Day 2: Rain and Brrrrr…

Date: Thurs 4/19

PCT Start Mile: 20 – Lake Morena

PCT End Mile: 32.6 – Cibbets Flat

PCT Mileage for Day: 12.6

Off-Trail Hike Mileage: 1.2

Total PCT Mileage: 32.6

Total Overall Mileage: 35.3

The Highlights: rain, cold, and our first stream crossing.

Yesterday I used my umbrella for sun, today I used it for rain. Shawn doesn’t have an umbrella, so he’s SOL.

While the desert can be hot, the nights tend to be cold. Once the sun goes down it gets quite chilly and mornings are cold too. We started moving around 6:30am when we heard other hikers waking up. Packing up, we walked back down to the Malt Shop for a breakfast burrito before hitting the trail.

At the advice of Hoosier Daddy, we split one, our “hiker hunger” not yet in affect. Hiker hunger is basically when we become ravenous and unable to be satiated no matter how much we eat. We will let you know when this happens.

It was 8:30 by the time we were heading out of camp. The trail began as a corridor between tall green shrubs. This is as technical as I can get with my plant knowledge, they may even be short trees. Here’s a picture:

Fairly early in the day we also had our first stream crossing. Not a rager, but a stream crossing nonetheless. Mitty from Oz crosses the stream:

There was a chance of rain in the forecast, but eventually the sun started poking out and we thought maybe we wouldn’t get any rain. Maybe? We were wrong. Within another hour or so of hiking, it began to mist and I thought, maybe this will go away. That was wrong too. Eventually it was full-on rain. We donned our rain gear as we crossed under I-8 and climbed up into the mountains. Into the wind, cold, and rain.

The majority of the trail went along a ridge along the mountainside, and – terrible weather aside – it was a beautiful hike with great views of the surrounding mountains and valleys below.

Eventually I popped up my umbrella and, despite a few moments of high wind where I had to put it down, this was a brilliant idea. Keeping the rain off you completely is an even better method than wearing rain gear. While some people’s shoes were soaked at the end of the day, mine were actually nice and dry. I am very happy with my decision to bring a hiking umbrella. At only 8 oz, it’s a worthy enough piece of gear even for the weight weanies.

After our long first day, we decided to be more conservative today and planned to hike only 12.6 miles to Cibbets Flat Campground. This proved to be plenty far enough in the terrible weather and unfortunately, the campground was an additional .8 miles off the trail, which isn’t a lot but felt awful being so cold and tired. It was just before 2pm when we arrived, which is an early day but we were happy for it and we were able to set up camp in a nice spot protected from the wind along with Applejack and Hoosier Daddy. The weather further ahead on the trail was supposed to be really nasty, so taking a short day was also a good idea from that perspective.

Cold and exhausted we hurried to set up camp. Thankfully the rain had stopped before we got to the campsite, which at least made set up a little more pleasant.

As we set up our tent, Hoosier Daddy was fidgeting with his own shelter, which is a tarp tent. Basically it’s a tarp propped up with trekking poles at both ends and tensioned with several guy lines. One end is closed and the other open. The plus side of a tarp tent is it’s very light. His whole shelter system is 6 oz. To give you some perspective, my trail pillow is 6 oz (and totally worth it by the way). The down side is it’s much colder with a thin tarp and open front. This reason alone would be no bueno for me since I get cold very easily. You also have to do a lot more work with tensioning with this type of a system vs a free standing tent, which I also wouldn’t be a fan of. But, to each their own and Hoosier Daddy loves his set up. It certainly looks bad ass.

Our tent, snug and warm:

While he played with his plastic teepee, we climbed into our sleeping bags and ate lunch in the tent. Shawn’s lunch consisted of a tortilla with Nutella and a blob of trail mix that was glued together with melted chocolate. Mine was a more savory variety, packed with cheese and Slim Jim’s. Obviously both super healthy.

The cold had completely zapped our energy and we were both soon napping. I was so exhausted that I even dreamed about being exhausted.

I didn’t get up again until almost 7pm, wandering up to another campsite of hikers to stretch my legs. After chatting a bit, I headed back to our campsite, where everyone was in dinner mode. I made ramen and we were soon back in our warm sleeping bags again for sleep round #2. I fell asleep to the sounds of the creek below our campsite and the quiet croaks of frogs.

It looks like the weather over the next several days should be much better, so we are excited for that.