From hobo camping to the highway, and the day after not really moving at all.
Highway 2 was the road today. About halfway to the next town, someone stopped and asked if I wanted a ride. The driver and I got into a long conversation about how children get their names here. I had already met someone on the trail called Lyrics — for a Swiss person not a typical name, and I had found it genuinely interesting. The driver had named her children Galileo and Astronomy. The fact that this is even allowed surprised me. The children also have different last names from their parents — apparently those can be chosen too. None of which is possible in Switzerland.
She was kind and explained where to find things in town. At Mountain Hardware, the hiking section had water reservoirs — but neither the right brand nor the right type. I did find something to clean the inside of my own, which was slowly starting to grow mould. And a good trail mix, of which I bought a fair amount. My shoes are too tight at the front and I had hoped to replace them, but size 47/48 isn’t easy to find here either.
From there to the supermarket for the rest of my resupply, plus a four-litre bottle of Arizona iced tea. My mother once brought one home for me, and I’ve liked the stuff ever since. In Switzerland it only comes in half-litre bottles; here a four-litre bottle costs less than a small one back home. For old times’ sake, I had to buy one.
Behind the sports shop there’s a spot where hikers can hang around. A group of seven other hikers was already there. I asked if they had room to take me back to the trail. Eight people and seven backpacks — not possible. I still don’t know how they got everything into the pickup truck in the first place.
In between I went to see a seamstress who had put up a flyer offering work on backpacks. The outer pocket on mine is too narrow for a water bottle and I wanted that changed. She could only do basic repairs, not larger modifications. So I’ll wait for the next seamstress.
Towards evening I headed back to the trail, even though staying in town overnight would have been easy. For the first time I had to actively stick my thumb out — until now I had either been asked, or there had been a trail angel nearby. Didn’t have to walk long. A man stopped and drove me up the mountain. He had actually been on his way to pick up another hiker, but she had already left with someone else. At least his trip wasn’t entirely wasted. Not particularly grateful behaviour from the other hiker. This exact thing was covered in the trail intro session at the start: if you’ve specifically asked someone to come get you, you wait — even if someone else offers a ride first.
From there I walked on to a campground and ran into the group of seven from the morning. The cowboy camping was alright.
Day 41 isn’t much to write about. I didn’t get going, and stayed at the campsite. In my defence: usually the sun and the heat drive me out of my sleeping bag. This camp was in the shade in the woods, and so I slept longer.
Towards evening I met two other hikers — a man hiking the PCT, his sister joining him for a few days. They had a tent that can be pitched with hiking poles, or with regular poles instead. His sister was using his old tent, which according to him was really bad. We started talking, and at some point I thought: a tent can’t be so bad that it actually gets sold. It wouldn’t let me go. So we took it down. Turned out they had been pitching it the wrong way the whole time. Set up correctly, it was actually pretty good — properly taut. Before that, in my opinion, it would have been useless in bad weather. We all laughed about it. Mistakes happen. Then I had dinner and went to bed.
