PCT Section Hiking
Days 10–11
Three years later, blame Covid-19 at least partially, my PCT adventure continued on September 9th 2021, but the story starts eight days earlier on September 1st 20212, in Salt Lake City, Utah. After a long 10km walk in the city downtown, we returned to the underground parking lot. As I was walking in the parking lot looking for the pay machine to pay for parking, I stumbled into a 50cm high concrete slab that I didn’t see, as my eyes were looking for the pay machine. I was hit hard in my right foot, which resulted in a shallow external scratch, but an internal blood vessel in my leg was hit, and pretty quickly the leg developed a substantial swelling and hurt a lot. Long story short, it causes two nights without much sleep and a concern for the PCT plans.
Eight days later, on September 9th — after walking for 10km the day before in the streets of Oakland, California and feeling OK with the leg despite the swelling and the pain, and making the decision to try to walk the trail, I was out exactly where I stepped away from the trail three years ago, about 4 miles north of Warner Springs, on the abandoned Lost Valley Road, where it connect to the PCT with a 100m spur trail. But unlike back then, this time David, a long-time friend rom Sunnyvale, California, joined me for the first day. The plan: to walk from where the Lost Valley Road meets the PCT thru a short trail, to Mike’s place, a haven for the PCT hikers on Chihuahua Valley road. Altogether 10 miles that are mostly up hill, climbing to 5100 feet. We started at 7am in an attempt to avoid the heat, which was expected to reach 32 degrees Celsius by 11am. Walking uphill for the first two hours, meant that we only covered roughly 3.5 miles by 9am. The thinner air at the climbing elevation didn’t help either, but walking on the right side of the mountain sun-wise made the heat a bit more bearable.
At 4 miles, just when the trail started to flatten out, we ran into the first snag of the day. David’s hiking shoe’s sole came off the shoe. What brand of hiking shoe? Merrell. How long has he been wearing the shoe? About 2 or 3 times since he bought it. What’s the catch? How does the sole of a Merrell shoe come off after a couple of hiking trips? You were asking the wrong questions all along. The question to ask is How long did David have the shoe, and the answer to this question is: over 25 years. It was just sitting in his garage most of that time. Unluckily, being a day trip, I didn’t bring with me a duct tape, and my Leatherman knife was disallowed on the flight from SFO to Palm Springs. Luckily, 25 years ago Merrell provided pretty long shoelaces with their shoes, so David was able to tie the sole back to the shoe with the shoelaces. This held for a couple of miles, with adjustments occasionally. At approximately 6 miles, the sole of the second shoe came off too. Same practice tying the sole to the shoe with the shoelaces.
The trail was relatively easy from that point on, and at 12:45 we emerged from the trail at Mike’s place, tired but happy. However, Amber — with whom we agreed on a 12:00 pick-up wasn’t there, and no cell coverage anywhere nearby. I sent Amber an SMS from my satellite phone, but as we learned later, since she didn’t have cell coverage herself, she didn’t get the message. She drove back home, and only there she got the message and drove back to pick us up, being not very happy about it, which is fully understood if you experience the dirt road from Amber’s place to Mike’s place.
Who is Amber? Looking for a place to stay near Warner Springs, I found The Barn, mini petting zoo. Amber is the owner, and she agreed to pick us up from the trail for a fee. We spent two nights at The Barn, and don’t worry: although it’s real barn, it was transformed into a nice apartment. Read my review on hotels.com. I tried to add it to TripAdvisor too, but they told me that do not approve it as a lodging place…
The triple H combination (Heat, Height (elevation) and Health (my leg), had me reduce my planned PCT hikes for this trip, but I didn’t give up completely. After a couple of rest days, I decided to go for my 11th PCT hike day, albeit a shorter one and not an exact continuation of the previous hike, as was the case so far.
Instead of continuing the hike from Mike’s place to the next exit point, which was at least 9 miles away, and likely more, I selected to hike a safe, 7 miles section from Angel Mary Oasis (more on this below), to Paradise Valley Café on Highway 74. Which means that I still have to go back one day and complete the 18 miles from Mike’s place to the Angel Mary Oasis.
Angel Mary Oasis is a nice spot on the PCT, about 7 miles south of Highway 74, where there are few picnic tables, a water tank (I didn’t check if it’s full), and even a small closet with hikers’ stuff and books to take/exchange.
This is where I started this hike from and it’s an easy panoramic hike, despite climbing from 1300m at the starting point to about 1550m at Lookout Mountain, with a steep down and up at a canyon along the way. You get views of the Anza valley and Lookout Mountain, and a couple of decent canyons. The 7 miles took 2 hours and 40 minutes, which included a 20 minute break.
Following the hike, I stopped at the Paradise valley Cafe. Everyone is talking about their hamburgers but being a vegetarian and with the hour being before 11am, I had to do with the Feta Cheese and Spinach omelet. Pretty good. No one ever called me “love” and “honey” as much as the waitress did that morning 😊.
Being done with the hike early, I spent the afternoon seeking entry points to the PCT in the San Jacinto mountains, but almost everywhere I tried, the road either turned into a private road, or if it was a forest road, it was blocked by the forest service, presumably for the fear of fires. I gave up eventually and drove to Idyllwild, a nice sorts-of-Alpine town in the mountains at 7000 feet with coffee shops, restaurants, hiking trails and more. I specifically liked the Black Mountain coffee shop where they roast all sorts of coffee daily.
The rest of the PCT, including the completion of miles 127 to mile 145 will have to wait to next time.
