Up early again even though neither of us slept great on account of the wind. I wanted to get to the bathroom before all the car campers got there but I was still too late, even at 6am. A lady kept trying the door and then loudly called “are you going to be long?” …chill out lady, I just got in here! Only one of the bathrooms was working in our area of camp so we decided we would hit up a different sections bathrooms on the way out. That turned out to be a much better, calmer idea.
Big news here…we have trail names! I kept thinking about what Hoops said to us yesterday and he was right, we just need to give each other names. Jake is “pole drop” or “Drop” and I’m “Drip”…Drip & Drop!
It was cool and misty in the morning so I wore long pants and we both hiked in our rain jackets for a while. Once we started climbing we decided to take them off because we were hot. The wind didn’t quit though and we were eventually hiking in the clouds so I stopped to put mine back on. We then came across hikers taking a break, snowflake, Bill Nye the hiking guy and Flyin. It was so exciting to see Flyin! We hadn’t seen him since he took an early hitch into Idyllwild from Paradise Valley Cafe to heal his bum knee. We all discussed our plans to hit up McDonald’s today and said see you later.
More windy ridge walking made up our morning miles but we were making great time. We ended up doing 14 miles by 12:30 and we didn’t roll out of camp early at all. McDonald’s is located .4 miles off trail so almost everyone stops in if only for the novelty. We hadn’t stopped for lunch so I was hungry when we arrived. Even though it was windy our only option for eating was under some trees lining the parking lot. Brightside was already posted up and said earlier there were about 20 hikers with him. I inhaled my fries so quickly Jake asked me if I had even gotten any. Since it was windy and cold we ate and got back on the trail, only 6 miles to camp.
We walked under the highway and across some train tracks. Watching the trains was pretty fun and we wound our way up and over the hills to Cajon Pass. I needed to make an emergency pit stop but the whole ridge was very exposed so we had to keep hiking to find a place that was hidden enough for me to feel comfortable. We were only 1.2 miles from camp but I needed to stop. I’m glad I did because camp was packed! All friendly faces who we had been hanging with since yesterday and more people showed up later.
We set up our tent in the bushes and just barely made it fit. The spots are all pretty tiny around here but on soft sand which is nice. We sat around and ate dinner at the water cache with everyone. It’s nice to hang with this group, hopefully we can stay pretty close to them for a bit. Another big day tomorrow so everyone was in bed by 8.
PCT Hike 