Seeing Eva at Cajon Pass was wonderful and we enjoyed our time together. We watched a movie in a THEATER and ate LOTS of good food. (I think I experienced my first "thru-hiker food coma" on the final night at Cajon Pass.) Getting back on trail, even after just one zero, is sometimes a mental battle, but Eva is my biggest cheerleader so Saturday morning, around 6am, we were in the car for the short drive back to the trailhead.
The climb out of Cajon Pass is one of the longest on the PCT. 6,900 feet over 22 miles with no water. On the plus side, it was cool and overcast so I wasn’t sweating profusely the entire time. It snowed lightly the night before at the remote campground where I spent the night. There was still snow on the ground when I arrived and it was the coldest night so far on trail.
Around noon on day two I began a 22 mile road walk on Highway 2. It’s a two lane mountain highway that is quite scenic and it was a Sunday so there were plenty of cars and motorbikes to keep me company. I ate dinner at a scenic vista stop and then walked a few more miles. I was worried about finding a spot to camp along the highway, but just before this mountain tunnel, there was a small depression on the mountain side of the road where I was out of sight and sheltered a bit from the wind.
The next morning I had about 12 more miles of road walking to do and began to see signs indicating controlled one-way traffic. I assumed it was road construction, but I was wrong. Amazon was filming a movie, and they were shooting a car scene! Cameras, lights, generators, rolled cars, cars on hydraulic lifts, cars without wheels, cars with camera jibs, shuttle vans, catering trucks, fancy portable restrooms, dressing rooms and everything else you can imagine on a movie set. And that includes people…lots of people…mostly standing around talking on radios since there was no cell reception in the area. It definitely made the road walk interesting for a few miles. I chatted with a few shuttle drivers and the CHP in charge of traffic control and they didn’t seem to mind an extra on set. By noon I was back on trail and by 6pm I found a beautiful place to camp for the night.
Each day I’m feeling stronger and adjusting to life on trail. Setting up camp each night, making meals, finding water, making time to read and blog, and packing up again each morning as the sun rises is becoming second nature again. It’s a joy to start each day with morning prayer and listen to podcasts throughout the day as I enjoy walking in God's beautiful creation. There was a fire in this section in 2009 and I took a short detour to visit the monument where two fire fighters lost their lives.
My last night on trail in this section was spent at a KOA Campground near Acton, California with a ton of other hikers. I took a hot shower, washed my clothes, and shared a large delivery pizza with a PCT hiker from France. I let him order the pizza since France is much closer to the birthplace of pizza (Italy). I washed it down with a soda and filled in the cracks with ice cream. It was a good day indeed! The following morning I walked the final 11 miles of this section to Agua Dulce through Vasquez Rocks Park and celebrated completing 455 miles with a cheese burger at the Sweetwater Bar and Grill.
Love your posts and looking forward to the next one!
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