PCT Day 6

April 18, 2019

PCT mile 75.5 to 77.1, 1.6 miles + 1.4 miles off trail to deliver first aid supplies to town! 🙂 =3 miles

Running total: 82.4 miles

Today we woke up excited to hike the 1.6 miles to Scissors Crossing to meet Jesse for a much-needed rest day.

We joined a bunch of PCT hikers enjoying shade under the scissors crossing underpass as we waited. We were excited to see Flower, whom we hadn’t seen since the morning of the storm. She said she spoke to Martin and had heard we pushed on further in the storm to find a site. It’s nice to know people are looking out for us and for each other- we had been thinking of Flower and the others we had either camped with or simply passed while hiking- it’s always fun catching up and hearing everyone is doing well.

Under the bridge there was a well-stocked water cache at a perfect place- no reliable water for at least 14 miles, although that’s just a cache and cannot be fully relied on. There is apparently a trough full of spring water 24 miles out.. again, will it still be full when we get there? And the last reliable water? Well, mile 68, 9 miles ago, had a cache that was empty- I know a few hikers were counting on that. Mile 63 apparently had a trickle in a creek a ways off trail. Mile 59.5 was the last really reliable water, 17.5 miles ago! So, without this cache under the bridge, if people weren’t planning on hitching into town, we are looking at over 40 miles without water- that would take me and Matt 3 days! 3 days of hot, hot, desert sun hiking! Thankfully we had about 1/2 L water left & were planning on a rest day

I was so excited to see Jesse pull in! He drove us and Yaara into town, dropped Yaara off to find housing for the night, then we stopped by Mom’s bakery, where they treat thru-hikers to a free slice of pie, ice cream, and either cider, tea, coffee, or iced tea. Nomnomnom! Delish!

Flower was there soaking her blistered feet. (Later Jesse and I ended up walking back into town from the house to give her some burn stuff we heard might help with blisters…)

After pie, Jesse drove us for over an hour to do errands and pick up groceries for the night. We had invited Shirley and Rich over for dinner and I was craving ceasar salad!! Groceries complete, we went home to do laundry, shower, and prep dinner. Matt made homemade guacamole (yum!), Jesse made homemade carrot curry soup (yum!) And I made…a bagged ceasar salad and frozen “chikn” & black-bean patties…cheers!

Happiness is: fresh apple pie you don’t feel guilty eating AND having a friend like Jesse, who I definitely don’t deserve but am so incredibly grateful to have. Love ya!