Brad's Adventure

Miles 77-153

Day 10: Mile 77.1 – 101.1

I woke up at 4:30 to beat the heat, and started hiking around 5:30. I had left my trekking poles in the car I hitched back to the underpass in but some dude at the gear shop gave me his mismatched old pair. Anyways, it ended up being a huge day. 14 miles to the next water source, pallets of Costco water jugs, was done by noon. It’s insane how dry the desert is. I have no idea where all of California’s water comes from because it feels like half of the desert so far is just random spigots and water cashes from trail angels.  I found some shade and laid down for a few hours, and cranked out another 10 miles so I could camp at the next water source. Both of my trekking poles suffered catastrophic failure several times during the day and I was left wondering if the guy who let me have them had pulled a prank on me.

Day 11: 101.1 – 114.9

I’m around mile 315 at the time of writing this and I still think the first 10 miles of this day have been my favorite so far. The open fields in the morning fog, completely alone and silent were so cool.

I met Pete, a guy from London, around eagle rock and hiked with him to warner springs community center at mile 110.

Warner springs is a tiny town, and the community center is basically a thru-hiker haven. They had fresh food, showers, laundry, charging stations, I hung out for a while and did chores, ate some semi fresh food then hiked out another 5 miles. While checking the water report for the next day I noticed a comment saying the source at 12 mi from camp might be out, which would mean a 25 mile carry, up and down almost 4000ft. I had 70 miles of food in my pack and this would technically be my 4th day of actual hiking. I got super anxious at night and at one point actually told myself I’d hike back to warner springs and quit tomorrow. I was really stressed.

Day 12: 114.9 – 139.7

I woke up after a shitty night of sleep but decided I’d follow the thru-hiker advice to never quit on a bad day. After the mini heat wave the last two days the weather was literally perfect. 58 degree high and cloudy all day. I loaded up a staggering 7 liters(over 15 pounds of water) from the stream I camped by and set off. It was actually a relatively chill day. Before I knew it it was 1pm and I’d gone 13 miles and drank only a liter of water. Turns out when the sun is not beating down on you 14 hours a day you don’t need as much water. I still was stubborn and pushed to the next water, which was a trail angels house. Unlike many trail angels who live by the trail, they didn’t even know about the PCT when they moved in. Now they have an entire beater trailer just for hikers to stay in, complete with two beds, a ghetto toilet, and coffee maker. I trudged in at 6:30pm and met Smokey and Ryan, who graciously let me sleep on the floor which was nice because there were 40-50mph wind gusts all night.

They are both really interesting people. Smokey is from Japan, and took two years off of university. Last year he biked from the tip of alaska to southern New Mexico in 5 months. This year he’s doing the PCT. Ryan is a fellow vegan, from Bend. He has done the wonderland trail twice and likes to go backpacking with his wife and 3 dogs all in one tent. He’s also a nerd and has a crazy setup where he can request movies/tv shows from a home server to download, then transfer them to his phone.

Day 13: 139.7 – 151.8

Slept like a baby on the floor of the trailer. My knees were completely blown out from the insane weight + miles of the previous day. This was the first day I got to use my full rain gear, for like 30 min. I hiked with Smokey and Ryan for a few hours then charged forward to Paradise Valley Cafe, a famous spot for PCT hikers to stop and eat. Great food but the fries sucked. Maybe that’s my Idaho elitism. I’m not much of a planner so I had no idea that PVC is where most people hitch into Idyllwild (179.4) until a guy asked me if I wanted to get in on an Airbnb for the night. I was in bad shape so I just immediately said yes and would figure the rest out later. Smokey and Ryan got in on it too.

Immediately after my meal I hitched into Idyllwild, a lady who had just closed her bakery for the day saw us dropped off and gave us a box of donuts and ham and cheese croissants. Pretty much everyone ate one of each, even though we had all just gotten a huge lunch. It’s actually insane how much food I can put down now.

This was also the day Seth had hiked into Idyllwild, putting him 26ish miles ahead of me. Even though we had only been solo a week it felt like forever, we caught up on each other’s stories and happenings and hung out at my Airbnb for the rest of the night. The crew was Brandon, Elena, lipstick, Ryan, Smokey, and me. Seth combed through the time machine of a Dvd collection at the place and threw on the third Harry Potter movie. We made it about halfway through and by 9 everyone had gone to bed.