Thursday, July 26, 2018 - A Day With Derek Cullen

28.00 miles - Total to date - 156.82 miles

Ascent - 4800’ , Descent - 2035’ - Campsite (1214.81) to 0.8 miles past Fowler Creek Trail (1242.80)

Our three tents were very close together, especially Derek’s and mine. This made it difficult to get up at 5:00am and leave by 5:30 am without disturbing my two camp mates. Derek had said he wished to leave at 5:30 am, and I had heard his alarm go off at 5:00, then 5:05, then 5:10 am as he hit the snooze button repeatedly. Finally, he emerged from his tent just as I shouldered my pack. I said “See you down there” and headed down the trail. 

The trail headed gently downhill.  At about two and a half miles I stopped at A-Tree Spring to replenish my water supply. Generally, there is water every five miles or so, but you have to be vigilant because there are sometimes stretches as long as 15 miles with no water sources. I usually carry 2 liters in my pack to drink between sources, but that can grow to four or five liters if I hit a long waterless stretch. Nearly everyone on the trail uses Guthook’s app on their phones to locate water sources. By tapping on the water source symbols on the map the comments section is accessed. Here you can see recent reports as to the quantity and quality of the source posted by recent hikers. It would be difficult to plan when and where to carry water without this feature. 

Derek joined me at the spring within three minutes of my arrival. We filled up and Derek ate a “Honeybun”, one of many that day. 

We hiked together the rest of the morning and into the afternoon. We made our “10 at 10” by 9:15 and had nearly 14 miles by noon. 

About 15 miles in for the day, we crossed the Quincy/LaPorte Road. There, sitting next to a tree was my first trail magic of the trip-2 cans of Coca-Cola and ten cans of Coors beer. Derek gave up drinking years ago, so we each savored a Coke before crushing the empty cans, stowing them in our packs and hiking on. 

Our goal was to get to Alder Spring at 19.5 miles. This we did a little after 2:00 pm. Normally, this would be the end of my day of hiking. The spring was down about 100 vertical feet and about 0.2 mile off the PCT. Here we got some water. I soaked my feet in the spring, washed my shirt and socks, ate some snacks and chatted with Crouton, Hot Pocket and Top Notch as they came down to get water. About 3:45 pm we were finally on the trail again. Our afternoon goal was a water source 7.9 miles further down the trail. We would have liked to have gone the 12.9 miles all the way to the bottom of the canyon where the middle fork of the Feather River flows but we knew a 33 mile day was too much. 

We reached Fowler Creek trail junction and dropped our packs. It was 0.1 or 0.2 down to the creek and down about 100’. We had now done just under 28 miles. Derek said the bottom of his feet were quite sore. My feet shared the same plight. The water source was on a steep side hill.  This provided no place to camp. At one point the trail was about 40 vertical feet below the crest of the ridge. Derek climbed up to the top of the ridge and found a flat space for us to camp. I soon followed. It was now after 7:00 pm and we were tired boys. We each set up our tents, then I boiled some water for Derek’s Top Ramen followed by more hot water for my spaghetti dinner. I watched a bit of the Vietnam War documentary after eating, then switched off the phone and was soon fast asleep. 

A few words about Derek. He was born and raised in Dublin and led a typical life, going through school and earning top marks. Both his parents died within two years of each other. He struggled with their death for a couple years, then decided his life was not going in the direction he desired, so he sold everything he owned, quit his job, flew to South Africa, bought a bike and gear and rode from South Africa to Cairo, Egypt. From there he boated to France, then rode north to LaHavre and boated to England and then back to Ireland. This was in 2008. Since then, he has traveled the world, making some income off of adventure writing and using the Internet to build a series of marketing businesses. Somewhere in this time span he was a tour guide in Africa for three years, leading 10 to 12 week adventures for groups of 28. Among other places he has lived over the years are Thailand, Poland, Croatia and others too numerous to recall. He has a big presence on the web, posting travel videos, written pieces and online travel books. He is currently writing a African travel guide to help people on tours decide which side excursions are worth doing and which are not. Not to be stereotypical, he has that Irish twinkle in his eye, is quick to joke and make friends, is very kind and thoughtful of other. I was behind him on the trail and hiked up to see him sitting on a log. It seemed too early for him to stop. He pointed out the older gentleman working slowly up the trail in front of us. He said we had already passed him earlier and didn’t want to embarrass him by passing him again so he was sitting, waiting for the man to get far enough ahead we wouldn’t pass him for a while. Nice guy. Very inclusive. Very open about his life. Very fun to hike with.