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The Pacific Crest Trail 2006

27 Jan 2012 06:20 PM | ancient brit in Tales of an Ancient Brit

After my successful through-hike of the 2650-mile in 2002, I returned for a second attempt. A combination of record winter snows and superb weather made this a very different hike than in 2002. Substantial snow-pack, a rapid snow-melt in the hot weather and many forest fires made this a much more difficult hike. As in 2002, I occasionally hiked naked and, mosquitoes permitting, was usually naked at breaks and when camping and naked at several hot springs and when swimming in lakes and rivers.

Part 1: Southern California

I landed at Los Angeles International on 11th April and picked up a hire car. After collecting the supplies I had pre-ordered from REI and buying food to last me from Campo to Walker Pass, I drove out to the ‘Hiker Haven’ at Agua Dulce where I spent three days sorting out food and equipment, and caching supplies between Agua Dulce and Walker Pass. I then headed south and dropped supplies between Agua Dulce and the Mexican border. I had a day to spare so I did my first training session for the hike. I hiked 6 miles to Deep Creek Hot Springs, spent the night there and hiked back to the car in the morning.

On Sunday I drove down to Escondido to stay with Greg and Irene High and did my second training session for the hike when I walked around San Diego Zoo with them. On Easter Monday, I dropped my car off in San Diego and got a lift to Campo with Ladybug. She had contacted me by email as she wanted someone to ‘hold her hand’ near the border.

It was pleasantly warm when we set off and there was plenty of water in the streams so it was a much easier start than in 2002. Heavy rains in March had filled the streams and springs were running well but this also meant a record snowfall through the Sierra Nevada and Northern California. After a couple of days Ladybug went on ahead and I did very well swapping a married middle-aged lady for a single 22 year-old girl who became known as Ladybird!

The weather was such that Ladybird even put water into a water cache rather than taking it out! At Barrel Spring, Warner Springs Monte gave Ladybird a can of Diet Soda which she started drinking and then said “Why am I drinking this, it’s got no calories”. We were meeting a lot of hikers until we reached Warner Springs, which Ladybird described as a ‘Blackhole’ as hikers seemed to go in but couldn’t get out. By now many hikers were already injured through doing too much mileage at the beginning of the hike, but many where using any excuse to delay reaching the snow.

We reached the San Jacinto Mountains together but Ladybird had to drop down to Idyllwild to resupply and have a day off with her sister. We arranged to meet up again at Deep Creek hot springs. The San Jacinto Mountains were covered in snow and any footsteps had melted away so I had to make tracks in the soft snow as well as cope with some very difficult navigation. It took me 13 hours and 2 days to cover 13 miles! The trail then dropped down to 1000ft and the temperature reached 100°F for the first time. I was mostly on my own as I hiked to Deep Creek hot springs. I had scheduled a rest-day and when Ladybird didn’t turn up I decided to give it another day. In fact she had missed the post in Big Bear City and had to wait for the Post Office to open on the Monday morning.

Deep Creek Hot Springs is one of highlights of Southern California with several hot pools to soak in and a pool which is warm enough to swim in. Traditionally the springs were used naked, but nowadays they are clothing-optional and it is a pity more through-hikers don’t stick to the traditions. I spent my second rest day with a group of locals and had an interesting time. They arranged a pipe from the top hot pool to produce a powerful stream of hot water into the swimming hole. One lady, a retired professional masseur, gave me a water massage. Later in the day she covered me all over with the fine mud from just below the pools and when the mud had dried she washed it off with another water massage.

I had arranged with Ladybird that we would meet at Walker Pass after my supply break if she didn’t reach the hot springs, so I set off the next morning. I reached Silverwood Lake in the afternoon and found a secluded sandy beach for a break and this was the first lake I had been able to swim in. As I did throughout the hike I went skinny-dipping whenever I went swimming.

I had a car booked at Ridgecrest for when I reached Walker Pass and I was going to need to maintain about 20 miles/day from Deep Creek to get there on time. The weather was generally hot and I often walked in a breach-clout (loin cloth), a garment formerly worn by American Indians and Ancient Egyptians. A short cool spell saw me through the Mohave Desert with little problem and I reached Walker Pass after 38 days of hiking.
I hitched down to Ridgecrest where hired a car for a week, resupplied and dropped supplies off as far as the California/Oregon border. On my return to Walker Pass I learnt that Ladybird had been bitten by a Brown Recluse Spider and would be off the trail for several weeks, so I was walking on my own again. I heard the injury described as “Looking like a gunshot wound” and the bite of a Brown Recluse Spider as being “Worse than a Black Widow” and “Like a rattlesnake bite, except ten times worse”. I later learnt that she had got going again and completed the trail in late October.