PCT Day 32
Mile:431.9 to 442.3
Start: White sands campsite next to forest service road 4N33
Finish: Acton, CA Kampground of America
Shannon and I woke up really early in the morning as last night we had seen a truck out patrolling the dirt roads above us right before we went to bed and were nervous that someone was gonna come and run us over since we were legitimately camped on the side of a road. We packed up really quickly. And as we were hiking back to the trail, we saw fresh small cat-like footprints in the sand that weren’t there last night. We had heard some sort of cat howling all last night on its way from the valley down below us to the spring. So we were wondering if maybe these footprints were tiny cat or something like that.
Shannon and I stopped momentarily in the shaded campground at the North Fork Angeles National Forest to get trail magic snacks, soda, water and chips provided by Trail Angel Ron. We actually met Ron in person while he was refilling the soda cooler! Snacks and sodas were a dollar donation and the water was free, which was nice since water was so scarce around here. Ron had all the jokes and made us laugh so hard, and we thanked him for helping out the hikers, which he’s been doing for eight years, so awesome. We found out later that the park rangers came and busted the whole operation because they didn’t have a permit to sell things on federal public lands. Whoopsies!
At the campground we saw what were probably the world’s largest pine cones. We also helped out Pastor Frank who had leg cramps and suggested that she gently massage her calf muscles, drink water and electrolytes since it was so hot and she was probably a little dehydrated. I did the Austin Powers fembot impression with the two giant pine cones which made Shannon laugh and then we headed out before it got too much hotter.
The next stretch of trail was baking hot like an oven with the hard packed sand reflecting the heat of the sun back at us like crazy. We felt like we were being cooked from top to bottom like crispy burnt cookies out here. What kept us going was the thought of swimming at the campground pool, cold drinks, showering and laundry. I took out my sun umbrella because I was starting to overheat and it offered a little bit of a relief to be in the shade, even if it was only marginally cooler.
As we descended off the miserable mountain we saw a huge plume of black smoke billowing several mountainsides away. The smoke didn’t look natural and about three or four helicopters were already circling the fire. We found out later that the fire was from a firefighter the next town over called Agua Dulce who was stressed out and had some undiagnosed mental issues, and went into the local fire station where he shot two firefighters. Afterwards he went back to his house where he blew up his place with propane bombs he’d set up and shot himself in his pool. Apparently the FBI, DEA, Department of Homeland Security and local police forces were all called in because they didn’t know what was going on with the bombs or if it was a terrorist or drug kingpin or something.
We finally made it down to the KOA Campground after a long, hot descent and spilled out onto the road. We crossed the scary fast highway where we went back on the PCT before taking a side trail through the reeds, dead grass and the back side of the KOA where all the junk from landscaping and vehicles in storage were. It felt like we walked forever to the office across the hot empty campground where we paid for campsites, showers and cold drinks.
After we refreshed ourselves, we caught a ride with a trail angel who worked at the KOA campground into the tiny western town of Acton, California. The Trail Angel told us that Acton had the most prolific gold mines in the entire state of California back in the day, and it was such a bumpin town that California almost made it into the state capitol instead of Sacramento. It’s crazy because today Acton is so small that it barely had a stop sign. At the campground we met up with Jolly Rancher again who’d stayed there the previous night but couldn’t get himself to wake up and hike out early. We also met up with Coop, who was a forest firefighter in Utah in his real life and told us all these cool stories about smoke jumping and fighting fires.
In the town of Acton Coca Cola, Princess and I went to the local saloon for an expensive dinner. I threw down a huge plate of meatloaf and Shannon and Coca Cola each ate chicken sandwiches, washed down with beer. We then proceeded to the local grocery store across the street where I got rejected to buy an alcoholic Topo Chico Tallboy because my license was currently being held for ransom for towels at the KOA Campground. Shannon ended up buying it for me and we got a ride back to town with another Trail Angel. He told us about a girl just over the mountainside who had punched a black bear in the face. Apparently the black bear was trying to attack her dog and when she punched the bear in the face, it got so surprised it jumped back and ran away. By the time we got back to the KOA, it was getting late, but Cooper told us that he had already seen the viral video of the girl punching the bear on YouTube! How funny.
A bunch of us hikers put our feet in the hot tub and hung out drinking beer and alcoholic Topo Chicos and laughing. There were about a dozen of us hikers like Turtle, Chucks, Interview, Pastor Frank Mariposa, Jolly Rancher, Coca Cola, Shade and a few others, all hanging out in the setting sun. We talked about how horrible the Agua Dulce shooting was in the next town over. A girl from the Netherlands asked about what we thought about the whole thing. None of the Americans really had much to say because it seems like every week there’s a shooting, and we’re all kind of numb to it now which is horrible, but it’s a regular thing. One person summed it up sarcastically, “Welcome to America.” We laughed uncomfortably but no one said anything more than how horrible it was. The matter of gun control is such a tumultuous topic and we didn’t want to start drama.
We all hung out until a very nice caretaker came by and kindly let us know that the pool was closing, but that he’d secretly given us an extra 20 minutes to hang out, which was really really nice. He told us about how we had to convince this guy who just showed up to the campground with a tent on his car that he had to hike the Pacific Crest Trail, because there’s so many girls on it. Oh geez!
We met the car camper, whose name was Aman and a bunch of us PCT hikers hung out with him all night listening to all his adventures from the past few weeks across the West Coast. He was really cool and we had a great time hanging out way into the night with Aman, Coca Cola, Jolly Rancher and Coop. A mopey kid from Hawaii followed me around for a while, and we talked to the different groups of people who were hanging out partying at the campground. Soon it was hiker midnight and people were sleeping while we wrapped up our party a little ways away. We laughed in the dark about all the craziness from our adventures that we’d seen so far. As we went to bed, Shannon and I got pumped to get off the trail for a few days for Jennie and James’ wedding in Montana, where we’d start driving tomorrow.