Miles 372.5-454.5
near wrightwood-agua dulce/hiker heaven
Let me begin this entry by saying that section D (cajon pass to agua dulce) is full of detours, and there is not really one correct way to get from one spot to another. In reality, only 2 sections needed to be rerouted. One is for the mountain yellow legged frog on the endangered species list and the other is for the station fire. In 2009, there was an arson caused fire in the San Gabriels that destroyed land on the pct. As a result poodle dog bush is everywhere and the forest service is still in the process of cleaning up. Some places have no official detours though and each hiker must decide which routes to take. There is the "old" endangered species detour, the "official" endangered species detour, the 2010 station fire detour, 2 unofficial poodle dog bush detours, the high desert alternate, and the mandatory station fire detour to name a few. Everyone hiking through this area has had to choose a series of required detours and self made detours around poodle dog bush. For this reason, we're not really sure how much we actually walked but we approximate it to be about as much as the pct miles we covered (~112).
Day 24- Eeyore
We slept in on Tuesday thinking that we would hike mt. Baden powell and take the dangerous "old" endangered species detour that is a busy road walk. On the way out we saw cowboy passing by. He informed us of the high desert alternate route which connects to the "official" endangered species detour. If this route is taken it is approximately the same distance as the Baden Powell/ old endangered species detour BUT it has no dangerous road walk. We decided that summiting mt. Baden-Powell just to see L.A. smog was not worth it and took the alternate route. We mozied through the day and had to stop many times for different things so we had a short day. We realized that there was a ~30 mile section coming up that was covered in poodle dog bush. It was advised that we detour around it, but there was no detour set up. When we finally found some phone service, we looked through some maps and journals to see what others were doing. We decided on a series of forest service roads that would take us from mile 413-436. The rest we would just try our best to avoid the plant. When we finally finished making up our own detour, it was 5 so we just decided to set up camp after only 10.5 miles and plan on a 25 mile day the next day. Our camp spot was beautiful and even though it was a short day, we enjoyed it.
Day 25- 28 miles later
We woke in the middle of the night to a loud, close shriek. We had, and still have, no idea what animal it was but it scared us both. We woke again to an awesome sunrise courtesy of L.A. Smog. The picture does it no justice, although no pictures do.
This was such a fun day of hiking. We hiked 25 miles and realized that we felt great. We were so happy all day and laughed a ton.
We saw a California king snake and I even got Nate to say it was cool. Right before sulfur springs the trail split into separate horse and hiker trail, so we took the hiker trail. When we didn't see water for a while we checked the maps. It turned out we had passed the stream, but we never even saw it. We backtracked on the horse trail until we finally found it. Apparently the water and campground is only reachable through the horse route. Furthermore, the creek was dry! So after hiking 25 miles plus about 1.5 miles backtracking, Nate ran back up the trail a half a mile to get us both gross stagnant water for the next day bringing his total mileage for the day to about 28 miles while I set up camp. We wanted to get up early so we went to bed without eating. This was our biggest mileage day yet.
Day 26- Detour through devastation
There were only 48 miles to agua dulce so we wanted to cut the distance into two days and do a 24 mile day. We woke up late though and didn't get started till 8 so we did not think we would feel like doing 24 miles. Right from the start of the day there was poodle dog bush on the trail. I took a video of the "poodle dog bush ballet" that is needed to avoid it but I accidentally deleted it ( along with about 10 other videos) in agua dulce.
It was annoying to avoid but we were careful. 6 miles in we started the road walk detour we had planned. The entire station fire burn area was really sad looking and deserted. Only pct hikers and rangers are allowed in it right now.
Even though we were on ranger roads, we still had to watch out for poodle dog bush because it was everywhere and would randomly spring up on us. Our thoughts on this are well represented by this picture.
We passed an old deserted fire station that was burned down in the fire. It felt like a zombie was going to pop out at any time.
We ended up feeling great again and easily finishing up 24 miles to messenger flat campground. The bugs were really bad for the first time and we were not too happy about that!
Day 27- heat, hunger, and heaven
We planned to meet my parents friend, patty, at the KOA in Acton for lunch so we got going early. We walked the last 6 miles of the road walk quickly to a water cache set up at the ranger station. The next 4 or 5 miles had poodle dog bush, but we think we dodged it all again, although it was very time consuming. We could feel the heat early on in the day and this turned out being our hottest day yet.
We got a really cool view of what we believe are coastal range mountains in the distance.
The trail right before the Acton was frustrating because it would drop you down near the road just to bring you back up the canyon and back around some hills. We stumbled into the KOA about 15 minutes after patty arrived. She said the temperature was 95, feels like 105. The lunch she brought couldn't have come at a better time. Fruit, wraps, water, lemonade, and oatmeal raisin cookies! She also brought wet paper towels which was great! It was all so delicious and was perfect to have for the hot, frustrating day we were having. We stayed there for 4 hours During the heat of the day and took much needed naps.
We debated staying there but decided we wanted to push on 10 more miles to agua dulce where the saufleys were. They are a family that hosts 99.9% of hikers every year and it is a milestone of the trail to make it there. The evening hike was cooler and fun and we passed vasquez rocks where star trek and other movies have been filmed.
We rolled into the saufleys (hiker heaven) at 9:30, found a cot, showered, and went right to bed.
Day 28- zero in hiker heaven
Today was a great zero. We got to sleep in (6:30), went out for pizza, did laundry, sent out mail, went grocery shopping, read, napped, cleaned out some large tents, and met other hikers.
In the two days that were there we're probably 30 hikers. Some are sparrow and barracuda (7 years old), twinkle toes, voodoo, Micael, keichii, raisins, cubit, mr. Clean, John, shutterbug, hayden, spins, baboon, style, listener and spider legs ( both in their 70's), uberbitch and Ron (trail angels). We were even able to talk to and catch up with Alex and tusc all night. They were part of the bum camp at cajon pass.
It was a very relaxing and fun zero day.
Having been on the trail for almost a month now we have started to notice a few things.
1) When you shower less, you don't need conditioner anymore. Our skin and hair is so soft it's unreal.
2) it's interesting how attached you become to every place you sleep. While you are walking a trail is a trail , but as soon as you decide to set up camp it becomes your home. That spot over there is where we cook, we sleep over there, and we brush teeth over there. But it's more than that, when you have no permanent place to call home, each temporary spot brings a certain attachment as a place to call home for the day.
3) ants are really amazing creatures. They carry pieces of flowers, food, and leaves that are many times their size. Their ant hills are really amazing pieces of art and their strength in numbers is unmatched.
4) it's amazing how fast we are becoming part of a big hiker family. Even if people have never met you before they welcome you and everyone is so friendly.
5) When we told people we were going on this journey, many seemed most scared of us camping "in the middle of nowhere" with only wild animals around and not being close to civilization if something were to happen. In reality, camping in the middle of nowhere is really the safest and the few nights we have actually been worried are when we were too close to civilization. Sometimes finding a spot far enough away from a road or houses was impossible and those nights left us the most uneasy.
-Jenna
-Be Free
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