The morning was fine. I made oatmeal. While I was packing up, other hikers came past — a group, and two solo hikers. I knew one of them. On the day I was walking into Big Bear, two hikers and I had been overtaking each other constantly. He was one of those two. I’m terrible with names, and his is gone from my head.
Then I walked on. Up, down, and surprisingly few people on the trail. At some point I managed to walk off it. The PCT crossed a dirt road and I must have missed where it picked up again. Once I realised, I just kept going — the road eventually rejoined the trail anyway. The day had started cool, with very low-hanging clouds and high humidity. Without the sun it stayed cool and damp the whole day, with only a few warmer stretches. I had to put on my softshell jacket over the T-shirt.
Somewhere along that road I met a man driving up in his car. He had spotted the road and wanted to see where it led. We chatted for a moment and I told him that further up was as far as his car was going to get. He offered me a beer. I declined — I don’t like beer.
From there it got very, very windy for a stretch. The road rejoined the PCT and I filled up on water. Seven litres. I thought it was far more than I’d need. Turned out I had intuitively got it right. I’d just filled everything because I didn’t feel like calculating. The plan for the next day was to leave with three litres, so I needed today’s ration plus three on top. As it turned out, things would go differently.
Uphill again. At a nice little spot to camp I came across another hiker. She found it pretty funny that I was turning up at all, because she hadn’t seen a single human being all day. That must have been something. We talked a bit. She mentioned she’d started very late, at 8 a.m., and had felt off all day. I had to laugh — by my standards, leaving at 10 is unusually early.
The wind up there was strong. I was expecting a very windy and possibly rainy night, so I pitched the full tent with all layers — first time in a while, after a stretch of cowboy camping, hobo camping, or just the inner mesh. Tied down properly, all the guy lines. In hindsight it was overkill: the moment I was about to go to sleep, the wind dropped. It rained lightly though, so at least pitching the tent itself had been a good call. After the damage from the last strong winds, I wanted to avoid a repeat at all costs.
I used the opportunity to repair a few holes. The self-adhesive patches haven’t really impressed me — they hold, but only sort of. To be safe, I used the shoe glue I’d bought for the shoes. We’ll see how that holds up.
While I was making dinner — I’ve developed the probably-bad habit of cooking inside the tent — my water bottle tipped over and emptied the entire contents of the pot. A massive mess. And this was exactly the moment I was glad to have plenty of water with me. Because the tent was on a slight slope, I managed to rinse most of it out. I just hope it won’t smell of spicy rice all night.
Since my tortillas keep falling apart anyway, I’ve started just tearing them up, throwing them into the pot, and eating from there with a spoon. Not how I’d prefer to eat them, but a decent workaround. I’m still hoping to find the good tortillas again — in the meantime, I’ll manage.
The night ended up being alright — a bit of rain, mostly quiet. All in all a good day, and cool again. Not too hot is actually pleasant for hiking, even if it means putting on more layers.