Day 18, No Escape

Part 1, The Desert, Day 18

No Escape

Miles: 20.38

PCT Mile: 305.88

This post was going to get a different title, but later events changed it.

I slept very well last night. Like an infant. Wait, do infants sleep well? Ok, I guess you could say I slept like a small, tired, child. I woke up at 2am shivering, it was freezing, and found my sleeping bag open a bit. Oops! I woke up again at 5am, but stayed in the sack until 6 because it was so cold. I left at 6:30am and saw a lot of sleeping hikers near the trail. They must have come in late. After initially getting lost and taking some time to find the trail, I set off into the morning.

Last night while I was falling asleep, nature was putting on a symphony, and it rocked. Owls, frogs, unidentified night creatures, and this morning was the encore, but with birds. So many birds. I was walking parallel to Holcomb Creek which looked like a wetland habitat for awhile, and the birds were out and singing loud. 

My plan for today was to take it easy, plain and simple. Yesterday was hard on my body and I knew I'd be following this creek for awhile so I wanted t slow down. I stopped at a spot after 2 miles to cook breakfast and charge my phone, and luckily I had service so I sent out my blog post.

Let me just take a second to address this whole "oatmeal in a bag" thing. I don't really enjoy eating this, and I don't look forward to it. It's there for sustenance. I have to fuel the machine, so to speak, so  don't go thinking that I cook this sad, pathetic meal because I like it. Now that that's out of the way, I stayed here for about a half hour and continued.

Here is a better pic of the burn area I was hiking through, a fire from 2007 I think. 

The trail followed Holcomb Creek as the creek got bigger and bigger and it was nice to hike near the sound of flowing water. I was not feeling well at this point. My toe was still numb and my left ankle was throbbing now, so I tightened and loosened my laces several times trying to find some harmony. I'm a bit worried about my toe, but I have 9 other toes. That big toe is just for looks, right? My shoulder also hurts and to top it off I felt like I was going to puke. I was mentally prepared to puke. Did I drink Bad water? WAS IT THE OATMEAL IN A BAG?! I could do nothing about these ailments but hike, so I did. When the trail came creekside, I felt rejuvenated. Did I mention that I LOVE water?

It's easy to get excited about water when it's hard to obtain and use. I walked a few more miles and stopped to soak my feet. The ants were crawling everywhere but I've found that there is little to be done about it out here. You just have to accept that ants are a part of you now. 

The water was ice cold and my feet ached but it was very much needed. I put them in and rubbed them on the sand then dried them in the sun and repeat. I did this for awhile and when I started hiking again, my feet felt alot better. 

i saw this small waterfall and dropped my pack and darted of trail to take a pic. PCT Hikers usually don't go off trail because it can be a unnecessary risk, but I like to explore the areas. The pic doesn't look great,  but I wanted to plunge into this. It was only about a foot deep though. 

I saw this and decided to stop at Bench Camp, mostly to see if there was a bench there, but also to get water and eat lunch. 

I got to Bench Camp and found a beautiful spot by the creek. There was no bench here. Kind of a bummer. It should be called "No Bench Camp." 

I wasn't messing around this time. I bought foods that actually tasted OK. 

Below, is pepperoni and mozzarella cheese. Can anyone tell what it tasted like?

 You guessed it. It tasted a bit like pizza, if I closed my eyes and used some imagination.

These are good when they're not frozen or melted. Actually they're always good. 

I strapped on my solar panel: My charging system out here uses the sun to charge a battery, and the battery charges my phone and I pod. I can't directly charge the iPhone fro my pack because when shade hits the panel, the phone stops charging. iPhone glitch. So I use the battery. 

So far, the system works great. 

Unfortunately, I left Holcomb Creek and continued to descend back into a desert environment. The sun was brutal and the shade non existent, and my pack felt like a giant tumor on my back. It was heavy with water, but I kept moving. 

I was trying to get through this stretch quickly and I turned a corner and saw a Rattle Snake on the trail. I did the snake dance to avoid it and it was as scared of me as I was of it. It didn't rattle, but it made a weird clicking noise. Maybe his rattle is busted, poor bastard. I whipped out my phone and captured what I could before it disappeared under a rock.

It was a big one.

This encounter filled me with adrenaline, which powered me down the trail to Deep Creek Bridge, apparently a popular place because people were everywhere.

I went under the bridge to get water and saw two of my favorite hikers I've met so far, Grapefruit, from San Jose, and Whole-Roll, from Oakland. We sat down in the shade by the water for nearly 2 hours. I've read how polluted Deep Creek is from all the human activity, but we need water out here, so I filtered my water and I put bleach in it, and I'll do this for the next 25 or so miles. Who knows what's floating around in there. 

I'd already gone 11 miles by this point and my feet hurt, and the sun was very unforgiving today, but I got bored so I started hiking again. I should have planned this better. The first part of the trail had a lot of traffic on it for some reason and it was dirty. There was trash all over and graffiti. It started going through Deep Creek Canyon, a huge but narrow canyon with Deep Creek, what looked like a river, flowing through it.

I finally found out why there were so many people. There were swimming holes. Here's one, look for the people, there was nearly 20 or so.

About a mile past that I was alone again, which I like. I noticed two things about the trail here. It was very hot and exposed, and there was nowhere to camp, as the trail was right in the middle of a steep canyon. I kept going. I eventually saw this:

300 miles hiked so far. 

I was on fire from the sun, and far below I kept spotting amazing swimming holes that I had no way of getting to. It was torture. 

I turned a corner and very far below me on the riverside, a couple was having..errr. relations.They looked up and saw me and dove for their clothes. I waved. I don't think the guy liked that, but whatever. He shakes his fist at me. I though it was gross that this was going on basically in our water source for the next 2 days. Seriously, get a room. Good thing I have bleach. It was a hilarious encounter. The day was getting late and there was no end in sight to this canyon. It's a part of the PCT where the trail goes West for over 100 miles, so the sun was shining directly in my face.

I applied 2 different sunscreens 3 times today and still got burnt. I felt like a raisin out there. A pathetic, shriveled raisin. The worst part was that I had nowhere to go. The canyon was so steep that there was zero camping spots, even the trail itself slanted downwards. I could only go forward, as is often the case with thru-hiking, and my body, particularly my feet, was screaming at me. 

I was pissed at myself for the poor planning. It was supposed to be an easy day, but I failed to even look at my map, and now I was stuck in the canyon of death. I knew that Deep Creek Hot Spings, which we'll get into more tomorrow, was about 5 miles away, but that place was a polluted, overcrowded nightmare I wanted to avoid. I knew there would be no camping there. Finally, I came to a saddle near the river and dropped my pack. I went down the hill ln search of a flat spot and hallelujah!! I found a sweet spot by the river. I turned this..:

Into this...

Then I made this, It's just ramen folks, don't get too excited. (I got excited)

Then I went down to the creek and put my feet into this:

So my "go easy" day turned into another long day, but at least I found a nice spot. I learned that I need to plan better. I've been planning for water sources, but I need to plan out camp spots too. The PCT spends so much time up high that flat spots are rare. I do get to fall asleep to the sound of running wate tonight, so that's pretty good.