Morning Beers and Beautiful Solo Camping

The Day’s Stats

Miles walked: 13.4

Cumulative Miles: 66.0

Gross Elevation Gained: 1,705 ft

Cumulative Gross Elevation: 10,311 ft

Day’s Highest Point: 5,512 ft

Day’s Lowest Point : 3,865 ft

Evolving into a mountain goat a couple miles out from Pioneer Mail.

True story: I woke up on day 5 (May 4th, a speshul day for Star Wars fans, so it was obviously going to be auspicious), started clumsily taking down camp in the cold morning air, and who should arrive out of the mists, on bike, bearing breakfast beers? You’re welcome for the alliteration. It was Keith! Seriously, what a fellow. I wasn’t expecting to see him again and had girded my loins to take on the last 2600 miles of the trail on my own. But there he was, saying he’d love to hike a few more miles with me that day and supporting my budding alcoholism(dont worry Mommy, Iz just kidding).

Hiker lady tea time- Blue Moon!

Keith helped me filter water as I finished my beers and packed up the rest of my things. The deep orange-brown water from the campsite sistern squeezed through my water filter came out clear, but I will never forget the taste of that water. Like the slime build-up on the inside of a lizard tank, it was. Lesson learned, always stock coffee or electrolyte flavor packs for such situations. I was lucky though, I heard this water supply was completely dried up a week later.

We set off! I was still feeling pretty good, especially after my breakfast of blue moon and pop tarts. It definitely takes a few miles to warm up your joints and loosen up the muscles and tendons in your feet with a heavy pack on your back, but we were soon cruising past amazing views. I was beginning to love my trekking poles; they help transfer some of the weight in your pack to your arms, especially on big steps up. They’re also great for balance as you scramble over baby-head-sized rocks and try to reach for stable footholds. Ever 30 seconds or so, a tiny lizard would scramble across the path. In fact, there were so many that I was worried I’d look down at my vigorously pumping trekking poles and find I’d speared myself a couple desert-themed, lizard-meat shishkebabs. Fortunately these little guys are pretty spry and avoided my accidental wrath. I’ve come to think of these neurotic little scamperers as a very comforting presence on the trail; the rustling and shaking you often hear in bushes or grasses can usually be attributed to their antics. Usually.

Mountain bikes arent allowed on the PCT, so Keith had to leave me eventually, but road biked to another trail access spot and hiked back to continue on with me.

Daily yucca picture!

Yesss look at it, behold its glory.

One of the reasons I’m so slow is that I constantly stop and try to take in where I am. Sometimes the beauty is overwhelming and I feel simultaneously how small my place in the world is and how big my heart grows when I’m out in it.

Keith and I walked and talked for about 7 miles, enjoying each other’s company as we had the day before. We eventually came to the next water source at Sunrise Trailhead, about a half mile’s trek off the PCT. We ran into some other hikers there: a couple from LA I’d met on day 2 who worked as Korean linguists for the military intercepting and translating emails and radio transmissions from North Korea, an older man who called himself Prana Sati who traveled around in his camper giving yoga and meditation workshops and who had supposedly had 4 returns from near death experiences, and a woman from Australia who was hiking the trail with her 20-something son, who was far ahead of her already. Keith helped me filter some more water and left me to hang out at the water source in the mid-afternoon heat. I hugged him and thanked him, thinking this would definitely be the last time I’d see him since he and Leslie were road-tripping out from Mt. Laguna back to Canada in a just a couple weeks.

I sat talking to the linguistically magnificent couple about life in Korea, what the recent willingness of the North to parley might mean, and about their jobs and learning Korean and other languages for the military. I hoped I’d run into them again, but Keith had strongly advised to not let your pace or schedule be based on trying to keep up with cool people. “There are plenty of cool people coming up behind you or that you’ll catch up with in good time, and you have to trust the journey enough to go at your own pace and hike your own hike”. We talked to Prana Sati about his many supposed near death experiences, how parents’ traumatic experiences leave epigenetic marks on their children, and how he had traveled all over the West teaching. Prana Sati sure liked to talk about himself, it turned out, which was fine till he started rapping/singing some of his transcendental-meditation poetry at us. “A whale tale sweeping though my mind, the stars, the universe shifting to free me from bars….”. This is Prana Sati’s website he gave us if you want to check in out the weirdness: https://www.pranasati.com . The couple and I made meaningful eye contact and made moves to leave. It was hard to get Prana Sati to stop talking however, and I sacrificed the couple to his further attentions and slipped off to continue down the trail.

I’d put on my long sleeve, wool base-layer to prevent sunburn, since it seemed I couldn’t keep enough sunscreen on my arms to protect my midwestern beluga-flesh. It got steadily hotter, and the steady, steep decline from Sunrise Trailhead was murder on my knees. I started feeling every step as a jolt of pain under my kneecaps. It was beautiful, though, and I ran into the linguist couple a few more times that day and we stopped to take breaks together and laugh about Prana Sati and get to know each other.

You too can have the dewy glow of your dreams! Just slather on sunscreen and hike through 95 degree heat in a thick wool shirt! #enpointe

Prickly pear blooms all over the place!

There were bees swarming around the desert lilac that dotted the hillsides

The mountains greening as it moved toward evening. It’s incredible to pass

through more than one ecosystem in a day.

Eventually the knee pain forced me to stop. I had been hoping to make up for my zero day in Mt. Laguna and the half day after, but fearing an injury I thought it best to stop and rest for the night. I found a flat spot off the trail with incredible views to the east and west and set up camp alone for the first time. I stayed outside my tent to eat dinner, looking at the stars and listening to coyotes howl.

Even though I was alone, the desert sunset and ensuing sky full of stars made me feel like the universe was keeping me company.