Category: PCT

Hiker Heaven (mile 454) to Casa de Luna (mile 478)

“You’re the carrot” Hulk shouts at me. “You can’t rest, you’re the one keeping us hiking fast. The carrot on the stick method works better if the carrot doesn’t stop for breaks.”

Slowly I comprehend what he’s going on about. We’re all making the push from Hiker Heaven to Casa de Luna today, 24 miles with nearly 6,000 feet of climbing. And since Keith and I are in front after lunch we’re now the carrot. Or really, I am since I’m the one who sets the pace when we’re hiking.

So now me, Keith, All American Austin, Mayhem, Hulk, Lite Brite, and Loner are pushing to Casa de Luna – a trail angels house where they allegedly serve taco salad to hikers and make everybody wear Hawaiian shirts. This very plan was something we all said we weren’t going to do when the subject came up yesterday on the porch. Comical. Our failure at moderation is comical. But, as is so common on the trail everybody has been swept up in the fervor of everybody else’s silly idea so here we are and I’m the carrot.

Fine then.

We set off down the hill, I’m in the lead and I silently resolve not to let anybody pass me. If I’m to be a carrot on a stick then I’m going to be damn hard to catch. We hurry around the bend and immediately recognize two hikers, stop to chat. Then I have to pee and before I know it Loner is on our ass and Hulk is right behind. We take off and I know that I’m not fast on the downhills. I’m always worried I’ll hurt my knees and so I mince my way on the descents. But I know if I can just hold on until an uphill we can drop the guys. I’m a member of a small minority of hikers who actually prefers climbing to descending, and I use this to my advantage this afternoon.

The trail this afternoon is a series of moderate climbs and descents. Up one ridge and down the back. Up another ridge and down the back. Three, four times, I loose count. It’s all the same rolling ridges and scrubby manzanita that we’ve been hiking through, but with the afternoon sun just right on the reseeding ridges the view is spectacular. Overhead we’ve had on and off again clouds all day, sort of threatening rain, but just kidding because we’re still in the desert.

One hour since the ridge with everybody and I’m getting hungry. But Loner is only a hundred meters back, he keeps gaining on the descent and then we drop him on a climb. Two hours since the ridge and I’m definitely hungry now, but I want to win. Loaner is close, Hulk right behind and I don’t want to have pushed so hard just to be passed three miles from the road. I know it’s arbitrary and pointless and that I’ll pay for my lack of calories now with sore muscles but damnit I want to win.

I want to win, but also I want to see what I can do. I didn’t want to do a 24 mile day after a 9am start, but now that we’re going for it, the thrill of crushing myself with effort is exciting. Maybe everybody who takes on a thru hike is the kind of person who likes to push their limits – occasionally to the breaking point. It’s what, so far, has made this hike fun 90% of the time. Even on the shit days, even on the long days and boring days and hot days, the chance to see if I can do this hike is fun. It also doesn’t hurt that when you spend two hours climbing a hill your brain rewards you with a euphoria-inducing rush of endorphins.

With just a few miles to the road I know we’re going to be first. So now it’s time to accelerate. Yes, we’re going to win, but now it’s about seeing how fast we can get there. I’m grateful Keith is willing to put up with this, and fit enough to do so. We jettison water in an effort to lighten our bags and I start laughing at the whole thing. Like we’re some kind of Nascar pit crew, except it’s just us and we’re participating in one of the slowest activities ever. Still, it’s fun and funny and that’s the whole point. We might win the rush to the road but you can’t win at thru hiking. Nobody gives out a first place metal in Canada and odds are your friends and family will lose interest in your hike long before you do. It has to be fun, and today is it.

Over another ridge and I can see the road. We’re going to make it before the others, before my random time goal. 24 miles in under 10 hours, including a lunch break. The last 15 miles in six hours. I’m the fastest vegetable known to man! I’m going to get taco salad for dinner!

At the road a kind lady gives me an apple and I nearly inhale it. My legs are tingling from the effort and I know I’ll be sore tomorrow, but I can’t help grinning like an idiot. 90% fun, this is definitely fun 90% of the time.

Zero at Hiker Heaven – no hiking

The Saufleys and the volunteers who run Hiker Heaven are kind beyond reason. They offer everything a hiker could want – laundry, wifi, showers and loaner clothes, a place to stay, a kitchen to cook in, and a trailer to relax in, they’ll even drive you the 1 mile into town if you don’t want to walk. If you stay there, give them $20/night per person. These sort of amenities are not free for these folks to run, show your support with your wallet if you can.

