Day 3 : Mt Laguna

22nd April 2013
Mile 36 to mile 53.5 : Long canyon to pioneer sunrise trail.
Today's mileage : 17.5 trail miles.
I was cold last night, one of our party had a thermometer and said it got below freezing, and i could well believe him as it turns out we were sleeping in a cold sink, oops. Cowboy camping on my second night was maybe not the smartest move. I got up late, telling myself that the sun would soon warm me up, but knowing full well that early morning is the best time for making miles. I hit the trail at 7:30 and climbed the remaining 2 miles to the Mt Laguna plateau. The scenery change was bizarre, one minute climbing through chaparrel, and the next ambling through shady pine forest groves.


From the hot desert to shady pine forests at Mt Laguna



The PCT hugs the edge of the Mt Laguna plateau and although my little point and shoot camera doesn't show it, I could see all the way to the Salton Sea.



The fam waiting out the heat of the day at Mt Laguna. From lfet to right : Ron, JT, Huckleberry Finn, Cat, Domonic and Minow.

The morning ended at the Mt Laguna general store where i met about 10 hikers waiting out the hottest part of the day. Given my previous 2 days experience hiking in the heat i decided to do the same. There also happened to be a hiking shop doing roaring trade flogging anything and everything to ill prepared hikers, and i'm sorry to say i joined their ranks. I hadn't worn my 30 euro decathlon rain jacket (although perhaps should have last night) since i started and decided it had to go. It weighs about half a kilo and that is just way too much. The camping store relieved me of 100 dollars and in exchange i received a very snazzy wind jacket weighing in at less that 100 grams, doing well so far. I also managed to pick up a stickpic, which is a little gizmo that mates my camera with my hiking pole meaning i can take pictures of myself without having to spend hours trying to balance my camera on a rock everytime i want a photo of myself. Pleased as punch with my new purchases i set about my last chore which was to mail my now defunct jacket to Idyllwild, along with my hiking trousers. I've realised that my khaki shorts are weigh to heavy (couldn't resist the pun here) and will change them for some lightweight gym shorts at Idyllwild when i pick my bounce box. However in the interim I've decided to wear them as the trousers make my legs over heat so the trousers went in the mail along with the jacket. Now however i only have one pair of shorts to last me another 8 days, i hope it doesn't get cold in between.
 At 4pm i left Mt Laguna with T-rex, aka Ron the German. T-rex acquired his name as he has a sort of victory dance that he does when he finishes a day's hiking that looks a bit like a move from thriller, but someone mistook it for a T-rex impression and it has now stuck. Over the next 2 hours we traced he edge o the Mt Laguna plateau, on the left cool pine forests, and on the right jaw dropping views of the Anza Borrego desert park and the Salton Sea in the far distance. It was a perfect temperature to hike in. An hour or so later we came across the rest of my current hiking group setting up camp overlooking the desert, very idyllic, however T-rex and i decided to push on. Through goal tomorrow is to get to a campsite at mile 73, so any opportunity to get a head start on it had to be taken. We set off into the dusk light, and before long were hiking at speeding the cool evening mountain air, half an hour later however the wind picked up, so much so it was almost picking us up. We reached a water cache at mine 53 around 9:30 and started looking for a campsite. The wind was just too strong though and we decided to press on hoping to find somewhere to stop for the night. We soon realised we wernt going to find anywhere and decided to just sleep on the trail, so that's what we did. We found a sheltered stretch of trail and slept under the stars and a narrow ledge between the mountain on our left and the desert floor far below us, talk about a room with a view!


The first Stickpic photo, it works!



The view of Anza-Borrego desert park from Mt Laguna



Ron and I at Pioneer springs during the last couple miles of the day.