100 Miles!! - Thursday, April 17

John Steinbeck described the lowlands and foothills of California in novels such as Of Mice and Men and Cannery Row so well that as I walk through them on the PCT I feel like I have been here before. The trail to date has wound through meadows, foothills, desert, wildfire burned areas, chaparral, ridges and Steinbeckian river basins, where we are camped today. It is a narrow valley wooded with oaks, cottonwoods and other deciduous trees. The forest floor is sandy and littered with the dry fallen leaves of countless autumns. Grasses poke through the leaves to create a verdant and soft covering. The cool 70° breeze blows gently through our tent. It is a nearly perfect place. I can see Lenny and George camping with their bindles across the dry creek bed.

We arrived here about 11:00 this morning, having completed our 10 miles for the day. The location is called Barrel Springs. This is only the third time in 10 days that we have actually camped by water, so we took full advantage and washed clothes and bodies. It is amazing how utterly filthy we have progressively become over the five days with no water for washing. I walked thru the streets of Julian two days ago in a shirt torn at the shoulder, the front and back impregnated with trail dirt and equally disgusting shorts. I would not say we get used to it, rather we accept it because there is nothing to be done about it.
Yesterday, we got up even earlier than normal, rising at 2:30am to tackle a 1500' climb up a south facing burned slope. We did not want to be on it when the sun rose. We made good time and by 10:30 we had covered 10 miles and had reached the campsite we had chosen on the map the night before. The map did not show that the campsite was located in the middle of a previous burn, so every tree or bush that might have provided a respite from the sun was either a pile of ashes or stark sticks poking up from charred ground. We pitched our Tyvek over the tent to shade us and took a few hours nap, ate second lunch and felt so good we decided to hike the next 4.5 miles to the "Third Gate Water Cache". We packed up and headed up at 2:30pm under the blazing sun we had risen at 2:30am to avoid. Within half a mile we were all suffering, fair skinned Sally the most. The wind was too strong to use her shade umbrella, so we slowly made our way up the hill under the blazing sun, arriving at the cache of water about 6:00pm. Far Out, who has been hiking with us the past three days and I grabbed some water bottles and ran the 1/4 mile down to the cache of water while Sally recovered in her chair.
The Third Gate Water Cache is located a 1/4 mile off the PCT. It is packed in by Trail Angels, as there is no road that approaches close to the PCT at this point. It consists of 200 gallon jugs of sealed store bought water. It is of dire importance, for without it there is a 24 mile stretch from the Scissors Crossing Cache (stocked by a Trail Angel named Larry and located under a highway bridge) to where we luxuriate now, Barrel Springs. Hikers are asked to limit their take to 2 liters each, which we respected. We had drunk a lot in the hot afternoon sun and I had a liter bottle drop from my pack along the trail, so the two liters were much needed and welcomed. Truthfully, I was too tired to write last night, so we slid beneath the covers at 7:30 and slept until our 3:50 alarm woke us for today's 10 mile jaunt.

Today was a momentous day!! We passed the 100 mile mark!! When we started we were not sure if we could do 20 miles, let alone 100, but here we are, and feeling good about the prospects for the next hundred.

This end of the PCT is unique in that nearly everyone is a PCT thru hiker and they are all traveling north. We may pass someone or get passed, but they are always going north. Sally and I have had some trouble attaching items to her pack, and they occassionally drop off. Everything we have dropped has been picked up and brought to us. This includes her fleece coat twice, her umbrella once and my water bottle. I know I have said it before, but we are still both overwhelmed with the kindness and generosity of those on the trail and in the trail towns. It is as if we have entered a universe where everyone is kind, selfless and giving.