Brad's Adventure

Days 25-27

Miles 314.3 – 369.4

Me, Seth and the other 7-8 hikers at the Inn all woke up around the same time. One of the hikers loudly exclaimed “man I slept great last night, I didn’t hear any loud noise at all” we all laughed but he was being serious. He’d been hanging out with the stoners last night and had slept through everything.

The responsible adults here, Hikenberg and High Tide, told us that apparently there was Norovirus going around a few days ahead of us. Some older guy had been airlifted off baden-powel near the summit and 2 other hikers had been camping near a water cashe with it for a day or two. If you’re not aware, Norovirus is basically the stomach flu, except for 2-3 days, and you’re also shitting the whole time. It doesn’t sound very fun, and more importantly, it would put you out for at least a week and we can’t have that. There was a lot of talk about skipping sections and whatnot but Seth and I decided to just keep walking and see what the vibe was.

We’d heard about a picnic spot at Silverwood lake where Uber eats would deliver to, and when we got there Hikenburg had already ordered three pizzas to share! Trail magic from a fellow hiker! He ended his PCT journey later that day so I guess that was his final hurrah. It was nice to hike next to a lake, even if only for a few hours, after the endless desert we crave to leave behind us one day.

Fueled by pizza we climbed up out of the lake area and to camp that night. I think this is where the Al Cajoan joke started. We heard someone pronounce Cajon Pass “Kuh-Joan” so I said that must be where Al Cajoan lives. For the next three days we’d make up stories about how he built the power lines we saw, used the radio towers we saw to talk to aliens, etc. Basically anything we saw tied in to the Al Cajoan conspiracy.

The next morning we made it to the famous Cajon pass McDonald’s! There’s a PCT tradition called the McDonald’s challenge, where you hike from this McDonald’s to Wrightwood, 25-27 miles up a mountain, surviving only on food from McDonald’s. I opted out because I don’t particularly care for fast food in general and I only like challenges that are difficult. Seth did the challenge, he whaled up with some breakfast and then packed out a few breakfast sandwiches and a 13 pack of cookies. I also got the box of 13 cookies because it was just too good of a deal to pass up. 2160 calories for $4.49 while the 250 calorie snickers bar at the gas station cost $3.50. McDonald’s was a great time, it’s an iconic PCT stop and there were probably 12-15 hikers there taking up an entire section of the place. One challenge this section was a 22 mile water carry from 3000ft up to 8500ft, with extra up and down in-between. You can cut it down if you stop at a water cache 5 miles in but stories of Norovirus infected hikers puking and shitting all over the place for 2 days made us decide to skip it.

The rest of the hiking that day was really cool. We lucked out with the weather and it got super cloudy so we weren’t climbing in the sun for the long water carry. Once we were around 5000ft we were literally up in the clouds. We couldn’t see down in the valley so we had no idea how far up we were. We ended up stopping at a tiny campsite with 6 other people. Seth and I cowboy camped because there wasn’t room to set up our tents. 4 of the other 6 did as well.

Our bags got a little soaked that night and apparently others got cold but my set up is overkill for California so I was nice and warm. The rest of the climb to Wrightwood was steep but it went by fast. Much of this area burned down recently so we got to walk through what was essentially an episode of axe men without the swearing. There was a backhoe stacking tree-sized logs into piles, another giant machine dragging trees up the hill to the excavator, and a handful of other workers with chainsaws going to town. We also walked through an empty ski resort in the burn area that was also pretty neat. I had arranged on Facebook for a trail angel to pick us up around noon for a ride into Wrightwood.

The trail angel was super cool. She dropped us off at the hardware store, which was very hiker friendly. They had a place to set our packs out back and sit while we charge/resupply/etc. This was supposed to be a quick in and out, a smash and grab if you will. Didn’t wanna mess around with the noro. But we saw a binder in the hardware store with 10+ trail angels who let hikers stay with them for free. That’s a ton of trail angels for a town that small. It ended up being the most hiker-friendly town we’d seen all trail.

We got vortex’d into wrightwood and ended up going to the coffee shop and texting all the different trail angels asking for rooms to stay. At the coffee shop we saw Solaris, one of me and Seth’s favorite people. We’ve been seeing him on and off since the Pine House tavern at Mt Laguna(mi 42). We first saw him and thought: we’ll never see this guy again. Ultra-lightweight setup, looks like an ultrarunner, and did 1600 miles of the PCT last year. Yet somehow we keep seeing him, and keep thinking it’s the last time we’ll see him. He’s just an awesome guy, very friendly and enthusiastic, and passionate about gear. He’s super crafty and fun to talk to as well. He cut open his sleeping bag and shoved more goose down(insulation) in it and sewed it back up.

After no luck with any of the trail angels, I decided as a last ditch effort to text the trail angel who gave us a ride into town. She only wanted couples/solo females but I figured she had met us so she might make an exception. She did! We dropped our packs at her house and went out for pizza and a beer. Seth got a pizza called the Ray Charles, that was basically a pastrami sandwich. It had a mustard base, pickles, pastrami, and some mustard on top. It was great. We ran some errands and went back to the house. Our trail angel was a nerd like us which was super interesting. She was watching anime, had board games like Root and Everdell and was currently playing Path of Exile 2. You’d never expect her to be into that stuff.

After we stuffed ourselves with pizza and beer, we did chores the rest of the night. We jokingly call the PCT the Pacific Chore Trail. Cleaning cooking pots, dealing with blisters, filtering water, checking Farout for trail info, resupplying, repairing gear, sending things home and picking things up from the post office. Running around town for various things, keeping stuff like sunscreen stocked. Laundry, showering, charging devices and batteries, and for me, keeping up with this website. There’s more but you get the idea. Sometimes “zero” days in town aren’t that chill because we’re preparing for the next 5 days on trail. This was a semi-chill day because you could walk anywhere in town in 10 minutes. Wrightwood is a great little town, and was a fun way to end an enjoyable section of the trail.

P.S. We didn’t get noro, and still haven’t in the next 150 miles!