Acton KOA (mile 444) to Hiker Heaven (mile 454)

It’s been one month on the trail! Well, plus one day, but give me a break, I’ve been busy ya know? Anyway, I want to start a monthly series where I examine what I’ve learned on the trail.

1. Saying “the old white guy with the beard” or “the young white guy with the beard” describes 70% of the hikers within your immediate proximity. Diversity on the trail is conspicuous only in it’s absence.

2. Hiking with your partner is awesome! At least for us. I think this largely comes down to both of us really wanting to hike the PCT, as a couple and more importantly as individuals. We can share gear and motivation, and having your person on trail keeps homesickness at bay.

3. Pack weight isn’t as important as you’ve been lead to believe (within reason). While I do believe that your bag should be as light as you can comfortably get it, I’d say if your base weight is 15lbs +/- 5, you’re fine. We’ve seen people with bigger bags cruise past us, and folks with UL dream kits struggling to crack double digit days. Far more important is familiarity with hiking and overall fitness.

4. Digging a cathole is still my least favorite part of hiking. For those who don’t know, a cathole is a 6-8in hole, 200 feet (70 steps) from trail, water, and camp, that you poop in. Yep, in nature even humans bury their poo. And while it’s not the biggest of annoyances, it certainly makes one appreciate indoor plumbing.

5. Trail angels are a national treasure. Be kind to them and appreciate these complete strangers who are helping you achieve this bizarre goal.

6. Sour gummies are bomb dot com! Haribo or nothing. Also, resuppling is strangely stressful.

7. When you visit Carmen’s in Julian you’ll see strawberries and hearts painted on the deck. These were done by a 2017 hiker trail named Strawberry, who died while hiking the trail last year when she tried to ford a swollen river in the Sierra and was swept down stream. The PCT has a lot of safe guards, but it is not a venture that should be taken lightly. People can and do die on the trail and developing your skills as outdoors person should be high on your priorities pre trail.

8. You don’t need to be an experienced backpacker to succeed on the trail – but it greatly helps. Little things like knowing animal tracks, how to anticipate flow patterns of spring rivers, how to self arrest with or without an ice axe, and personal knowledge such as how many miles you can go on a liter of water given the current temperature are all things you can learn on the trail, but you’re better off knowing them ahead of time. Luckily the trail will still be here next year, and in 10 years thanks to the wonderful folks at the PCTA. I’d encourage novice hikers to develop backcountry skills before starting the trail, you’ll be happier for it.

9. It’s better to over pack food than under pack. Always.

10. Gently Used is the best trail name of the class of 2018. Shout out to my man Sam!

Thanks to all of you who have been reading along, I don’t always get the chance to reply to the comments I get, but I read them all and appreciate every one. If there is anything you’d like me to write about or stuff you’d like to know about the PCT let me know by commenting below or contacting me via my About page or on Instagram @KayMKieffer.

Campsite at mile 423 to Acton KOA (mile 444)

Los Angeles below and the desert above and in between we traverse a green ridge scarred from a recent burn. I’m growing tired of the desert which, perhaps I’m not supposed to say. Perhaps I’d have a more popular blog if everything was endless positivity and mindless cheer, but that bores me more than the desert does on this warm day. Perhaps you, dear reader, would rather I bestow pages of nature porn for your consideration. And yet perhaps, definitely, I’m not that person, and I’m not sorry either.

By the time we reach the Mill Creek Ranger Station we’ve been descending for miles, with another eight to go. And if we can make it by 5pm there is ice cream at the KOA. Keith wants to push for it, I do not. To rouse myself into the proper mood there is only one album that will suffice: Pictures at an Exhibition by Mussorgsky. A classical composition that describes a trip through a gallery, as the name suggests. It’s a composition that I’ve loved since Keith and I saw the penultimate performance from the LA philharmonic. At once lilting and powerful, a whimsical circus of music that would make for a brilliant Fantasia sequel. Written by a man who lived a life that can euphemistically be described as disheveled – which is to say he was an alcoholic and a glutton who resented the establishment and died young. But a genius, undeniably a genius.

