Snow in May
Alright… Laying in my tent, it is 5pm! Never made camp so early. But have never been in a PCT storm before either!
It is raining heavily on my Big Agnes tent. Oh my! It is even hailing now! I hope my poor tent will not end up with holes.
So dinner cooking is apparently cancelled for tonight. I am not prepared to leave my tent again now to fire up my Jetboil stove in the rain! Let’s see what I find in my Ursack that I can eat cold and is not a snack bar.
Aha! It is going to be Tortilla wrapped around cheese, peanut butter and chips…. I know, PCT hiker food is thoroughly disgusting and thoroughly unhealthy. But I don’t care at the moment, I am glad that my Big Agnes seems to fight the hail well and that I am safely wrapped up in my sleeping bag. The hail and rain make an awful loud noise though…
It is a bit tight and chaotic in my tent now, as I take the backpack inside. And all my things are spread out since they are damp. Oh well, it will have to do for tonight.
I make sure to put my Sawyer Squeeze water filter into the sleeping bag tonight, as the ranger who I met a couple of hours ago confirmed it will snow on us tonight…. If the filter freezes it will break, and I will get a horrible disease, of I which I would probably die…
Well! I better go to sleep, hoping the coming night will not be too horrifying…
I wake up several times at night (as I do every night) but the storm is kind on us. Seems we found the perfect place to hide from it down in the Deep Creek valley at somewhat mile 301.
Cold though!
Cold still when I wake up. There is indeed snow around this morning! In California! In May! Who would have thought!
I pack up my stuff like every morning at 4.45 am. It still takes me an hour and 15 minutes from the point of waking up to, well, hike.
(Wake up, poo in the woods, put tape over feet/blisters, get dressed into the dirty cloths from yesterday, stuff sleeping bag in packsack, let air out of the mattress and roll it up, put on socks and boots, put down tent, pack tent, brush teeth, drink water, pack everything into backpack, heave up backpack onto my shoulder, go.)
6am. Sharp. Every day the exact same routine.
Exactly 1 hour and 15 minutes.
I try to do this routine faster but fail.
Anyway! I start walking.
Such a cold day today! Bitterly cold. But the landscape! Oh the landscape does not fail to amaze me!
I loose my hiking buddies somewhere at the Hotsprings and hike alone for the first time.
Nice! I like this!!
I can just plough on at my own pace.
Yes. This is what I want! This is what I have been looking for!
I keep meeting the same people anyway. There is Clayton and his little brother named Quiet (yes, he hardly ever talks)! And there are Felix and Andy, both great and very funny guys.
We seem to form a loose Trail Family, as we do more or less the same mileage per day. (I cut down from am insane 23 per day to a more foot/body friendly 19 ish per day for the moment .)
I keep walking through desert, up mountains, down mountains (nope, the desert is not a flat thing). This section seems to go through a lot of burnt bushes and trees. Rather spooky in places.
Today I hike up to Wrightwood.
Oh my! That’s a tough fucker of a mountain! Steep, no water (I carry 6 liter) and through lots of burned woods again. (The fire here at Cajon Junction was last year, so the trail has not fully recovered yet. It is very steep in places (super extra steep in fact) with sometime a non existing trail.
It is both very sad and fascinating at the same time to hike up this burnt wounded mountain. Almost surreal.
It is too brutal! I am too slow and don’t make it to my target mile tonight. There is absolutely no space to pitch my Agnes! Just steep mountain everywhere. It gets late and I am a bit dizzy from exhaustion and height (I am at 2400 meter!) I panic slightly as it gets freezing cold up here, I can’t walk anymore and I don’t find a place to pitch Agnes and the path is dodgy, dangerous and sometime non existent.
There!
The path crosses a dirt road on a saddle! Here I will camp! Even though the ground is uneven and rocky. I don’t give a shit!!
Quick cooking in the freezing cold and then I wrap myself into my warm, fluffy, cosy, much loved Marmot Helium sleeping bag.
Hurray!
I pass out immediately.
It is morning already. So quick! I do my 1.15 hour ritual.
Gorgeous sunrise with a sea of clouds beneath me! Thank you nature! That is a lovely surprise this morning!
After two hours more bloody up up up until 2700 meter, the path finally descents into Wrightwood!
I will definitely take a zero here!
Ich BEWUNDERE dich, liebe Heidi!!!!
Liebe Grüsse
Therry
Oh! :D Danke für die lieben Worte Therry!
Beautiful photographs !!!
Thank you for sharing.
Safe travels !!!
Thank you so much Kirk! :)
Your shared pictures show a beautiful view from where you were. It is AWESOME!! I am looking forward to see more pictures of your great adventures. Take care and be safe Blistery Heidi ??
Wow, that sunrise picture is absolutely gorgeous!!! How great must it be to wake up and have such a view… you have well deserved it! It’s so nice to follow your trip with these great pictures and with reading your latest hiker stories! Thanks a lot for sharing all this with us! I wish you a continuously safe travel with hopefully no further blisters, always enough water and many more such rewarding views!
Du bist wirklich Tapfer! Hoffe deinen Füssen geht es besser!!!
BLISTERS: Wie steht es um BABY PUDER?
Welche Camera hast denn dabei?
Gewicht sparen, jedes Gramm zählt, stimmt’s?
Was für Traumbilder der Natur Heidi…..und ich weiss ja wie offen du genau dafür bist, und welche Kraft dir dies gibt. Kannst du dir vorstellen, jemals wieder etwas anderes zu tun ? Ich könnte in diesem Nebelmeerbild versinken, einfach nur schön. Big Hug
Tough girl, happy trails Blistery Heidi!
Hallo Heidi! Super, dass es so gut voran geht. Auch nach fast einem halben Jahr auf dem Trail haben wir immer noch eine Stunde gebraucht ehe wir morgens loskamen… ?
Liebe Grüße, Princess.
Hi Princess! Ich schaffe es mittlerweile auf fast einen Stunde! :)