Day 33 (6/19) Cache to the Rescue

I woke up this morning ready for another day in the chase after Positive ID and Noah. The first three miles to the road went really quick, and I was feeling great. Absolutely flying. The register at the campground provided me with a little insight into the groups ahead of me. Noah had left a message two days prior saying he would be at the Walker Pass campground this evening. The following day Positive ID signed in and said he was gonna catch Noah by then. There were a number of other hikers in the mix, including the Swisters yesterday, and the Bum Brothers just an hour ahead of me. They claimed to have caught a 3 foot long rattlesnake. Wow, I’m glad I didn’t come across that guy... The registers are an awesome method of communication backward on the trail, but the people up front have no idea about everyone behind them. I really wanted to put in some miles to close the gap with the other guys, and hopefully I’ll be catching them up at Kennedy Meadows.

The water situation today was my biggest concern. There was a 40 mile waterless stretch aside from two caches maintained by a trail angel. A week ago someone left a note on the trail saying they were refilled on the 12th, so I decided I couldn’t count on them. Well, not exactly true. If the first was full, I figured I could count on the second since they were maintained by the same person. So early in the morning, I picked up 5 liters of water, enough so that if the cache was empty I could walk the next eight miles up trail, then bomb down two miles to a distant water source. Not my favorite option, but it would work if needed. Well, when I arrived at the cache, I was just blown away. There were 50 gallons of water there, and maybe 3 liters had been taken so far. Clearly, this had just been refilled, so with renewed confidence I grabbed water for the 15 miles to the next cache, ate lunch, then took off again. Along the trail, I came across a cool stand of Joshua trees (see photo), which have been the only source of shade in this sun-scorched landscape. There was also a pretty neat area where we climbed up between a set of three peaks, and I got a nice panorama in that area. As I pushed on throughout the day, I was thankful that the temperatures remained tolerable, and I didn’t need to break for the heat more than twice this afternoon.

I came to an interesting realization today, as I saw no one for the whole day. It has now been nearly 90 miles since my last interaction with other thru-hikers, when I stopped short at Tylerhorse Canyon while hiking with Number One and the rest of that crew. I’ve seen a few section hikers, but ZERO thru-hikers. If this keeps up I think I’ll name myself ‘The Walking Island’. I camped at the second cache, and wrote a very thankful note to the trail angel who maintains it. This really helped accelerate my day by allowing me to avoid the long haul to get water for this hot dry stretch.

Miles Today: 26
Trip Mileage: 631

Photo: PCT through a stand of Joshua Trees near the first water cache