Fire - Lancaster, CA

Quick note from Hikertown in Lancaster, CA to say I'm okay and outhiked the Powerhouse Fire, now burning in Green Valley.  Left there yesterday morning,  hiked a gorgeous day, looked back, saw smoke, and kept going.  40 miles was way to much to hike in 26 hours.  Tonight we're headed into the desert to beat the three-digit temperatures coming up...a long way from the freezing cold temps of the mountaintops just a week ago!

Thoughts and prayers are with the families being evacuated, and hope that the fire is contained soon.  One week to go.

The Andersons

Gorgeous hike out of Green Valley before the fire

Safe at Hikertown, view of fire

Next day hike away from Green Valley, towards Tyler Horse Canyon and beyond to Tehachapi

One of many wind farms we hiked through

Fire flares up

Willie Make It and Spark discussing firefighting

Red sun at 9am

The burn is old, the smoke is new

Agua Dulce, sweetest of water

455 miles into this trail, I notice things about myself.  I spend part of each day being very ambitious and making unbelievable plans to hike very big miles, part of each day in despair, miserable and certain I will get off the trail at the next opportunity, and the majority of each day simply happy, looking at scenery and trying not to trip as I do so.  These moods seem to be roughly determined by a. my blood sugar level and b. the weather at the moment.  Sun midday = despair.  Clouds and a nice hike into camp = ambition.

I've been hiking through a burned area the last 2 days, completely wiped in the 2009 Station Fire that started in Pasadena.  Even talked to firefighters who fought it.  A South African potter hiking the trail pointed out to me that there is a strange, stark beauty to the landscape that is so devastated, in the black outlines of trees almost as if it is winter and summer at once.  I am trying to appreciate the more desolate and barren areas, inspired by her.

Right now I am staying at "Hiker Heaven," an oasis for hikers in Agua Dulce maintained by a generous and PCT-loving family named the Saufleys.  They have tents set up for us to sleep, runs to the REI 30 miles away, a kitchen, showers, laundry, mail service (no PO in town) and all this in their backyard (very big, with horses, cats and dogs).  There is another house 24 miles up the road, the Andersons, that also invites hikers to stay and take a load off.  I am really impressed with the commitment of the PCT community to supporting hikers. On a trail with no shelters, these little havens are really appreciated.  And I understand why the Saufleys live here - the Vasquez Rocks, right in town, are gorgeous.

Just as I am starting to think of life on the trail as "normal," I am at T-minus 11 days of hiking left.  Stats:  4 blisters, 6 pieces of gear replaced or bought, 1 sunburn (light), 6 pounds lost, 3 nights of rain, 5 rattlesnake sightings, 0 bears, and many, many trail angels.  These last come in all forms, from the very established to the very random.  My two favorites came on my way out of Wrightwood, CA (a gorgeous mountain community that was having a communal yard sale AND a farmer's market as I walked through) - Nancy, a mother of two who gave me a ride all the way back to the trail even though she wasn't driving that way, and Joe Maloney from Brooklyn, a grandpa who offered me his extra water as I walked by him.

Pictures of the Vasques Rocks area 

Trail stats from May 21-22

Miles hiked in the last two days: 52

Bodies of water enjoyed: 2 (one lake to swim in, one hot springs featuring a man naked-slack-lining over the water)

Musical realizations: singing while hiking, I was depressed to realize I know more Lloyd Webber than Sondheim.

Mimi via Tania

Hiking out of Big Bear

Black rattlesnake heading off the trail

Creek that leads into hot springs

Pool at hot springs (sorry, no naked slacklining man in the picture)

Trail angel Sandizzel at Cahon Pass

Tunnel hiking from Cahon to Wrightwood

Evening clouds...or was it morning?

Farmer's market, Wrightwood

Wrightwood

Mt. Baden-Powell

Biker/hiker rest stop

Big Bear

Beautiful and tragic was the trail today.  We ended our long day hiking down from Mission Creek Campsite watching emergency helicopters recover the body of a woman who became lost hiking with a friend very close to the PCT.  We had heard she was missing since Tuesday and looked for signs of her all day - one mile from our destination, we stood with two friends of hers who had been part of the search party her son organized and stood witness as she was lifted off the desert hillside.  "The whole time she was looking down on us," said a girlfriend who had been searching for days in the valley below.  "At least she had a view," she said.  "At least this," gesturing to the beautiful hills, "was the last thing she saw."

Yesterday we hiked through 80 degree hot sunny hills, gained 7,000 feet of elevation, and slept at Mission Creek which was very cold, almost 35.  I kept just warm enough in my sleeping bag, down jacket, and a sleeping bag liner another hiker named Tribu gave me.  Hiking so near someone else who seems to have died of exposure makes me especially grateful for my warm clothes, gear, and tent (which I am getting better at setting up, though I still would consider carefully your tolerance for wind before investing in a Z-pack Hexamid.)

