Day 31: Poison Oak, Poodle Dog, Pool Time
Date: Fri 5/18
PCT Start Mile: 430.4
PCT End Mile: 444.5
PCT Mileage for Day: 14.1
Total PCT Mileage: 444.5
The Highlights: dodging Poison Oak and Poodle Dog Bush en route to ice cream and a hot tub, very loud trains
After yesterday’s marathon miles, we slept in an extra hour this morning. Remember that morning routine I told you about yesterday? That didn’t happen today.
Today Shawn got up at the same time as me, which meant the tent was coming down while I was still in it. Guess he was in a hurry to get to ice cream and a hot tub, but more on that later…
We hiked out around 7:45am, probably one of our latest starts. After yesterday’s miles, today we planned to keep it shorter, hiking only 14 miles to the Acton KOA campground. We were very excited about all the things we’d heard about it: free hot showers, laundry, a pool AND hot tub, ICE CREAM. This was definitely a motivational boost for our hike today.
The hike started chilly and I wore my gloves until my paws warmed up enough… and also until I was too hungry to wait any longer to dig into my trail mix.
I started making trail mixes in Big Bear Lake. For my first section eating it, I decided I’d put in too many M&Ms. So, when I made another batch in Wrightwood for this next section, I adjusted. Less M&Ms… plus, the awesome trail mix Sherri sent me in Wrightwood already had some chocolate chips in it.
First day eating breakfast on the trail: there are not enough M&Ms in this. Eat begrudgingly. Second day: digging M&Ms out of large bag of trail mix to add to my smaller Ziplock I keep in my hip belt pocket. Making sure each bite I take has at least one M&M. Third day: only eating the M&Ms. Tomorrow there will be no M&Ms. It’s often hard to tell when you resupply exactly what you are going to want to eat on the trail. Apparently for this section I’ve wanted lots of M&Ms.
But anyway, more about the hike itself. Today we went through some trail sections that were a fine white powder.
We also had some great views, as usual. My take-home from this hike so far has been that California is mountains as far as the eye can see.
We hiked about five and a half miles to our first break, the last mile of which was spent bobbing and weaving around overgrown Poison Oak that was encroaching on the trail. So that was fun.
Our first break was at the North Fork Ranger Station, which keeps a nice water cache for hikers. They also had sodas for sale, so we settled back with some cold, carbonated beverages.
While at the station, one of the staff members there (maybe a ranger? Not sure.), came out and chatted with us for awhile. I’m pretty sure his name was Mark. We’ll call him Mark.
He talked with us about the upcoming trail and the next popular stop for all the hikers: Hiker Heaven, run by Jeff and Donna Saufley, around mile 454. Mark said that he and Jeff were good friends and that Jeff was an electrician and did work for Magic Johnson. Through this work, he had gotten tickets to some basketball game (I don’t remember the details…) and blah, blah, blah, they went to a basketball game.
As we prepared to hike out, Mark said “oh, this will be fun! When you see Donna, ask her ‘is Daniel still pooping his pants?!?’ She’ll know what you’re talking about!!!”. I’m not certain if we will pass on that message, but if the opportunity strikes…
Our next 8 mile section to the Acton KOA could best be described as a Poodle Dog Bush obstacle course. Poodle Dog Bush is the bush in the picture above with the purple flowers, though it doesn’t always have flowers. It smells a bit like weed and it is a major skin irritant, like Poison Oak, so you don’t want to touch it.
There were several areas where the bush was overgrown and spilling onto the trail and we did the Poodle Dog Bush tango to maneuver ourselves over, around, and through the bush, pushing it out of our way with our trekking poles.
Another highlight of the afternoon trek was the sight of Vasquez Rocks in the distance. Apparently the location beyond the thirty mile zone from LA has ensured Vasquez Rocks repeated use in motion pictures, television series, and advertising. You can look up a very long list of scenes they have been featured in. Unfortunately my photo below is far away and not that great.
A little after 2pm, we finally reached the KOA. Naturally the office was as far from where we entered off the trail as you could possibly get, but once we arrived we were squared away with a tent site (hikers all in one area) towels and soap for a shower, quarters for laundry, and cold Gatorade’s. We’d be back later for ice cream.
We set up our tent in the large field near the office/store and pool and tore into our lunches, hungry after having put off lunch until we arrived. Lunch was followed by laundry and glorious showers, which was finally followed by hot tub time! Pure awesome.
Pop Rocks and Lux, two hikers we had met in Wrightwood, joined us in the hot tub. Pop Rocks was from Denmark and regaled us with the story of airport interrogation that he’d had when returning to the trail after flying home to Denmark for a week for some dental work.
Yes, you heard that right, after chipping a tooth here, it was cheaper for him to fly all the way back to Denmark to have it fixed than take care of it here. Then he talked about their free education and universal healthcare. Sounds nice…
Through the evening, more and more hikers filed into the KOA, hungry and excited for showers. We were happy to see some friends who we’d last seen in Wrightwood, like Grace (Aardvark, for eating the minty ants) and Alisha.
Since we’d eaten a very late lunch, I was barely even hungry for dinner, so settled on eating a pint of ice cream. 😂 Shawn also ate ice cream, but eventually got hungry enough that he was about to cook some ramen, when a table of hikers at a picnic table near us told him to come help eat their food!
They invited us both over to their feast of fresh fruits, veggies, nice bread, cheeses, meats, chocolate, OLIVES… wow, so nice. They explained that because they were older they treated themselves to some nice food when they got the chance, and boy was it an awesome spread for a hiker! They were from various parts of the country and hiking varying distances of the trail, all great to chat with. Our good fortune to be in the right place at the right time for good food and good company.
After this, we were off to bed. Of course, now that we were settled in for the night… man, there seemed to be a lot more highway noise than I remember during the day. And trains… not a single train had come through during the day. Now that we were ready for sleep, suddenly long, loud, screechy trains were chugging through, horns blaring, seemingly right through the campground. Can we expect this all night? Hopefully not.
