PCT day 5 - mile 77 to mile 91(Julian)

"My Polish father was very religious that's why he called me Stefan" Stefan Wyszyński aka Calves.

"I would not believe if someone told me year ago that I will be sitting under a bridge drinking beer with a bunch of weirdos" Andrew.

It was an absolutely horrific night, wind was howling and then around 3am it started to rain. Rangel dropped us off at the campsite at the Stagecoach RV and pointed to "the best spot" but it didn't help much, if not the shower facilities I would consider my 10$ wasted. It was still raining in the morning when I was packing up, but at least we've been greeted with the rainbow. Then I pointlessly spent 20 minutes on the toilet while the phone was charging by the sink. We waited as agreed yesterday with Rangel at 7:30 by the entrance to RV, but he didn't turn up. By 8:00 I lost hope and decided to catch first hitchhike in my life.

To be fair someone already offered me a ride at 7:20, but Tom wasn't there yet so I said no. I went up to the main road but nothing was coming for 15 minutes, until a pickup truck emerged from the camp, I stuck my thumb up and.. it stopped! It turned out to be this really nice couple with two puddle dogs Willow and Stella, there wasn't much space in the truck so I kept my backpack on my knees and we shared the backseat with both dogs. Anne and Garreth said that their daughter and her husband are hiking the PCT so they came down for couple of weeks to hang out with them, support them and do some trail magic along the way (they were giving watermelon and oranges on the road to Julian yesterday). They were on the way to San Diego Zoo this morning, and since the road was going through Julian they decided to give us a ride. Their daughter met her husband while hiking Appalachian Trail, they belonged to the same "trail family", and apparently after getting married recently, they got that hiking itch again. We arrived in Julian just before 9am (it was 16 mile ride from RV) Anne and Garreth didn't wanted us to pay anything. Absolute legends.

In Julian the trail magic continued, all the shops but one were closed. The only one opened was the amazing "Moms Pies", where after showing your PCT long distance permit, you could get a free slice of pie with ice cream and a drink! Needless to say, the place was crawling with hikers.

We met couple of old faces in town, most of people were doing ZEROs - the day off from trail or NEROs - the day where you hike only couple of miles to reach the town, we decided to do half a day of hiking (which I believe has no special name, haha) in the afternoon.

Once we ate we went to a "PCT Gear Shop" a tiny hiker extravaganza, Tom had to buy a new pair of trail runners and I decided to get a puffy jacket as nights and mornings out here can get very cold - and that's still nothing compared to when we hit Sierra Nevada mountains, so I thought I get one in anticipation of that. It wasn't cheap.

We resupplied, had a stroll around tiny but charming town of Julian, ate a sandwich at "Fat Anthony's" and got a hitch back to the Scissors Crossing with Rangel. We started hiking around 12:30 and managed to clock in 14 miles before the sun started to set. We ended up in a nice little camp site near a water source and fairly well protected from the wind.

It was a good day.