Saturday (today): Woke up and had a nice shower, then breakfast at the local restaurant. We’ll probably only go 5 miles today cause I’m really starting to feel the sickness. We’re about 42 miles in, around mile 77 we’ll be able to hitch into Julian and have a proper resupply/rest/recovery day. That’s probably when the next update will be. Going to get into the habit of taking more photos.