PCT Day 11
Mile 119.6 to 140.2 (20.6 miles)
Start: Lost Valley Spring tentsite & overlook
Finish: Nance Canyon tentsite on a sandy dry creek bottom
We woke up at 7am and of course we were the last ones out of camp and everyone was already gone to hike in the cool morning shadows. About 15 hikers left before sunrise and Sophia, Princess and I were the only ones left. We dawdled a while drinking coffee and tea flavored slightly of dinner from our cooking pots, enjoying the views of the canyon wrens trilling and hummingbirds flitting by the pink manzanita bellflowers as the desert woke up.
The morning moments in the desert are so peaceful and serene out here, so incredibly different from the sounds of Cincinnati’s traffic, horns blaring and ambulances wailing all hours of the day and night, the Walnut Hills neighborhood guessing game “Is it fireworks or is it gunshots?” multiple times a week. Or having the stress of waking up in the middle of the night to remember if we cleared the car of our belongings so it wouldn’t get broken into in the garageport by the nightly hoodlums patrolling the neighborhood for valuables. Or the stress of making sure I didn’t miss my alarm for that early morning work meeting with Europe or to recall all the suppliers I had to talk to the next day and the dozens of open orders that needed fulfillment and if tomorrow was going to be the day our luck would run out and we’d get Covid. In the Southern California desert, we fell asleep to the nightly soft sounds of barn owls hooting, tiny critters scuffling through the brush and the canyon winds stirring and shifting. The stress from our past life still hadn’t lifted but the more we were out here, the anxiety started peeling away one petal at a time. I found myself smiling more, opening up more to strangers, celebrating the mornings instead of dreading them like I used to.
With the sun creeping up the mountain flanks and the air heating up to stifling temperatures, we started out on the trail at 8:30am, hiking through tall shady green trees with red bark peeling off in long strips. Crimson flumes of Indian paintbrush were abundant amongst the yellow sprigs of wild mustard and darting lizards scrambling every which way as our trail shoes sent up dusty puffs with each step.
A few hours into hiking, I ran out of water and had to search for this obscure well where you had to climb up a steep mountain, pry up a huge rock, lean over and then stick your hands and face almost into the well to get at the water with your feet dangling out the opening. With the severe drought in the area, I filtered just enough to help me hike the next few miles to the notorious “Mike’s Place” with its large water tanks on Mike’s property.
According to other hikers who’d done the PCT before, Mike’s Place used to be a hiker oasis where trail angels would provide hikers with food, rest and drink in a dusty 40 mile long stretch of trail where water sources were unreliable. Now there’s still water and occasionally a soda but thru-hikers who’d been there recently wrote on the Guthook navigation app about being sexually harassed by some weird volunteers staying at the property. Seems like the women hikers stopping by had been assigned to do the cooking and cleaning while the guys taking care of the place drank and did drugs. It sounded like a cult-ish place reminiscent of the Spahn Ranch where Charles Manson’s hippie followers lived and we decided we were going to avoid it if at all possible.
As we hiked on through the dry, dusty heat, the sun beat down relentlessly but gusts of wind kept us somewhat cool which was a real treat. We were hesitant to go to Mike’s Place because of the Manson family vibes but desperately needed water for the next section of desert. Cautiously we plodded past the barbed wire and broken down cars to the huge water tanks on Mike’s property where we collected water for eating and drinking. The water was clear and sweet, not sulfury and stagnant like the stuff we’ve recently been drinking.
In a shady spot we rehydrated while sitting on some old tables covered in pine sap that looked like they were from an elementary school cafeteria. Retro!! With our gravity fed filter, we purified the water for drinking, ate some snacks and quietly washed some dirty socks and shorts in a plastic bag in true hiker trash style. I strung up my clean-ish socks and shorts to dry in the sun on a broken down bobcat machine that didn’t look like it was going anywhere too soon. Hurray for drying racks that used to be heavy machinery!
We heard voices of some of our friends in the distance and our curiosity got the best of us so we relented and decided to check out Mike’s Place. We had also just watched Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” which is like a nice fairy tale version of the Manson murders so we gave ourselves only an hour to stay at the property so we wouldn’t get sucked into the weirdness. The owner wasn’t home but a bunch of hikers were hanging out regardless in what felt like a post-apocalyptic world. Broken down cars and metal sculptures were graffitied with different murals scattered across the property. Animal skulls were wired onto the entrance gates and tattered, decrepit trailers and cabins filled with junk took up a good portion of the property. Amongst the weird sculptures hand painted signs saying, “No thieves!” were posted on the fence.
