Daily miles 25
Total Miles 343
Reasonable start to the day with beautiful morning light. We filled up our water from the nearby stream which was close to camp and started out walk for the day. Even though it felt like a late start, there were still a couple hikers still camped.
Much of our morning was spent walking around Silverwood Lake. The trail travels close to the lake so it felt like we did a lot of miles just winding in and out of the little bays and fingers of the lake. It was pretty to walk around the lake.
We took our lunch break in some shade right next to the trail with a young hiker named Orange Blossom. It was fun to chat with him and learn about his experience thus far as this is his first trail.
We had a solid uphill climb in the afternoon sun on a south facing slope. It was warm and we had a few liters of water to carry as there wasn’t anything noted for water till a spot that we figured would be the end of the day for us. The afternoon beat us down pretty good. The exposure to the heat can really tire a person out.
Our goal for the day was a spot a couple miles beyond Cajon Pass. Cajon Pass is notable as there is a McDonald’s within 4/10ths of a mile of the PCT. Many hikers are healthy eaters off the trail (us included), but put a McDonald’s that close to the trail and we are all in there eating fries, pies, and burgers. More practically however, McDonald’s is the place where nearly all PCT hikers fill up water for the next 22+ mile waterless section. While eating we had a nice chat named Manny from Ohio. He quit his job (professional water engineer), drove his car to San Diego, sold it and started hiking the PCT without an after-hike plan.
Walking out of McDonald’s, Sweetpea’s heel was giving her a lot of pain so we only walked for about a half hour beyond the pass. We can hear the Interstate road traffic and we are close to a set of train tracks that have a ton of traffic. The guidebook warns against camping within a few miles of the tracks because they blow their horns many times on approach to this section. For us, we found trees that we could hang our hammocks from and Sweetpea’s foot was hurting, so we decided to out our plugs to the test. The end of the day was capped with a bird pooping on Sweetpea’s head.. Blah. We are about 150 yards from the railroad tracks.
Lots of poison oak on the trail again today.
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