Day 5 Part 1 : Julian

24th April 2013
Mile 73.5 to Mile 78.5 : The desert outcrop campsite to Scissors Crossing
Today's mileage so far : 5 miles

I'm writing this journal post from Julian, a town 13 miles west of the PCT along highway 78 which opens it's local library to PCT hikers during the hiking season, thanks Julian!

Red Top broke camp early today and was on the move before Ron and I, but we caught him at Scissors Crossing. It was an easy 5 miles in the cool of the morning, my ankle felt better but nowhere near normal and I'm glad I'll have 2 full zero days at Kick Off to rest it, until then though I'll just have to deal with the pain. I know there is nothing really wrong with it, it's just taken a bit of a battering over the last few days and is making sure I know it. We got to Scissors just before 9, and found Red Top sitting under the road sipping an ice cold beer left by a trail angel. Beer at 8:30 in the morning isn't usually my thing however the last couple days have been about arriving at Scissors crossing early in the morning for reasons I'll explain, so the 3 of us enjoyed that beer to the fullest celebrating our achievement.

Everyday so far has been hot, very hot. Before starting the trail I'd heard that most people rest during the hottest part of the day, from midday to 5pm, as during these hours it is just too hot to hike and takes a lot of energy and water to do so. Before starting I had definitely pooh-poohed this advice (Blackadder reference) thinking I'd hike through the day but have since learnt the error of my ways. I will do all I can to avoid hiking at this time, but sometimes there is no alternative. The hiking distances in the desert are determined by water, hence why yesterday was so knackering, we had no alternative option but to get to the water source as fast of possible. The same is true for for the next stretch of the hike. Between Rodriguez Spur Fire Tank at 68.5 miles and Barrel Spring at 101.5 miles, a total of 33 miles, there is no natural water. On a hot day I get through 1 litre per 3 miles or so depending on trail conditions, so a 33 mile hike would mean over 11 litres of water, which weighs a lot. The water and associated weight conundrum is a bit of a vicious circle, the more weight you carry, the more water you need, and carrying more water means more weight which means more water, and on it goes. To get around the long dry sections trail angels leave water caches along the route, some of which are more reliable than others. One of the best stocked and most reliable is under a bridge at Scissors Crossing at mile 78.5. The reason it is so well stocked is simply because it's right under the road, so getting the water there isn't problem, more remote caches however are much less reliable. It requires a lot of effort for a dedicated trail angel to keep 1 of these caches stocked, constantly hiking up and down the same section of trail with water for hikers like me. Scissors Crossing is 10 miles into the 33 mile dry stretch cutting the dry hike down to 23 miles, just about feasible during the day but not advisable. There is one more cache between Scissors and Barrel Spring, but it is remote and whether it is supplied or not is pot luck depending on the attentiveness of the trail angel who keeps it stocked, the number of hikers that are ahead of me, and the amount of water each of these hikers use, which essentially depends on the weather. The weather here changes from valley to valley, and there are a lot of early starters this year so I have to assume this cache is dry, so I've definitely got at 23 mile hike to do without water and I plan to hike it at night. At the moment there moon is so bright I don't even need a head torch to see at night, and the decreased temperatures should mean I can do it with only 3 or 4 litres of water.

Knowing I have a long hike tonight I decided to spend the day in Julian rest my legs and feet. Julian is a small mountain town several hundred metres higher in elevation than Scissors Crosssing and the desert through which I'll be hiking, and is correspondingly much cooler. I hitched a ride with Ron after a 45 minute wait, during which a pickup truck stopped to disgorge 2 hikers that I hadn't met before. In the 30 seconds that followed, the woman of the pair offered us most of a strawberry and apple from Mom's Pie, a local pie shop that looks kindly on PCT hikers, score!, and her husband realised he'd left his hiking poles in the back of the pickup truck and helpless we all watched them drive off into the distance in the back of that truck, unlucky. Hiking poles are a god-send on the trail and we all felt for this guy that had a lapse of judgement for about 5 seconds and was going to have to expend a lot of time, money, and effort to correct his error, it could really have happened to anyone and although I didn't say it I was very glad it didn't happen to me. Before we really had time to commiserate with the guy another pick-up going in our direction stopped and offered Ron and I a ride, so we jumped in and left there poor couple to deal with their pole problem, there was nothing we could have done to help them anyway. Our ride was with Laura, a local trail angel who helps hikers getting into and out off Julian. Thanks Laura! Laura dropped us at the local library and promised to come back later to take us back. The reason this is such a long post is that she didn't show up and I don't want to go outside and starting hitching once again. The library has free internet, so Ron and I sat down and started doing our web based chores.

2 minutes after sitting down Ron looked up from his computer and said 'I'm quitting the PCT'. In fairness he had said he might quit yesterday as we toiled under the sun, but I thought that was just the heat and exhaustion talking, so didn't take him seriously. I'll be sad to see him go, I enjoyed hiking with him, but each has to make his or her mind up to continue, so I didn't try and talk him out of it, I know it can't have been an easy decision.

3 hours later I am back in the library having done all my chores and seen the sites of Julian, as I said my ride hasn't turned up so have to go back out and hitch. The problem is that this when I arrived in Julian it was a beautiful spring morning when I arrived, but as can happen in spring a front has rolled in covering the mountainside with wind, rain and fog. Less than ideal hitching conditions, but down in the desert it will be perfect hiking condition, so need to get to it. The next post will probably be in a week's time if and when I make it to Idyllwild. Hope you've all enjoyed reading so far and I look forward to seeing all your comments next week. Bye for now.