We settled down briefly with the handful of PCT hikers resting during the hottest part of the day. We didn’t feel comfortable wandering the property but instead sat outside the main compound where you could charge your electronics and rest in the shade from the overhanging roof. I was curious about what the bathroom situation was and the guys pointed to the bushes. Signs pointed to the bushes for number one and you go number two in a formerly white colored lawn chair with a hole cut out of it and a toilet seat on top of it. Hoards of black flies covered the lawn chair seats and I just decided I would rather dig a hole in the desert after we left Mike’s Place. Uffdah!!
Shannon and I grabbed a soda, charged our electronics and made a fancy Mountain House brand dehydrated Pad Thai lunch, which I’ve never had before. Thomas, Zoltan and Treebeard were hanging out after having arrived at 10am that morning after having left camp at 4:30-5am to avoid the heat of the day. The guys were planning on staying till much later in the afternoon to night hike while there temperatures were cooler to get the miles done and not burn up to a crisp or get dehydrated. While we were eating, three surfer bros showed up, and we left after a while because they were bragging about weird stupid stuff like where in the world is the best surf, how cool they were having lived in Hawaii for a month at a hostel, smoking weed and all their very loud detailed excursions of hooking up with girls. It was obnoxious and we left the place after lunch made us sleepy and we rested for 20 minutes in the shade. On the way out, we met two women named Sandra D and Double Snacks. It’s been so nice to see so many women hikers on this trail compared to the handful on the Appalachian Trail seven years ago!
Shannon and I took out our dorky hiking umbrellas that shaded us as we walked in the oppressive heat. We were listening to audiobooks and podcasts with one earbud in and one out to listen to what’s going on around us. I was in front and as we were descending into the high desert I almost stepped right on top of a small rattlesnake that I didn’t even see! Shannon was behind me and yelled after I had just put my foot down a couple inches from the rattlesnake’s head. The snake was weird because it didn’t really move very fast, didn’t rattle its tail and luckily didn’t strike me (even though I came within inches of its mouth). I definitely was super lucky and the snake slithered off trail slowly, camouflaged so well that it was difficult to see it even when it was moving!
Local Trail Angels told us that the little rattlesnakes are the ones you have to watch out for because they don’t have any control over how much venom they inject and they can dump all their venom into you. A vial of rattlesnake antivenin at the hospital costs between $1000-$5000 and most people who are bit need between 20-30 vials which makes it a hospital bill that can be upwards of several hundred thosudan dollars. Plus most sources say that after getting bit by a rattlesnake you only have two hours to get to a hospital before you go into a coma and die or lose limbs. Yikes…
I had a great audiobook about a murder mystery set in wintery Switzerland so mentally it helped me stay cool during the hottest part of the day in the desert. By the late afternoon I was exhausted from the heat and my feet were killing me since the majority of my training for the PCT was sitting on my a** eating ice cream and watching Netflix. So. Many. Regrets. I was hoping by next week my feet would finally be hardening up and my reliance on (aka minor addiction to) ibuprofen would be winding down.
Water is so scarce out here that it’s a good day when you don’t have to go more than half a mile one way to get water. We were lucky that Mike’s Place water tanks and the well that probably was the same well from the movie “The Ring” were a few minutes walk from the trail. And by the time we got to the final water source of the day in the late afternoon, I needed to rest before heading down the steep .3 miles to grab water. Shannon (who had actually trained for the PCT by running and walking instead of consuming large quantities of ice cream), kindly offered to grab water for him and I to let me relax. He is a saint!! I joined Crystal from Toronto, Kinsey from New Mexico, Eliza from Massachusetts, couple Grace and Ben (also from MA) on the side of the trail to rest. We laughed our butts off over all sorts of stuff from pooping in the woods (classic thru-hiking topic) to Eliza’s handsome Aussie rock climber gentlemen who had a gosh darn 8-pack like Gerard Butler in “The 300.” We were fairly certain that Eliza’s gentleman friend was related to one of the Hemsworth brothers and started to refer to Eliza as “Mrs. Hemsworth.”
I felt bad because Shannon had volunteered to go down to the water source, which he described as “a steep hill down to Shrek’s swamp.” It didn’t sound super fun and the water was kind of weird tasting, but we filtered it and moved on after my “I-candy” (aka ibuprofen) kicked in. Eric from Hong Kong joined us and a bunch of the girls and guys set up tents by the water source.
Tomorrow our mileage was motivated by cheeseburgers and fries at the legendary Paradise Valley Cafe which closed at 3pm so we had to get up early to get the 13 miles in. We hiked on another 3.5 miles to Nance Canyon where we slept gorgeously on soft warm sand deep in a dry gorge. The stars lit up the canyon overhead and we ate a quick dinner of black rice ramen noodles for me and mac-n-cheese for Shannon in the dark before going to sleep early. Our dreams were all about cheeseburgers and water that didn’t taste like Shrek’s swamp!