6 miles in to Cajón Pass, home of the famous McDonalds.
We arrived just after 9 am. My favorite McDonalds food is breakfast so I was pleased with our timing.
My hunger has definitely started to increase, but I tried to make it there without eating before hand. I was close but had to have some quick calories about a mile out.
I had 2 sausage egg McMuffins, three hash browns and tried a breakfast burrito. They made a mistake and gave me three burritos 😁. Wash all that down with an iced coffee and you have a happy Anna.
We Ubered to REI for new shoes. I tried on several styles and sizes of Altras but ended up getting my same pair but half a size up.
There was a chick fil a in the same parking lot, and neither Tux or Rambo had tried it, So we had to show the Europeans what it was all about over lunch.
Ubered back to the McDonald’s got some more food from there and the gas station then resorted our packs in the sun.
Hit the trail later in the after noon and hiked 5 more miles.
Trail magic hit at around 9am. Cans of Pepsi in a cooler full of ice. We ran into the trail angel, who was out in a day hike just before getting to lunch.
We ate lunch at a picnic area on silver wood lake. That area was boat or hike in. There were some retirees that had kayaked in. We took a long siesta through the heat of the day in the shade of the shelters.
When we climbed back up to the trail we saw just how bad the algae bloom was. I was glad to have grabbed water from a tributary before the lake.
6 miles into the the hot springs where we stayed for quite a while. There were a lot of day use people and weekenders.
Classic mix of 20 something’s/ college kids, thru hikers, and full blown nudist hippies.
Later on we hiked to a road crossing where you can get shuttled to the Joshua Inn. The shuttle driver had a Prius with a small trailer behind it. Backpacks in the trailer, hikers in the car and off we went.
They had deli sandwiches and cheap beer. A perfect combo. I had a turkey sandwich then split a meatball sub.
Side trip to the malt shop today! Ceder Glen has a road that goes near the PCT. It is closed until about 1.5 miles from a parking lot. Hikers can walk 1.5 miles to where the road opens and the malt shop will shuttle you to their establishment if they aren’t too busy.
Near-o out of town today. We slept in again, had another great breakfast then finished up chores before check out.
We walked the trash to the dump and just afterward some trail angels stopped and asked us if we needed a ride anywhere, they were willing to come pick us up after lunch after taking some other hikers.
Word started to get around that there is Noro right behind us. So we were glad to be hitting the trail.
We got pizza at Maggios then a ride to trail.
We did an easy 2 miles out of town and made camp early. Avoiding the Noro behind us.
ViajeroNoro Virus is a nasty stomach flu. Caused by ingesting fecal matter that has the virus. Most common transmission is from touching a surface after an infected person didn’t properly wash hands then eating:( hand sanitizer does not kill it 🥲
Tux had pancakes on the brain last night during planning and had the great idea to start hiking the 10 miles to highway 18 at 4am.
Cowboying wasn’t super comfortable last night. All my hiking cloths were wet with sweat in my footbox making the whole quilt a humid mess inside. But no condensation on the outside so breakdown was easy.
Tux ended up pulling ahead, and Eelco, Spicy and I got to the road at around 8:45-9. In thru hiking a common motto/goal is 10 by 10, as in ten miles by 10:00am. This was my second 10 by 10 and my first 10 by 9.
We had breakfast at Grizzlies Cafe. It was a quirky diner with stickers on every flat surface available. They give PCT hikers a discount I had a great breakfast burrito, and yes, Tux got his pancakes.
Then started chores. We spent a long time at the gear store. They don’t sell Altras, so I did not end up buying new shoes.
Hit a few fun shops around town and got some cheap cloths to wear in our air bb hot tub so as to not damage the elastic in our hiking cloths we would swim in lakes and streams in.
Massive resupply, getting food for our 0 tomorrow and a 5/5.5 day resupply. We road the free busses there and got a ride back with our haul from a local trail angle.
The air bb ended up being less full that expected which was a bit disappointing. BeFree nailed to stay at the hostel last minute and 5Spice and Whopper ended up getting a hotel instead day of.
The air bb currently has Tux, Spicy, Eelco, and Cam. Cam is a newer addition, he is from Australia, teaches pailaties and is an incredible chef. He handled most of our town food and made us a fabulous dinner.
Longer day today, out of camp before 6 but the first couple miles had leftovers of yesterday’s wash.
We were planning on a 16 mile water carry from about 3 miles in. This ended up being unnecessary but we were all glad to not rely on unreliable sources.
There was an abandon cabin camp site thing. It was pretty weird. Four room cabin with a couple of free standing guest houses (?) out back. Lots of picnic tables and bear boxes, and a nearly overflowing pit toilet.
Long day of river crossings in the washed out valley. Started with about 7 miles and one or two big river crossings before we reached a section of the trail that had been largely washed away by “Hurricane Hillary” in late 2022 I believe.
Spicy had hiked the trail before that and was amazed at how different everything was. When he last hiked there was only a mile or so that was washed out, where you had to basically hike up the river and then find the trail. Now there was 10 miles of wash.
We started in high spirits joking about what we should do for each of today’s river crossings. The plan to each do 10 pushups for each crossing was not brought up again when we reached around 15 for the day 2 miles in.
The river was low enough to safely cross and was currently snaking from wall to wall of the canyon it had once washed out. The day went climb over boulders around 2 ft diameter for 50-500ft on the left or right side of the river, each a bend we couldn’t get around, find the best place to cross, and start over.
I bet we did upwards of 50 crossings.
We made it to just past the end of the was around sunset and set up in a pasture.
ViajeroOh McDonalds is such a treat! Yummmm