Morena Valley

The one with the waterfall lunch stop, a gruelling climb and our first proper river crossing.

📍 Location: Lake Morena to Cibbets Flat Campground

🥾 PCT Mile Marker: 32.6 / elevation today reached 4219ft (and I felt it!).
🥾 We actually walked: 15.11 miles.

☀️ Weather: Similar to yesterday, it started off quite cool but by 10am it was absolutely baking. Hiking with a heavy pack, going up and down these mountains is just exhausting. Our pace was 34 mins per mile which shows how tough it was.

⛑️ Health / Physical / Mental:- Tired! My body is tired and my tent now stinks of deep heat. No blisters but my left shoulder keep cramping up. I need to get some weight out of my pack and learn to manage my water better. Mentally I’m still quite strong although I did put my airpods in towards the end of todays hole and Rachel’s gym voice of encouragement with “you got this mum, just push a bit more” was with me all the way.

🍲 Food: Expedition breakfast, cheese and crackers for lunch, pasta bolognaise for dinner and snacks throughout the day.

💤 Sleep: I actually slept well although Joey and Di both had little visitors (gopher’s, which are a bit like moles). I didn’t hear a thing and was fast asleep by 7am and woke up at 4am. I’m nearly over the Jet Lag.

💰Money: Zero money spent today. #HappyDays

🐍 Snake count: I didn’t see any, but about 30ft in front of me, Di saw a baby snake. I think it’s just a matter of time.
🦎 Lizard count: 100 million! They are everywhere and still make me jump.
🐶 Dogs count x 2. A gorgeous golden retriever called Max and. Beagle called Luke. Di works for an animal rescue place in Australia and loves all animals. She has a rescue goat at home called billy. You should have seen Di’s face when she saw the dogs today.

👨 People update: Harry is not well. He has a migraine, but he now thinks it may be Ecoli from the water at the campground. We were told to filter the water or boil it before drinking it. Harry & Anber didn’t see the signs. They still made it to the campsite tonight but we’re about 2 hours later than everyone else.

LEARNINGS:-
When things get bad then we always have more in the tank. We just keep going. One foot in front of the other.

THE LONG WINDED VERSION:-

5am - Woke up and wrote up the last two days worth of blogs. I’m struggling to find time to edit videos as well and I don’t want to miss out on the social aspect of the trail. There is no point being here and just sitting in my tent editing videos so I’ll try and get those done in town.

7.36 - Packed up, breakfast done and we are off. Freezing! Poor Harry has had a migraine all night so he and Amber are just going to see how they feel today. Tim, Joey and a few others have already left. It’s looking like a high of around 22 degrees today so should be a good day for hiking. (I laugh when I read this back as it got into the 30’s! - the weather apps lie!)

7.54 - DinkyDi, Joey and I are hiking together. We see weird statues and then a random wild Turkey decides to cross our path! We do our “Chandler Dance” by a sign that reads “Campo 20
Miles” and Joey suggests a trail name of Dancing Queen for me (but I decline it as I’m not that much into ABBA and I’m an awful dancer! 😂

7.57 - We stop to chat to a local who is mowing his lawn. “Are you hiking the PCT?” He asked. “We sure are sir”, says Joey. “Well the PCT is that way!” As he pointed down the road where we had just come from. 😂 DinkyDi declared “another near squiggle”!

9.13 - We are climbing up, up, up so at the summit of one hill it was time for a group of us to let the chickens out. (Which is a stretching exercise). DinkyDi has a similar exercise called “let the chickens in” which involves a lot of bending and swinging. It feels good!

10.50 - This is where the fun starts as we approach our first real river crossing. On the other side of the river is Disco Daddy and Captain Cook. They tell us that it goes to your thigh in places and to face upstream as the current is quite high. We all change into our camp shoes and I have my Skinner socks on. DinkyDi goes first. DISCO Daddy is giving clear instructions as to which way to go. Apparently there are big holes in the middle so we needed to avoid those. Following his guidance Di made to the other side safely and now it was my turn. I took tentative steps as the ice cold water filled my shoes. It was smooth on the bottom and actually quite a pleasant experience. DISCO daddy guided me as well and before I knew it I was on the other side. Now it was Joey’s turn and he was over safely within a few mins. We joined Disco Daddy and Captain Cook for a break and a catch up whilst drying our feet. They didn’t make it to Boulder Oaks last night so were camping out here until 3pm to get their PCT tag, and then doing some night hiking. We wished them well and said we would catch up with them in town tomorrow.

12.06 - The trail continues up, up. up, and the views are out of this world. All you can see is mountains galore in all directions. The yucca plants, cactus and wild flowers are beautiful. Bounding down the trail is a huge ginger Labrador, shortly followed by his owner. I hear a squeal of delight from DinkyDi who makes a big fuss of Max the dog. I was just thankful for the quick rest!

1.36 - We heard through the trail grapevine that there was a side trail down to a waterfall. “Shall we explore and perhaps have lunch their?” I asked Di. “Brilliant idea”. It really hadn’t dawned on me that a waterfall would not be up high where we were. We left our backpacks in a bush just off the trail and I grabbed my chair and food bag. Heading down towards the waterfall it felt like we were off to the beach! After a rather sketchy scramble down we came out into an oasis which was just stunning. Jolly Sarah was returning from a paddle and she told us about the rattlesnake that was up on the rocks on the other side. Eeek! Im glad I’ve got my chair as I set up and put my feet is the cold water. You could near hear the sizzle as I did so. I washed down my legs and scrubbed between my toes. Blimey, I’m filthy! We spend about 40 mins Al having lunch and going for a paddle before packing up and making the steep scramble back towards the trail. The climb was worth it and was just what we needed.

The next few hours was some of the toughest hiking I’ve ever done. The afternoon heat was just insane and my umbrella was not making much of a difference, plus it kept getting caught in the bushes. My feet are throbbing and I have pain in my hips and my left shoulder. This pack is really heavy and I tell myself that I can do it! Stop focusing on the pain and look at those views… which worked for a few mins! You know when things are bad when my AirPods make an appearance. I pop one into my right ear and get lost in a podcast. I only use one earbud as I’m keen to listen out for those rattles!

4.15pm - We made it! Cibbetts Flat Campsite. We are here with MooseJaw (I think that’s what he said?), Jesse, Joey and Di.
Funny story, DinkyDi in Oz means “it will be alright, everything is Dinky Di”. She’s never heard the term meaning “small”.

6.10pm - Amber & Harry turn up. Yey and so do two more Americans. This campsite has toilet facilities which is a real bonus. No pooping in the woods!

I’m so very tired and I’m in bed by 7.30pm. Goodnight everyone. Tomorrow is townRead more