April 21. Day 3.

Fred Canyon to Mt Laguna (PCT mile 41.5)

Miles hiked: 8.9 on trail; plus ~0.5 to town.

I had to deploy my earplugs last night because one of my neighbors was a grade A snorer, and because Fred Canyon is apparently directly below an airliner traffic lane, and there were planes passing overhead every half hour or so. Ear plugs worked for the planes but not the snoring. I had a dream last night that all my resupply boxes were being stored outside, and for some reason I was camped next to them. It was a good thing I was there, because I had to defend my food from 2 baby wolves and a family of bobcats that were coming in from different sides to grab a snack. There were also some ants and centipedes getting into the food, so with my cousin's help (Neil) we moved the boxes inside. Unfortunately as we were doing this Neil accidentally sprayed a bunch of bug spray in my face. Then all of a sudden I was in a butcher shop searching the meat case, but they didn't have whatever it was I wanted. I think my body's still getting used to the dehydrated food or something. The other big event of the night was that I somehow got a moth in my pants when I got up to pee, but didn't realize it until I was all zipped up back in my sleeping bag.

I sort of woke up around 4:15 as it started to get light, then finally got moving around 4:50. As you'll recall, I wanted to make it the 5 miles to the next on-trail water source before it got too hot. I had a bit under a liter left, so I just made a bit of coffee and packed up, and was hiking by about 5:20.

Some clouds had come in around 2 this morning, and the bottom of the cloud was just a couple hundred feet above our camp. The trail led me up into this gently swirling mist, and since the habitat was scrub with light-colored rock outcrops, it was easy to imagine I was on the Coast Trail in Point Reyes National Seashore. After a mile or 2 I started emerging through the top of the cloud, into a beautiful sunny day with sweeping views up toward Mt. Laguna.

Camp was down there at the edge of the cloud.

Just before reaching the water, I met Half Slow, a short guy with a quick and big smile. We got to talking and it turns out he's familiar with the Point Reyes Bird Observatory (check the Palomarin link over to the right if you don't know what this is; I've been associated in one way or another with that organization for about 10 years). Pretty cool coincidence. I hope to cross paths with Half Slow as we move on up the trail.

Approaching Mt. Laguna

At the water (Long Canyon Creek; PCT mile 37.7) I had another cup of coffee and some granola, meeting Anna and seeing Alfred and Thomas (from day 1) again. I waited around for a while, enjoying the big flock of Pine Siskins that were there. I had a liter of water filtered for Taz, as thanks for the water he gave me yesterday, but when he arrived he said he didn't need any. 

Awesome yucca sticking up thru the scrub.

Stump sorta looks like a toilet; I didn't use it for that.

I was on schedule to arrive in Mt Laguna well before Libby since she had to do some work this morning, so I pretty well mossied the next 4ish miles. The trail continued its gradual climb, side-hilling up through scrub with occasional yucca poking up, and eventually into an area with ceanothus bushes in full bloom. Reaching the top of a ridge, the trail entered a grove of Jeffrey Pine, all full of that sweet vanilla scent, Oregon Juncos and Pygmy Nuthatches. There were also Mountain Chickadees singing, but the "cheese" part of the song was 2 notes. This might have been a sign that I was supposed to get a double cheeseburger in Mt Laguna, but I'm not really super hungry yet and I just got some grapefruit juice and an orange in stead. 

I got into Mt Laguna around noon, and there are quite a few hikers milling about repacking their food and relaxing in the sun. I called Libby and checked in to the cabin she'd reserved. Then showered and washed my clothes with the bucket and bit of detergent the Lodge provides hikers.

Libby arrived around 2:30 and we did a pretty good job of relaxing the rest of the evening. She brought burritos and more fruit, and I also went to the little outdoor store for some body glide to help with the undercarriage chaffing I've been experiencing (as I understand it the technical term to use here is "monkey butt"). Also got some beers.

Birds: 

Note, for those of you actually reading this far down: as was pointed out by my Chief of Data Proofing, I did not in fact see a Five Striped Sparrow on day 1; I'm pretty sure it was instead a Sage Sparrow. As you were.

HOWR

ACWO

WREN

BCSP

SPTO

CAQU

CATR

BEWR

OCWA

NOFL

ATFL

BHGR

WESJ

WEWP

PISI*

TOWA*

OATI

MOCH*

OSFL*

PYNU*

ORJU*

PUFI*

STJA*

WESJ