Campsite at mile 287 to campsite at mile 306
My dream of hiking the PCT started at mile 290 two years ago. I was halfway throug my first attempt at a light weight, big mileage backpacking weekend. 44 miles in two days along the PCT above Big Bear; it seemed an impossible distance, thrilling in that reckless way imbibed with uncertainty. That first evening I found myself camped next to four real deal PCT hikers. They invited me to eat dinner with them and taught me about ways to lighten my pack by ditching my Nalgene bottles for SmartWater bottles, told me stories about resuppling with only candy, and about hiking 20 miles a day, every day. I’d read Wild, I’d read Thru Hiking Will Break Your Heart and neither of those books made me want to hike the PCT. But meeting those people on that day in late April made me not only want to hike the PCT, it made me think someone like me could do it. After all, these amazing people were just people, bike messengers and software engineers and grocery store clerks, daughters and grandmothers and husbands. So then, why not me?
No reason, it turns out. We hiked past that same campground this morning, just a flat patch of dirt on top of a hill surrounded by stunted manzanita. Nothing fateful seeming about it.
All day the trail brought back memories, paired with the gentle rock of nostalgia. This area is resplendent with it’s white granite mashing into pink sandstone, pines and oaks and manzanita all rolled together from one hill to another, with Deep Creek plunging through the center – all cool green waters and swallowing pools. Today familiar and surprising, in the way that that a well worn path can sometimes shake you from your habitual revery and show you a new slice of the world that’s been tucked neatly inside the old.
