PCT Day 63 to 69
July 2 to July 8, 2021
Mile: 744.5 to 750.8
Start: hotel in the desert town of Lone Pine, California
Finish: beachside camping at Chicken Spring Lake
One of the first things we did when we got off the mountains at a cool 80 degrees at 10,000 feet elevation and descended into the desert valley floor of Lone Pine, California at 3,000 feet and an oppressive 110 degrees, was sweat and remember why the hell we hated hiking in the desert. The town was going through a heatwave with desert temperatures soaring every day around 110F and nearby at Death Valley National Park, record setting temperatures of 132 degrees Fahrenheit, were breaking the mercury out of the thermometers.
The town of Lone Pine was super cute with a main drag that had all your basic hiker needs: a couple of outdoor gear outfitters, a grocery store, some restaurants and in true California style, an açaí bowl and smoothie place. The first zero day (aka a rest day with zero hiking) we had in town, we had eaten breakfast at the famous Alabama Hills Cafe but after eating there I felt terrible with stomach pains all day. Trail Angel and former PCT thru hiker Grateful picked us up from downtown and brought us up to Hidden Valley Ranch, which was a true hiker Oasis high in the desert hills. The ranch was owned by a retired Los Angeles sheriff named Reggie who turned the dry desert into a veritable Eden. He had a vineyard full of grapevines, fig trees, pistachios, olives, peaches – you name it, Reggie grew it.
In the back of the property there was a natural freshwater spring that pumped out of the ground and flowed into a pool in a cavelike grotto, where we hung out with Grateful and got to chatting with him. He told us that you could sleep in the grotto because it is nice and cool in there with natural air conditioning from the cold spring water and shaded alcove. You would just be sharing the grotto with a couple of frogs in the grotto pools, occasional bats flitting in to scoop up insects and any one of the curious dogs or cats that wandered the property.
I felt like crap after we left the grotto and went swimming in the pool that had been made in the desert scrub below and had been filled up with a hose pumping well water from the aquifer below. I couldn’t figure out if it was the stupid Alabama Cafe breakfast I’d eaten or something I drank on the trail or heat exhaustion from being in this heat wave but when we went back up to the house, I could barely stand. Shannon had me sit in the shade, while he started setting up the tent in the grassy green lawn. I think the dogs on the property knew I was feeling sick and laid down their heads near me and licked my face. I wandered around the side of the house and puked my guts out for a while of all the breakfasts that I’d had that morning, and felt so much better but still not 100%. Shannon rinsed out my barf shoes and I drank a little water and went to sleep.
The next day I still felt terrible and wasn’t able to stand or sit up. I don’t remember a whole lot except seeing a pretty cat that had been meowing last night near the grassy tent sites. I just lay down all morning and afternoon in the shade until Grateful had had a little bit of time to sign our marriage certificate. The cool showers and hanging out in the grotto helped a little bit but even with the “natural air conditioning” in the heat wave the temperatures were still in the 90s. Grateful joked that it was just pre-wedding jitters of why I wasn’t feeling well but kindly dropped us off back in town to stay in real air conditioning at the Dow Villa Motel since my body was just kind of shutting down in the heat wave.
For the next few days I barely moved, drinking electrolytes, water and when I could nibble on some fresh fruit and veggies. I made very good use of the hotel bathroom and their toilet performed spectacularly. I would rate the Dow Villa Motel 5 out 5 stars based on the toilet performance alone! TMI – sorry readers. As the days passed, I ventured outside a couple of times during our stay when the heat wave temperatures were cooling off from 110F to a balmy 95F or 100F.
Are you feeling better yet??
I tried to go to the doctor in town, but my health insurance was freaking useless. Despite paying $170 a month in fees, it was going to cost me at least another $1,000 just to step into an urgent care appointment plus the lab tests that they’d probably have to do were going to rack up another $1,000 or more out of pocket. I decided that I suddenly felt better after watching the office administrator estimate my bill. During our stay in Lone Pine to recover from my mysterious illness, we watched all of the 8 Harry Potter movies, all 9 of the Star Wars movies, and a couple Avengers movies along with untold amounts of Shark Week TV specials. After almost a week off trail, I finally kicked the food poisoning, heat exhaustion, false hellebore poisoning from one of the leaves used at a spring I drank from or whatever the heck it was and had enough energy to hit the Pacific Crest Trail again.
We had spent a couple of days eating yummy veggie and turkey sandwiches on delicious gluten free bread at a local cafe. So before we left, we hit up our favorite cafe to nomnom on turkey sandwiches while blogging and writing about a dozen postcards to friends and family. We waited at the Dow Villa Motel lobby with two hikers Skyline and San Diego for a prearranged shuttle and chatted to them about how their section hike was going. Apparently they also were going through similar GI issues and symptoms as I was but none of us had good health insurance so we were just riding out whatever illness we had. They also were trying to get a ride 20 miles back up to the trail by asking random hotel guests for a hitch up but weren’t having much luck. Skyline had finally kicked his hiking partner Fun Buns to the curb after she had quit twice since she was so out of shape and it was so hot out. He had been complaining about her every time he saw us and was not too happy that she’s thinking of coming back to the PCT again for a third attempt. Skyline didn’t think that Fun Buns returning to the PCT to hike with him was a good idea in all the heat and the tough terrain coming up. We left the two guys to fend for themselves and kind of hoped that we wouldn’t see them again since most of our discussions with them were listening to them complain and watching them try to convince clearly uncomfortable women at the hotel to drive the two of them up a scary mountain road into the wilderness.
Around 4:30pm, our shuttle driver Kurt came and picked Shannon and I up to drive us back to the PCT. He brought us all the way back up to Horseshoe Meadows Trailhead for $60, which was somewhat a steep fee for a 20 mile shuttle but that mountain road was freaking crazy driving. Kurt, the driver, was a retired commercial pilot, and had flown the Boston to JFK Airport line for 40 years, twice a day. He was super sweet and we felt really safe driving with him as he put his pilot skills to work on the ground.
Back on trail finally and feeling good, we hiked up the cow trail back to Mulkey Pass and the good ole PCT again. As the afternoon shadows grew longer, we trekked through the sandy trail a few miles to Chicken Spring Lake, which was a gorgeous alpine lake surrounded by ancient twisted Bristlecone Pines. Enormous rocky cliffs jetted straight up in columnar fashion to the sky, like they were holding it up. At the lake we camped 100 feet from the water as per the sign that was posted and were surprised to see at least 20 or 30 other tents camped out on the lake. I think this is one of the starting points for the 215-mile-long John Muir Trail so it seemed like there were a lot more people than normal out on the trail.
We kicked off our shoes and sat lakeside in the sand, enjoying a great dinner on the beach together as the sun dipped below the high jagged peaks and the stars bloomed like fields of silvery evening flowers. The lake was so far away from civilization with almost zero light pollution that the heavens sparkled wildly, like glittering drops of aquiline crystal splashed across an inky blackness of sky. It seemed that the closer you looked at the starry night, the more stars, planets and galaxies appeared until the navy blue sky appeared almost gray with how thick the heavens were with celestial bodies.
On our iPhones we were able to take some really epic photos of the Milky Way as the galactic center started to rise in the eastern skies over our tent. You could even spot the bands of the star dust with our eyes which was pretty freakin’ awesome. We felt so lucky to be in such a truly spectacular place and I felt so grateful to not feel like crap anymore. After we cleaned up from dinner and stashed our bear canisters between a couple of large rocks, we curled up in our tent. The warm soft sand beneath us combined with the sound of gentle waves on the lake lapping in the cool night breeze and the shining stars above us lulled us to sleep.