The music juxtaposed against a knee jarring descent takes on a life of it’s own. Marching brass, muted trumpet follow lines of mud green plants, their leaves small in this arid environment in an effort to preserve water show more bark than in proper. The hills are green and yet not. A stray oboe – Tuleries – and a burst of yellow flowers, violently bright with the saturation cranked up too high. Tumbling brutal cellos paired with dancing piano – the shock white granite that gives way to the dark black soil of burned manzanita. Further evidence that this land relies on and is grown from fire. And always with the familiar refrain of the Promenade, taking us around and around in the special, occasionally maddening, consistently circuitous way that the PCT inches it’s way north.

Campsite at mile 404 to campsite at mile 423

I sometimes worry that I won’t remember my own life, that I’ll look back from old age and see only vague shapes and darkness. I worry that all these years will have been wasted on someone who struggles to find presence. Perhaps this is a result of having an over active brain of sorts. One that’s usually thinking about one or more things while my body navigates through the world with relative autonomy. Am I ever truly paying attention? What does that feel like? But then, conversely, what else am I doing while I walk for hours, uninterrupted by consumable media and distraction? Maybe this absence of input is why I feel most myself when hiking long distances through the mountains. There is nothing but the wild to draw my attention, and more importantly, nobody for whom I need to perform. It’s a rare thing to simply be without feeling the eyes of others. To simply look without being sold or told or influenced.

For example, today I saw a black lizard. Only this time, for the first time, I noticed that it wasn’t simply black, but flecked with iridescent green and blue. I have walked hundreds of miles and seen nearly as many of these lizards and yet only today did I notice their lovely colors. This is why I want to be out here. I want to look at everything, see it change around me slowly, by degrees. Nothing is quick when observation is dictated by walking pace. Time and scale feel not only immeasurable, but also remarkable. That any one thing could come to exist in a world as diverse and vast as our own.

How special I must be then. That of all the star dust in all the universe there came to be a solar system capable of producing a single marvelous planet on which all sorts of beautiful life exists, and from that massive spinning ball of life I managed to spring forth with sentience and a body – all of which aligned to have me standing on a hillside a cool breeze dancing over my skin. Alive, undeniably alive and able to see it all. It’s a thing of such improbability that I can only observe it in small doses. Like tonight, I can see it tonight.

From our campsite the mountains roll away in ever darkening lines, some porcupined with trees, others smooth rock. The airborne dust which muted everything during the day now provides gentle gradation when paired with the setting sun. Below and far away the lights of the inland empire blink into existence. Above and further away airplanes bound for LAX leave their fluffy trails in the sky, lit pink and orange, their altitude buying them some last rays of sunlight. I look at the scene for a long time, reluctant to pull closed the tent door. Like dropping the curtain during the last act of a play, I don’t want to miss anything.

Finally finally the last of the warm colors leave the sky, replaced by the cool blue of the moon casting it’s ghostly shadows over the dark land. I crawl into our tent, this little bubble of warmth and down. The scene has ended for us daytime creatures and we must exit the stage for the unseen nightly dramas of the bats and coyotes. Though over, I am glad to have been a part of it.

Little Jimmy Camp (mile 384) to campsite at mile 404)

All day feels familiar. Not in the similar but unique way, but in the literal sense of having been someplace before. I have hiked or run the trail from Vincent Gap to Three Points at least half a dozen times in various combinations and segments. While much of the southern California section of the PCT has been near or part of hikes I’ve taken during eight years in LA, none has been so visited as the segment we’ve covered yesterday and today.

The trail here is so well traveled that I cannot muster the appropriate enthusiasm for the remarkable band of mountains which sits squarely between two deserts. I take two pictures all day, though not for want of beauty. Only due to my very human tendency to take things for granted, in the way we do not tell those who mean the most to us how much we truly love them. Assuming they’ll be there tomorrow and the next day, because the knowledge of impermanence is too painful to consider often. But my relationship to these mountains is actively ending, each step takes me further towards the end of the map of familiarity. After the Sierra I’ll fall off the edge of my map completely. Of course, I can find excitement in the unknown in a way I’ve never been able to with the familiar.

The trail so far has felt like waking across a puzzle of a map that’s only partially completed. One ridge known while the next is someplace I’ve never been. It’s fun to fill in the missing pieces via the intimate mode of walking. Knitting together the seams into not quite a quilt, but a scarf: a long thin band just a little wider than the PCT itself. To me, thru hiking is not about knowing one place intimately, but many places in a surface level way. The land rising up and melting away around you while the pressure of seasons keeps you moving north, unable to explore every lovely campground or cascading canyon. This mode of travel is both sad and deeply appealing to me.

