Slept in. Had to check out by 11am, so I packed everything up. Had sandwiches for breakfast — decent enough.
Tried to find trail mix one more time. Nothing. Gave up.
I stood at the road thinking about where best to hitchhike back to the trail. At that moment a car with three men pulled up and asked if I needed to get down the mountain. Yes. They took me.
Good company. One was on a business trip. Another was apparently the partner of one of his colleagues, and through some chain of events they’d all ended up in a third person’s car, effectively on a detour road trip to wherever the business trip was supposed to go. They were having a great time — even though one of them had broken another’s phone through some kind of horsing around. I told them about the PCT. I rarely meet people who’ve never heard of it, but they were tourists passing through. We exchanged stories and it was an entertaining ride back to the trail.
From there I set off. Before long I came across a family and stopped to talk. They were out with their two kids and a dog on a day trip, probably locals. They gave me a lot of bread — a kind of sourdough burger bun. I keep getting positive reactions to my trail name. Everyone loves NoPlans. It’s amusing every time.
I kept walking. Eventually I reached a junction where water was a mile off trail. As usual, a mile down — meaning a mile back up after. I decided to camp at the bottom. There were plenty of mosquitoes, but no problem in the tent. The water was fresh and cold.
There was another source closer to the trail. The water there tastes of sulphur. Nobody knows why, and apparently nobody has died from it either. Most hikers go there anyway since it’s closer. I’d rather walk a bit further and drink normal water.
It was a quiet night. Nothing happened.
