Legs and Borders

"Whoever says Disneyland is the happiest place on earth, has clearly never been to the large rusty pipe" kelseyjo4sho "As a pipe afficiando, I've seen bigger but to the pipes defence it was cold out. As far as large pipes go easily a 13 out of 8 on a Newtonian pipe scale" thebearded1ne Today was a big descent day (biggest on the entire PCT) from underneath San Jacinto mountain were we spend the night, to the town slightly off the PCT called Cabazon. We descended about 9.500 feet and it was a welcome change to the uphill struggle of the past three days. Night was freezing, I had to curl my feet up as they were getting really cold. I also had some bizarre dreams of playing football with Marlowe Theatre team in some kind of castle as a part of a staff party then going to the post office but really visiting my friends but when I rang their doorbell the door has been opened by Queen Elizabeth in her full royal outfit saying that my friends are living behind her house...

"May the peace of wilderness be with you" California State Parks "We're on the elevation of a plane without being in a plane man" Spencer.   So mile-wise today doesn't look like much, but elevation-wise and out of PCT activity it was a helluva busy day. We set off from our camp in Saddle Junction as planned at 7am, descended 1600 feet to Humble Park-Car-Park, but we couldn't get any transport down to Idlewild so we just followed the road another two miles until we reached the city centre. We got there at about 9am and only one shop was open Idlewild Fairway, but it was decently stocked and we managed to get all our resupply done for next three days (our backpacks got way heavier at that point). Then we failed at finding a place to have a shower, as all the campsites required staying with them for a night (or buying a stay) which was 25$, a bit pricey for a shower, so we passed. Which means we will be going a week without shower now, but hey at least we g...

"It's always the second gate that suffers the lack of attention" Jarsh "At first this gate seemed a little standoffish, but I approached it with tentative care and when I reached out it opened right up" Dangeroso "Best gate I've opened since the last gate I opened" dannyrolf18 [Guthook app gate marker comments] What a killer day it was, we ascended 1660 meters (5.443 feet) and descended 1120 metres (3.663 feet) throughout the day. The plans to have an easy day and get into Idlewild in the morning has been revised. Since we hit high elevations we experienced quite a lot of snow patches along the way, luckily snowfall this year in the area is considered low so micro-spikes covering the shoes for better grip on the snow were not necessary, and that's a good news because I didn't have them. I'm planning to purchase it in Kennedy Meadows before we will start our way through Sierra Nevada mountains. Majority of the trail today was leading thr...

Ask: Bist du Deutsch? Me: No I'm Polish, are you German? Ask: No, I'm from Seattle. "Rejoice that your phone is still here. Why not just turn it off?  Why not just keep it off? Instagram and Facebook will not care. The world of human busy-ness and strife has not noticed that you are AWOL The ribbon of trail takes away choice and replaces it with freedom to be still here". Excerpt from Still Here, poem by Mary "Trail Angel" We racked a lot of miles today, again. Tom set himself a carrot on a stick aka Paradise Valley Caffe which was fifteen miles from where we camped, so he pushed a killer tempo of three miles an hour to get there in time before they close - I wasn't feeling the best since morning, I think it was a mixture of calories deficiency, kind of crappy night and our walking tempo. We slowed down a little but still managed to get there by 1pm. As we walked, we stumbled upon a really interesting place called Little Free Library run by Mary "Tr...

"Ride on." Rangel Today we woke up at 6:15 and started walking just before seven. Initial plan was to walk the usual 20 miles, but since the only potential place of human activity / trail magic was Mike's Place 15 miles ahead, we ended up pushing that far before lunch and it was worth it. First of all we got to refill our water bottles and Mike also happened to be present on his ranch (he only comes over during weekends) so we got a chicken burrito, a cold drink and a slice of watermelon. We went back on trail at 2pm, with slightly adjusted plans. Since we need to visit Paradise Valley Caffe to resupply, eat and pick up Tom's micro spikes, we decided to hike another ten miles today to split the difference for tomorrow and only have fifteen more to walk before they close it at 3pm. It also is the only place to resupply for another 40 miles ahead so we can't skip ahead. It looks like the trail will have less of places like this from now on, so I will have to start p...

"I tried to hike PCT in 2016 and I don't think I've enjoyed ten minutes of it" Salty. Compared to the last few days, today seemed quite uneventful, but on the other hand I wish the majority of the hike will look like this. We started at 7am, initial plan was to hike 18 miles to Warner Springs and call it a day, but as we hiked several people told us that there is no point going there as the facilities were quite poor and the better option would be to do 10 miles and get a hitch to a town called Ranchita few miles of the trail, we also passed through the first hundred miles marker along the way! When we arrived at the crossing Mike the store owner at Ranchita was just dropping someone back to the trail, so we got hitch back with him. We spend an hour chilling at his store, getting beer and sandwiches, I also kicked Tom's ass at a game of throwing huge washers into a hole (no idea what the games name was). Then Mike drove us back to trail and we hiked a beautiful 10...