So what of these remarkable mountains that I’ve failed to remark on. The mountains of Angeles National Forrest are steep, all plunging valleys and thin ridges that slice into the peaks. Like you could juice an orange on the top of every single one. Covered in rocky crags and equal parts pine and chaparral, they’re not friendly mountains, containing too many sharp edges and not enough soft meadows. Their foothills roll away in ever dropping layers of tan and gold until they flatten completely and merge into the desert. While I know these mountains better than any of the terrain we’ve walked through thus far, and yet I only know, only will ever know, a fraction of their breadth.

Yesterday we were high in a pine forest, surrounded by peaks that almost but not quite break tree line. Today we started in that same forest, but spent the day dropping back down into the desert. Slowly at first, and then all at once in the last mile of the day we slid from forest into scrub and sand. All day I knew the desert was coming, where yesterday the wind was cool, today it held the warmth of lower dryer climes. The wind bringing the promise of newness, where perhaps in the throes of novelty I will take more pictures.

Highway 2 (mile 369) to Little Jimmy Camp (mile 384)

I have three hours between waking up and leaving town. In that time I need to figure out an entire new hiking outfit. The shorts I loved pre-trail now have a massive hole in the inseam after less than 400 miles. The shirt I agonized over is rubbing my back raw. I hate online shopping and I hate buying new clothes, but the trail is all about being adaptable, so here we are. Thank goodness Keith is a champion shopper and is willing to help me find a sun protective shirt that won’t rub my skin off.

However, Keith has never bought women’s clothing and so doesn’t understand that size 8 is only marginally relevant, that a size small in one brand is a large in another. A point that is reinforced when the shorts that I’ve ordered into town prove to be too small for me to even pull up over my thighs (even though I’m wearing the same size shirt from the same company that fits great). In the end I buy a few sizes of a few different things and silently thank the stars for whoever invented free returns.

After the shopping debacle I’m emotionally drained, stuck wearing the same clothes for another 85 miles and it’s time to hike. Ah trail life, so sexy. Because this is my blog and I can say whatever I want I want to take a moment and tell women’s clothing manufacturers to get their shit together. Get all your poop in a group and start designing clothes for women with boobs and asses. You’d think that body parts that are fetishised in this country the way boobs and butts are would lead to clothes built to accommodate those assets, but no. According to clothing manufacturers women are just short men with waists who wear pink.

My only solice is to cry a little bit to Keith, text my mom, and then plaster a smile on my face and hitchhike out of town. After a few warm up miles we begin the climb up Baden Powell. 3,000 feet in less than four miles. My brain is super soakered in endorphins at the summit and I sit mindlessly eating cookies dipped in Nutella surrounded by massive rolling peaks. To the north the desert stretches into nothingness and I feel like we’re standing on the edge of a video game, the flat tan whatever is just a segment that hasn’t been rendered yet. Above us the moon hangs half full in the sky, seeming somehow closer than Canada. I push this all from my mind and watch the sun lower and warm the land around us. Distant miles are for future Kara to worry about.

Campsite at mile 358 to highway 2 (mile 369 + hitch into Wrightwood)

It’s only ten miles to Wrightwood, ten rolling hilltop miles on a ridge between two deserts. During the last miles of our approach to Wrightwood we take an unofficial alternate along a forest service road, adding half a mile but providing better views into the valley where I lived for close to eight years. It feels infinitely far away, and yet so close.

I can see downtown Los Angeles in the distance, just below the familiar ridge of Mount Wilson. A small paper cut out of a city rising above the clouds and smog that fill the valley. Further out into the flat white I can see Palos Verdes and Catalina island. I’m suddenly struck by an odd melancholy, not in the way of missing a place, but in the sense of feeling removed from an entire population.

Well not an entire population, because Mac is coming to visit today! Yay Mac! Yay friend who drives all the way from Los Angeles to come and see me, listen to confusing inside jokes from strange dirty hikers, and drink beer. Thank you for coming to visit Mac, it was so nice to talk about something other than the trail for a while, to be reminded that a vibrant world exists beyond the dirt strip that is my current home.

Hanging out with only hikers is filled with the sort of rapid bonding that comes from intense shared experiences. However, the breadth of conversation thus far has largely centered around hiking. It’s nice to be able to talk about something else. Jobs, dogs, and adventures beyond my own. A whole world!

Mac departs this evening, and tomorrow we’ll hike out of town. For the next few days we’ll parallel the Los Angeles and then begin our turn north, away from the desert, away from the city, moving further and further from a place that I never loved, but might just find a way to miss.

