Southern California Synopsis

Well we did it, we hiked 702 miles through southern California on the Pacific Crest Trail. Jenna and I are both sad to say goodbye to this section. It was fun, scenic, hot, and difficult.
There are many great things about this part of the PCT and some not so great things.
Some of the things we will miss are as follows:
1. Warm desert nights
2. The clear sky at nights where we can see billions of stars.
3. Jenna will miss the heat
4. We will miss the scenery of the desert landscape and the intensity.
There are also some things we will not miss:
1. Rattlesnakes
2. 15-25 mile waterless stretches
3. Nate will not miss the superheated days
4. We will not miss the massive burned sections
5. We will not miss having to sit out long stretches of midday hiking due to the temperature.
Jenna's most memorable part of Southern California was the desert views, the intensity and challenging nature, and the heat. The most challenging part for her was the wind from the Mojave desert to Tehachapi. It blew her over a few times. Nate's most memorable part of southern California was getting water, the desert sunsets, and the stars at night. The most difficult part for him was dealing with the heat.
There are also a few things that we would change and words of advice for other adventurers. For one, we would never use the Sawyer Squeeze water filter. We felt like we spent more time during the day filtering than we did walking. It worked great for a week then the bags started leaking and the washer on the filter broke. Use chemical treatment, so, so much faster and easier and you will curse much less. A second thing that Jenna would change is she would go stove less and eat all dry meals. She did not like taking the time to cook at night and more importantly she got sick of the dinner meals the fastest. Nate however loves to cook and a hot meal at the end of the day does take time but it is a huge boost of spirit and energy.
We are very happy with almost all our gear and planning decisions. We LOVE our Western Mountaineering sleeping bags. The are so cozy and warm and we always joke that the bags need an eject button because we always sleep in due to cozziness. Our backpacks are great as well as our zrest ground pads. We also love our Montbell Puffys and all of our other clothing. Some advice is that make sure you test ALL you gear. If you are going to carry something make sure you absolutely need it and will use it. One thing we have never used is our rope or pack covers. Our pack covers we will use as we move north, the rope...will probably never be used. One good experience we have had is with Big Agnes. While in the Sierras our Flycreek UL2 zipper broke. When we got to Lone Pine we called them and they immediately sent a replacement tent to our next stop in Mammoth, free of charge no questions asked. Amazing support and help from this company and an amazing tent. A bad experience with a gear company was the Sawyer Squeeze product. When we called and told them our filter failed within a few weeks of our trip their response was basically this..." you can buy new bags on our website, and we can't do anything about the filter leaking" which to us essentially translated to "f*** you". We are not too sad though, we are now saving several hours a day by using chemical treatment.
Overall we both loved the southern California section of the PCT. There were more forests and varieties of terrain than we both were expecting. We finally feel like PCT thru hikers. Entering the Sierras will be beautiful and full of fun new adventures. Thank you for all the comments, support, and love from all over the world. You all keep us going every day. We thank you with all our hearts.








- Love Jenna & Nate
-Totem & Jungle Cookie.