Our band of four woke up this morning to the sound of an engine headed our way. Instantly alert, we all watched to make sure it would avoid our tents. It drive past without incident, and I drifted back to sleep for a short while. As everyone woke up and packed, I for the first time in quite awhile had to take down my tent, so I was the last one ready. Then, we set off to complete our road walk. It was interesting that when we got to highway 173 we walked past the point where it was closed and turned from pavement to dirt. Right at this point when we saw a sign for a three mile spur trail to the hot springs. Though it was tempting, we decided to carry on with the trail instead of burning the rest of the day on hot springs.
The closed section of the road was pretty interesting, because it was as if the highway department had just decided that this four mile section wasn’t worth building all the way, and instead left it as a dirt road and closed it to traffic. About three miles down the road, we were able to look across and see the damage to the trail that had caused the detour - there was a 20 foot section that had slid, and it now appeared to be a 45 degree rock slope. Talking to some of the people who went through, they described that as the only sketchy or gnarly section on the real trail. I was pretty glad to miss that, but based on the discussions with people who went through, it would’ve been alright on the real PCT. Our group of four made lunch down at the point where the detour reconnected with the PCT, and there we ran into Aaron again. He pushed ahead, but within half an hour we had caught up to him and the pack had grown to four.
Sadly, this was not to last. As we were going along, Aaron suddenly caught his foot on a tree root, and had a killer faceplant. On a scale from 1 to 10, this was definitely a 10, because he planked it, standing straight up one second, and lying flat the next. Contents of his pack were spilling down the hillside, and he held up for a bit to gather himself, catch his breathe and regain his dignity. We carried on, and as we walked decided we would dub him “Plant” the next time we saw him.
The rest of the afternoon was relatively uneventful, as we walked past the massive dam holding back Silverwood Lake, and then up and around the lake itself. We were shooting for the picnic area for the night, but first came across a boat-in campsite. It was too tempting to pass up, so we bushwhacked down, and set up camp right on the lake. Tomorrow will be a big day as we are only 15 miles from Cajon Pass, where this is a McDonald's and Subway, something we have been dreaming about for the last two days.
Miles Today: 24
Trip Mileage: 327
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