Week four; mile 276 to 395.
A week full of stories that deserve to be told in person.
Frosty and I craving a town meal so we spent a night at the Joshua Inn bar, sleeping on a stage in the backyard of the bar. Cold leftover lasagna for breakfast hitting way harder than it should. A day of gorgeous single track ridgelines that made me wish I was trailrunning. Reaching the infamous McDonald’s in Cajon Pass and doing the resupply challenge, eating McDonald’s for four meals in a row. Walking through Mountain High, the first ski resort of the trail, which just gets me excited for reaching Stevens Pass even if it’s still months away.
The joy and luck and generosity of having my old backpacking friend, Sonja, pick me up from trail and spoil me for a night in their lovely home. Fresh fruit, homemade oat milk lattes, a comfortable bed, sushi dinner, wandering their charming little town, and stopping for ice cream.
Getting back on trail and climbing to the summit of Mount Baden-Powell for sunset and spending the night, not realizing there was a 70mph windstorm. Leading to my craziest story on the PCT so far: at 9pm in the pitch black, a first-time backpacker needed help setting up her tent. Her sleeping pad had already blown away in the wind, she couldn’t find her headlamp, and she didn’t have her tent pegs. After an hour fighting the biting cold wind, I managed to get her tent set up and held down just enough with rocks. She made it through the night and now has one heck of a first-time story to tell.