19 Miles
The morning was hot and I ran out of water so it was a slog to the water source. We passed the 600 mile marker! About 100 yards before the junction to the side trail to the water, I passed a rattlesnake that was beside the trail. Much too close for comfort. I stopped and warned the next hiker (Marcus from Wrightwood), and we used sticks and tree bark to get it awake and moving away from the trail. The water source was a typical pipe spring with trough, but the pipe was not flowing. Instead, we scooped water that was trickling under a barbed wire fence, right next to some cow shit. Yuck. We filtered it, and so far so good. Martin arrived as we were finishing up filling our bottles, but he did not like the scooping idea. He eventually pulled up the end of pipe going into the ground and found it packed with mud. I gave him one of our tent stakes to try to unclog it and sure enough, it started flowing again. We went ahead to break for lunch. The first shade spot was in some tall grass so we didn’t stay long. Ticks were showing up and I didn’t want to get bitten again. So we hiked a bit further. The next spot was on some rocks so we only had to brush off a stray ant from time to time. Around 3, we hiked on. The next water source was supposed to be good and it sure was! Martin was already there and he planned to stay at the campground across the road. We filled up on the cold, refreshing water and then pressed on to our campsite. It was nice being able to drink as much as I wanted at dinner because I had been so dehydrated all day after stretching one liter for so many miles. The more I drank the more calm and normal I felt.
PCT Hike 