The day before yesterday, we camped on too windy Fuller Ridge, hiked down 7,000 feet, hiked across what must be the worst stretch of the PCT in the Godforsaken (seriously, I think He forgot about this place) Snow Creek Valley, took luxurious showers at the hostel/home of Trail Angels Ziggy and the Bear, and hiked to a beautiful white sand nature preserve in White River Junction, along what used to be a river.

We're still hiking about 20 miles or more a day - Matan (the Israeli) and I are keeping together.  He's particularly happy about that today because my maildrop is enough for exactly two people for four days...and I bought him gummy candies that are his American obsession.  Tonight we are staying at the home of Big Bear Trail Angels Papa Smurf and Mountain Mama.  Reminds me of my AT night at the home of the Deer River shelter maintainers in 2003, only here there are only three dogs and three cats, not eight and seven.  Also, it is not pouring rain outside.  I am sleeping outside on a cot in their fenced-off backyard after a dinner of homecooked tacos and so many cherries I am going to have a tummy ache and do not care.

And I am amazed at the generosity (or good marketing) of the Angels in this area.  Today on the trail we ran across caches of water, soda, carrots, oranges, sandwich cookies, toiletries, even sofa chairs plunked down on the trail.  Thank you Big Bear Hiker Hostel, the Motel 6, Papa Smurf and Mountain Mama, and Nature's Inn.  Contemplating a ten-mile slack-pack tomorrow to stay in this strange magical funny place one more night before heading north through some hot, sunny terrain to Wrightwood.

Oh, and the personalities.  Here are a few:  Hacksaw, a southerner who just finished the AT, blonde ponytail, great attitude, carries Lunchables and hikes 30-mile days nonstop.  HiLo and Steadfast, nurses who met on the AT and are now thruhiking - Steadfast is 60 and going strong.  Tribu, whose parents live across from Mt. Auburn Cemetery, went to Rindge and Latin, and who spent the months between his 2012 AT thruhike and now working in ashrams in India and Colorado.  7,8,9, a spunky Argentinian experienced hiker girl who I wish was nearby, and also Lucky Winner.  Lastly, southbound sectioner Raven Song who was one of the first women to solo hike the PCT in the 1970s.

Love and fresh mountain air to all.

Underpass, watching a trail after crossing Snow Creek Valley en  route  to Ziggy and the Bear's

Climb out of White River

Finally forest

And more forest up and around Onyx Pass

The outdoor scene at Papa Smurf's

Idyllwild

Idyllwild.  It's all in the name.  Ridiculously cute outdoorsy town at the base of the San Jacinto mountains.  Bakeries, stores to buy leather tasseled clothing items, and hiker-friendly eating establishments abound.  Taking a "zero day" here, which means hiking zero trail miles.  Body is grateful for this rest.  

Everyone here is used to bedraggled hikers and does their best to help.  The Idyllwild Inn, where I am staying, gave me a whole cabin with a deck, livingroom, kitchen for pennies (relatively).  A woman at a gift shop where I may or may not have been Mother's Day shopping helped me figure out which kind of semiprecious gemstone bracelet would heal and soothe my doesn't-like-to-be-dirty skin.  The lady at the pharmacy even smiled when I bought a tube of the product "Boudreaux's Butt Paste."  I hastened to assure her it was for the chafing of my pack shoulder straps...she just kept smiling, nodded sympathetically, and rang me up.

On another note...I logged in to Facebook here, at the Idyllwild Library, and was startled/amazed/elated/confused to see pictures of my former boss, Ambassador Ford, and some other friends entering "Free Syria," a portion of Syria at the Turkish border that is controlled by the rebels.  So many feelings about this.  Are we doing enough?  What more can I do?  What does it mean that I spent a year working in Iraq, only tangentially on these issues, when this crisis was ongoing?  What does it mean to be going to Tel Aviv, and what more should I be doing?

Lots to think about as I head into this next portion of the trail. 

One last note - since the beginning of this hike, my goal has been to reach Kennedy Meadows, 700.2 miles up the trail at the base of the Sierras.  That would be continuous 20-mile days, and I realize now this is a little too much for me.  So my goal is now to hike through June 8, wherever that takes me.  If it's short of that goal, oh well.  It will at least have been about all the steps of the journey and not just the last one.

There are lots of pictures of the same ridge of Mt. San Jacinto and the range...they are all beautiful so I will include them all.  Hard to take a bad picture up here.

Dina, trailnamed Trail Mix (for her love of good music) and Cleopatra (obvious reasons) holding court with the boys in our cabin at the Idyllwild Inn.

Conquering the wild in style

Atop Mt. San Jacinto

This looks idyllic, but it was actually the windiest campsite ever.  Tribu and I  tent-coveted Matan's Big Agnes as only stubborn Hexamites with tents that blow down in the wind can...and granted, the fact that our tents acted like kites could have been "user error."  Still, I heart Big Agnes.