PCT Day 8
Mile 77.3 to 91.2
Start: Julian California – Oak Hill Inn
Finish: The legendary third gate water cache
We grabbed breakfast in town, had a relaxing morning, settled up at the hotel and were our way back to the trail with some minor detours for lunch in town. We caught the 1:30pm shuttle out with Trail Angel Rayngel, short for Raymond the angel. Carlos and another guy were staying at the RV park that evening, and continuing to rest because Carlos was told that he needed to take care of his tendonitis and the other guy had torn a hamstring, and unfortunately was going home. Rayngel was hilarious and made the winding journey back to the trail so great. We spent the whole ride laughing and enjoyed the ride back to the trail hugging Rayngel goodbye.
Under the overpass bridge we met a hilarious guy named Rattlesnake, aka Mason, who was trying to give away his chicken flavored rice because he said he was already sick of chicken flavored anything after only a week of hiking. We were laughing so hard at how crazy funny he was and he said his main goal on the PCT was to eat rattlesnake tacos and cook them for the hikers. Apparently he had killed in an aggressive rattlesnake with a rock a few days ago, when he wouldn’t move and tried to strike him. Treebeard told us later that Rattlesnake was a big turkey hunter and his comment was “I love Turkey hunting but only 1 out of 10 turkeys taste good and the other 9 turkeys taste kind of gross.” He is very interesting guy.
Taking the hot trail up into the mountains I had a little bit of a tummy ache from all the good heavy town food over the past couple days. I think I did the same thing when I started the Appalachian Trail so I’ll have to be careful in town eating more salads and fruits, less heavy foods.
As the trail climbed the hot mountainside, we were surrounded by twirly spiny Ocotillo cactus with bright red flowers that looked like something out of a Dr. Seuss book. Stocky hooked barrel cactus and giant alien asparagus stalked Agave plants surrounded us making us feel like we’re in a sci fi movie. We had a pretty uneventful afternoon hiking 14.5 miles admiring the late afternoon views and beautiful cactus flowers. We made it to the 90 mile marker and I popped another ibuprofen to shuffle in the last few miles. The last little bit of trail we trekked fast to get to the water at the third gate water cache. In this dry desert, Trail Angels had brought dozens and dozens of liters stacked on pallets for hikers up a windy remote dirt road to help make the long waterless section of trail more bearable. At this point, the PCT would’ve had 40-50 miles without water if Trail Angels hadn’t stepped in to help.
We took three liters each which was the max allowed by the hike by the Trail Angel’s water cache since it was really remote, hard to get to and the cache could be quickly depleted. We camped up back at the PCT at a really brushy place that kind of had a mountain lion feel to it. When Shannon was setting up his side of the tent, he accidentally backed his butt into a pokey cactus that he didn’t see in the darkening shadows. He hollered so loudly that any mountain lions in the area probably ran off from the terrible noise!
As night settled in, I had to do emergency backcountry surgery on Shannon’s butt where the cactus spines were stuck. I grabbed my headlamp and tweezers and was glad we were in such a remote place to “operate” on the delicate area. Soon enough the dozens of tiny cactus spines were removed from flesh and clothing of the patient. It was safe to say that the patient recovered 100% and was able to sit on his bottom to cook dinner that night. We laughed and made sure we looked behind us before we backed up or went to the bathroom. I think that looking behind you before backing up is a good best practice in the desert!