PCT Part 3: Racing the storm

Day 4

Today’s miles: 14.8
Total miles: 52.7

The temperature plummeted below freezing overnight, turning the condensation on our tent into a crunchy layer of ice.

Jess is prone to the cold, but she slept well thanks to her new sleeping bag liner and our discovery that our couples bag has a pair of clips for cinching around your neck.

The sun hit an embankment near our tent site, so we lay the tent out to thaw while we made coffee.

We were both eagerly awaiting a cooked breakfast at the Pine House Cafe in Mount Laguna, just four miles up the trail. After a few more hundred feet of climbing the landscape changed from desert scrub to alpine forest, rocky trail replaced with a comfortable layer of pine needles.

We tucked into eggs, bacon, fried potatoes, and another enormous salad we’d ordered to try to supplement our vitamin intake.

“Breakfast” finally ended at 12:30 when we cinched our pack straps over our bulging stomachs. A few hundred metres out of town we got our first view of the desert far below. Layer upon layer of mountain ridges spanned to the horizon, with Mount San Jacinto looming in the background.

“It’s like a painting!” said Jess. And it was.

We followed the mountain ridge for many more miles, gawking at new views every time we rounded a peak. Big trees thousands of feet below us looked like shrubs.

Beautiful as it was, this stretch of trail was the scene of one of my lowest points on my 2019 hike. I’d pitched my tent in a small hollow between trees, but got almost no sleep as the violent wind buffeted it all night long.

The trail follows the exposed ridge for more than 20 miles so I was worried about repeating the experience. We had planned to hike around 17 miles to make Julian before Friday’s forecast storm, but when we found a fairly well-protected picnic area after 15 miles we decided to set up camp.

I’d added extra guylines to the tent to help it handle the southern California winds. Here’s hoping it holds up.

Day 5

Today’s miles: 20.5
Total miles: 73.1

Screeching winds howled through the tree canopy above us all night, but our decision to camp at the Pioneer Mail picnic area proved to be a good one. The wind rarely touched our tent, thanks to the hills that protected the campground.

But our weather worries weren’t over. A big storm was predicted to hit southern California on Thursday night and continue into Friday. We hoped it would be the last gasp of winter.

Our campsite at Pioneer Mail was nearly 25 miles from Scissor Crossing, a highway intersection that leads to the mountain town of Julian and the Stagecoach RV park.

We’ve been trying to ease our legs into the hike, but we decided to book it to Stagecoach to get out of the weather as soon as possible.

We planned a 20.5 mile day, our biggest so far, to put us just 3 miles away from the highway. The day started with spectacular views of the Anza-Borrego Desert, thousands of feet below us.

Rain jackets and balaclavas were left on as we skipped across the ridge headlong into biting winds. Soon it warmed up. We de-kitted, and downed a couple of Gu energy gels (50mg of caffeine a pop!) to fuel our big push.

Jess was bestowed a trail honour. A hiker from Colorado, who wore a Cotopaxi bumbag, had decided to adopt the trail name “Bumbag” after Jess referred to it as such. Here they call it a “fanny pack”, which is no less ridiculous.

We shared lunch with Bumbag next to a water tank at the end of the ridge. Then it was miles and miles of slow descent until we reached a lower point on the ridge where the trail levelled out.

We both struggled as the miles crawled by. Earphones were in by 2pm, podcasts helped distract us from our aching feet.

Finally we reached a gully with a group of tent sites about half an hour before sunset. We were both exhausted, and struggled setting up camp. I’d picked this spot because comments on the FarOut app from other hikers suggested it offered shelter from the winds. We were in for a rude shock.

Day 6

Today’s miles: 3.2
Total miles: 76.3

The gully had high walls on three sides, but all they seemed to do was funnel the roaring winds straight at us.

We spent most of the night wide awake, listening in trepidation as 80km/h gusts pummeled our little tent from all angles.

The gale dislodged a couple of tent pegs, which I dragged myself out of bed to re-stake. Then a guyline snapped, and a trekking pole that holds up one side of our tent began oscillating wildly in the wind.

I got out of my sleeping bag again, and weighed down the flapping corner with a large rock. It held through to the early morning, when we finally managed an hour or two of sleep.

Bleary-eyed, we packed up in a light rain and began our 3-mile hike to the highway. The rain intensified as we descended to the desert floor, pelting us with flecks of ice. It was miserable, and we were both glad our big effort yesterday meant we only needed to endure it for 3 miles.

Finally we reached the highway, where the first passing driver pulled over for us. It was “Fossil Lady”, a local trail angel and paleontologist. She drove us the four miles to Stagecoach RV Park, our rainwear dripping onto the seats as we drove.

We checked into a tiny 9sq.m cabin, called a “Gypsy Stagecoach” by the park owners, conveniently located next to the shower block. I washed away a week’s worth of grime then collapsed onto our bed while Jess washed our filthy clothes.

A trail angel gave us a ride into Julian, a former gold mining town in the mountains that is the first real town of the PCT. Snow was falling as we arrived. We stopped into the hiking gear shop, 2 Foot Adventures, where we bought meals for the next section and replacement guyline for the tent.

Then it was over the road to Mom’s Pies, where PCT hikers get a free slice of pie with ice cream and a hot drink. I got apple, Jess got cherry. America really knows how to make a dessert pie!

We bought dinner to go from a nearby diner, then stood on the side of the highway trying to hitch back to the RV park.

It took a while, but after about 30 minutes a group of Dutch doctors picked us up in their rental car. They had just been to a conference in San Diego and were doing some exploring before flying home.

A freezing gale was blowing when we got out of the car. We power walked back to our tiny cabin and settled in for a cosy night out of the weather.