Is This Hell? - Monday April 21

Today was supposed to be easy. What happened?

Yesterday we were on the move for 14 hours (I say on the move rather than hiking, because we took many equipment, shoe, eating and rest breaks). We had planned to stop at mile 10, but the camping area was exposed, sunny, hot, windy and right on the trail, so we pushed on. Before making the decision to keep going we had looked at the next day's (today's) route and found it to be 6 miles of gentle uphill followed by 10 miles of downhill. Foolishly, we assumed it would be an easy day, so a little extra pushing wouldn't hurt. Besides, 6 miles up hill in the cool morning followed by 10 miles downhill in the late morning and early afternoon sounded like good timing!

We should have known we were in trouble when we awoke this morning at 3:50 to a temperature of 65°. Nevertheless, we set out with 16 miles to cover on our minds, buoyed by our success of the day before. Within a mile we both could feel the fatigue from the day before's labors.

3 miles ahead lay Trail Angel Mike's, a house just off the PCT that welcomes hikers in for water, a free meal and, as it turns out, unsolicited hiking advise. We knew Coyote and Grasshopper had stayed there the night before, and we were short on water, so we took the side trail over to the house.

There are welcoming signs placed frequently along the 100 yd route from the PCT to the house so rather than just fill up our bottles at the water tank above the house we ventured down to see our friends and experience what we thought would be some trail magic. We wandered through the assortment of buildings and found Coyote, Grasshopper and a small group of other hikers seated in a circle on lawn furniture. A man of about 50 yrs old, tanned and stocky named Cushy introduced himself as he looked over our packs with a critical eye.
Cushy prides himself on ultralight backpacking and minimalist gear, so when he saw my bulging pack and Sally's chair he was aghast. He commented on our gear a couple of times, trying to encourage us to let him go through our packs and critique our gear weight and choices, but Sally artfully deflected his comments and he soon gave up on us.

After a few minutes we both excused ourselves and headed back to the trail. We really appreciated the water that would get us the next 10 miles up the trail. We were also motivated by the need to get our climbing out of the way before the sun began scorching the landscape.

Unfortunately, even this early she was hard at it. We suffered up the last hill of the day to be greeted by a wonderful view into the southern end of the Palm Springs valley. All downhill from here! Hot downhill. Rocks in the trail downhill. No wind downhill. No shade downhill. Seemingly endless downhill.

About 4 miles from Tule Springs and 7 miles from our destination the outside of Sally's left foot began to ache with excruciating agony. Between the heat, the sun and the pain this became the low point of the entire trip. We quickly decided Tule Springs was our new destination.

We arrived at a campsite 3/4 of a mile from the springs. I ran down to get water for the evening and to checkout the area to see if it was worth the extra effort to get there. I found Far Out, Back Up, Event Horizon, Coyote, Grasshopper, Mark and Rebecca sprawled in the shade under the trees near the spring. They voiced the same feelings Sally had expressed concerning the heat. I ran back up to Sally, presented the situation and she quickly chose to make her way down to the spring and our group.
We enjoyed the shade and their company for an hour or two, then the sun abated, the temperatures dropped and everyone but Far Out and us left to move farther down the trail. Before they left we took two photos. The first was of "Team Washington", Back Up, Event Horizon, Mark, Rebecca, Sally and I, from Olympia, Vancouver and of course, Toledo. The second was of our whole group, as this was probably the last time we would be together. Of course, we have been saying this for the last week +, but this time was truly our last gathering. Their goal was to get to the reportedly best burgers on the PCT, the Paradise Cafe, before closing at 2pm the following day, then up to Idyllwild for two nights in a hotel.
Sally and I set up camp, had mashed potatoes, chicken and vegetable goulash for dinner, then instantly fell asleep.


An Update On Mover:

Turns out our drunken, vomiting camp mate from Lake Morena actually does hike and from all accounts from people we have met on the trail is a not as bad as our first and only impression. We must have caught him at a very low moment.

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