Miles hiked: 10.5
So the kick off was just fine, but it ended up being a whole lot of sitting around talking with hikers. This is something that you can achieve equally well while actually hiking, so even though the kick off goes another day or so, I decided to get back to Mt Laguna and resume walking. I got a ride back up the hill with Sir Privywinks and took care of a few errands: got a new gas canister for my stove and some underwear (gasp! All that extra weight!) at the outfitters, mailed some stuff home. It took me about 2 hours to just do these few things (I also polished off the last of my non-trail food from Libby), and I think the true reality of this hike was setting in even a bit more. This first leg was really just a quick weekend hike and I got to see my two girls at the end. But now it's really time to get down and dirty and get to some thru hiking. It's going to be a long walk. An amazing experience that I'm very excite for. But still a long walk.
I choked down the last of my crackers and loneliness and got on the trail by 11:50. The path continued through pine and black oak forest for a couple miles before emerging into a shrubby habitat and tracing the edge of the big hunk of mountain that is Mt Laguna. This was downright dramatic! We're talking Eastern Slope of the Sierras sort of topography, with the trail at times right up to the edge of the steep (not cliff, you would have to try pretty hard to fall all the way down this) drop off, which plunged 2000 or so feet in about a half mile of horizontal distance. Words merely touch the surface. Way down below we could see the desert floor, probably sizzling in some horrible way. But for us up on the mountain it was actually a bit cold at times. It was about 60 degrees, and the wind was in the 20-30 mph range. We were totally exposed on this wide open ridge line, with just low scrub and occasional rocks blocking some of the wind. Some places along this ridge had recently burned, I think in 2013. It was pretty interesting to see how quickly the manzanita and other shrubs were regrowing; they were about half as tall as the burned out skeletons of the old plants they're replacing.
The weather was also dramatic. There is a bit of a storm system moving through the area, and since we were walking along the abrupt eastern edge of this big hunk of mountain, the clouds were piling up to the west of us as the storm climbed in elevation, then right when the clouds got overhead they would disappear as that condensed air poured over the eastern scarp of the mountain and the water it was carrying re-vaporized. Occasionally when the wind ceased for a moment the hot breath of the desert below would blow up to our height and remind us what we're in for soon.
I keep saying we, because today was the first day of the trip that I've been hiking at the same pace at the same time in the same place with other hikers. The first of these I ran into was Sprout, then s bit later I met Rachel, Zach, and a girl fro Hawai'i whose Hawai'ian name I can't remember right now (in my mind I've been calling her Honeycreeper, for the cool ratio on her arm; I'll probably see them again soon and get it sorted out). We leapfrogged back and forth, always within about a quarter mile of each other for about 8 miles along this exposed ridge, then all had dinner and hung out together once we decided to camp at the Pioneer Mail picnic area and trail head. Also camping here are Anna and Sarah, who I saw 2 days ago at the water just before Mt Laguna. I hadn't talked with Sarah then, but now she said I looked familiar and we eventually figured out that she had been a volunteer for the UCSC Wildernesses Orientation one year when I was an instructor. Crazy small world!
We got to camp around 4:30 (10 by 4!!) and once we stopped walking things got pretty chilly. It was still just as windy, though we were a bit sheltered in some of these cool Black Oaks up here that have quite hairy leaves. But also as the evening drew on the weather got a bit more serious about raining on us, and right around dark gave us some actual showers. The temperature is still up around 50, so it's not too bad once one is in their tent and sleeping bag. Speaking off which, I've slept in my little shelter the last 2 nights and am quite liking it. I can sit up and eat a bunch of cookies quite comfortably, and can also pin back the doors and fire up the stove just outside for some coffee without leaving bed.
My rookie move of the day was to set up a domino effect between my cooking wind screen (my sit pad sandwiched between 2 pieces of asphalt) and my stove, which resulted in the stove and pot tipping over, spilling my dinner and flaming a bit of grass before I could get the stove turned off. Luckily the grass was wet, and most of the dinner ended up on the pot lid, so I could just pick up the lid and scrape it back in the pot. I was also able to scoop much of the remaining mess off the ground and back into the pot, but had to bury a few morsels that were well-integrated with the dirt.
A road goes right by this picnic area where we're camped, and someone has left a water cache here, which is sort of silly since there is a perfectly fine water tank and spigot here. The only thing this cache seems to achieve is that it allows hikers to avoid filtering their water. Filtering isn't a very onerous task, especially considering we rarely have to do it in this part of the trail. This cache seems like a bit of a waste of effort and plastic bottles, and adds to my feeling that the trail-angeling is a bit out of hand. It's great that people want to help other people, but to me a big part of this trip is to be as self-reliant as possible. I don't want this to be reduced to some organized fun-walk with aid stations regularly spaced along the route. OK, that's all the Scrooging for now.
Birds:
NOFL
PYNU
WESJ
SPTO
OATI
HOWR
ATFL
ACWO
NUWO
WREN
STJA
a swift which I didn't get a good look at but was probably White-throated (it was big)
RTHA
HAWO
WEBL
BUOR
WIWA
BHGR
CALT
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