Best Western near McDonald’s (mile 342 + 1mi road walk each way) to Campsite at mile 358

I wanted, desperately, to feel refreshed when I woke up this morning, but that just wasn’t in the cards. When Keith wakes me up at 6 I’m deep in the middle of a dream in which I’ve just been ejected from the top of a sky scraper inside a rocket propelled elevator booth a la Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and am presumably about to fall to my death. For some reason in the dream I’m very accepting of my fate and choose to spend my remaining seconds trapped in this box with a middle aged man marveling at how beautiful the city is, and wishing I had gotten off on the second floor with the woman in the blue pant suit. Sadly, awake me is not nearly as serene and I mope around the room feeling tired and frustrated, bothered by little things like damp waistbands on shorts that haven’t fully dried. Ah hormones. At least there is free hot breakfast aka free coffee aka free life fuel.

In the lobby with three other hikers the conversation du jour is the 27 mile exposed waterless stretch that climbs over 8,000 feet between Cajon Pass and the next resupply town, Wrightwood. The general consensus is to pack out as much water as you can, dry camp one night and then have a short day into town the next day. I should say, this is the consensus between the majority of us, however one woman plans to do this stretch in three days despite not being able to carry enough water for three days. This immediately enrages me and I tell her it’s a foolish thing to do – not that this will impact her choice in the slightest.

Her cavalier attitude is one I’ve seen a lot on the trail. People who won’t carry an ice axe through the Sierra, not because they’ve seen the snow reports, but because they don’t know how to use one, so why bother. People without enough water heading into the desert relying on maybe stocked water caches. People without enough food because maybe there will be trail magic. Only thru hikers would refuse to carry the weight of the two most important things keeping us alive: food and water.

While the mentality that everything will work out is certainly a pleasant one, when hiking in remote areas without cell service this sort of attitude is what tends to get people hurt or killed. The frustrating reality is that many PCT hikers feel they are immune from easily preventable accidents. This hubris stands in direct contrast to the two rescues (both PCT hikers without enough water) and the one death (heart attack) that have already occurred in the short time since the season started. And those are just the ones we’ve heard about!

I grumble this all over in my head during the massive climb towards Wrightwood. Wondering if people really are as under prepared as it seems, or if I’m being a grumpy hormonal jerk. Probably both. But also, mother nature deserves real respect. Respect of the knowledge that she’ll wipe you off the face of the planet and not even notice.

Cleghorn Picnic Area (mile 328) to McDonald’s (mile 342)

The only topic of discussion today is McDonald’s. I don’t even like McDonald’s, I haven’t eaten there in years and years and yet I find myself pondering my order as we hike our 14 miles towards I-15 and the promised golden arches. All American Austin says he’s aiming to eat at least six or seven McGriddles – the news of the all day breakfast menu has him grinning ear to ear. Keith and I both want ice cream and I want red meat something fierce. My period is due (although who knows, on the JMT it was really late and that was only two as a half weeks of hiking) and my body is telling me it wants iron. Each decision is based on McDonald’s. Should I rest now or just push on to McDonald’s? Do I need a snack or can I wait for McDonald’s? Should I pee here or can it wait for McDonald’s?

When we arrive it’s literally just like any McDonald’s you’ve ever been to. I guess that’s the point of the chain, they’re the same regardless of where you are. Keith, myself, All American Austin, McKayla, The Australians (Bean Dip and Moonshine), Norway, and AJ cram ourselves into a both and table and then proceed to order an alarming amount of food. Keith complains that McDonald’s has gotten really expensive. Bean Dip points out that the last time he ate here he probably only ordered one meal, not two. Good point.

While I wait to refill my water bottle a kindly older Latina woman asks me where I’ve hiked from. She’s the first person I get to tell “from the Mexican border!” I’m very excited about this while she is flabbergasted and relays my answers in rapid Spanish to her friend. As we work through the standard litany of questions her friend looks increasingly worried. Finally they both cross themselves and tell me that God will bless me on my journey. I’m not a person of faith, but the gesture is nice and so I tell the rest of our table that we’ve all been blessed. Why not.

Everybody hikes out and Keith and I head to the Best Western to do laundry and attempt to heal the chafe from my pack that’s rubbing the skin on either side of my spine raw. Tomorrow we’ll start the two day waterless stretch to Wrightwood. A two day water carry. What will that even feel like? I guess we’ll find out.