A collection of
thru-hikers and section hikers were clustered under the bridge, sharing
stories. I chatted and joked with them a
little, but was ready to start my hike.
A pair of guys with sun hats and trekking poles showed up and took off
again quickly; I started out shortly after them, and caught up after a
half-hour. They introduced themselves as
Kobe Cache and Afghani Danny, and they had me laughing within minutes. Kobe was a volleyball coach and was taking
time off to thru-hike. Afghani was only
hiking the first 100 miles before returning to San Diego for the busiest part
of the landscaping season. He planned to
work for the first half of the summer and then to travel and play for the
second half. His other source of income
was the ownership of several cash machines in bars, and he was currently in the
process of entrusting a friend with the task of carrying the large amounts of
cash to the machines to stock them.
The boys quickly
realized that they could act like boys around me, and within an hour they had
me laughing so hard my stomach hurt. They
only met the previous week on the trail, but somehow clicked in a way that each
brought out the hilarity in the other.
They even had the same favorite movie, called Super Troopers, and constantly
quoted lines from it, their favorite of which was
“You boys like
Me-hi-co?”
At one point I stopped
to pee and rearrange some things in my pack and they got a ways ahead of
me. Wanting to get back into the zone of
laughter I literally jogged to catch up with them. I found that I could actually jog with my
pack on, although it probably didn’t do any favors for my knees.
As we laughed and
climbed the winds climbed as well, and by the time dusk approached it was
literally howling. We came to a site out
of the wind with space for only one tent.
My Guthook’s app showed another site a half-mile out, but when we
arrived it was on a ridge, the wind screaming across it. The next campsite another half-mile on was
the same, the trees visible in Guthook’s campsite photo having been burnt in a
recent fire. The next spot was in a sort
of small canyon below the trail, and initially seemed perfect. The wind blew down intermittently, but there
was plenty of space for tents and even a campfire. As we pitched our tents the gusts grew in
intensity. Kobe put large rocks on top
of his tent stakes, and across one of mine as a helpful gesture. Afghani made a fire and we sat around it to
cook dinner. I was absorbed in Kobe’s
alcohol stove, wondering if its extreme light weight and ability to cook things
slowly might make it preferable to my JetBoil.
I heard a slight clinking noise in the distance, but didn’t pay it any
attention.
“Did you hear a
metallic noise?” Afghani asked. Kobe nodded and they both jumped up and
charged off. I followed them, and saw
that the wind had ripped up all of my tent stakes, flinging them out in all
directions where I would find them the next morning, and that my entire tent
with my sleeping pad and bag inside it was airborne, anchored only by the line
leading to the spike that Kobe had covered with a large rock. The boys wrestled the tent to the ground and
Afghani held it and helped me untwist the components while Kobe ran off to
fetch more rocks. We re-pitched it in
the lee of Kobe’s tent, anchored by an abundance of large rocks, and returned
to the campfire.
“What would I have done
without you guys? My tent would have
been over that cliff.” They laughed.
“Without us, you would
have just pitched your tent and crawled into it.” Still, I was incredibly grateful to have
encountered my first night of tricky conditions in the company of two
experienced outdoorsmen.
 |
| Danny trying to get out of his tent in the morning |
 |
| The boys doing their morning calisthenics |
In the morning I made
coffee, and somehow managed to find all seven of my tent stakes. Kobe took off ahead and Afghani and I
leapfrogged each other for most of the day.
 |
| This section of the trail burned recently; for long stretches of it much of the flora is charred like this. |
Some other hikers had caught up with us and at one point we were all
together at a water cache. Bruno was a
young Frenchman who had been hiking in New Zealand before coming to the U.S.;
he’d found out about the PCT on the plane ride here and had decided to hike it
before landing. He was small and wiry
and hiked at least 30 miles a day. I
made a snack of sharp cheddar wrapped in a tortilla, and he looked down at it
in disgust.
“In Fronce, we have
none of zees – owange cheese.”
 |
| Bruno taking a break at a cave to cook some Top Ramen |
In the afternoon I
hiked a ridge so windy that I was actually afraid I might be blown off of it,
and in the afternoon I discovered that breaks from hiking were more effective
if I elevated my legs. Afghani caught up
with me and joined me, and we lay on the trail, our legs sticking up the hill
and our heads pointing over the ledge, looking up at our feet and telling
jokes.
 |
| The 100-mile mark! |
 |
| Afghani Danny having finished his 100 miles |
We hiked together into the Barrel
Springs campground where Kobe was waiting for us with news of the Boston
Marathon bombing. I felt more angry than
I did on September 11th, thinking ‘who the hell blows the legs off
of people who derive joy from running?’ It
just seemed so utterly senseless – is the Boston Marathon a symbol of anything
other than personal athletic achievement?
It was too much, and I pushed it out of my head and returned to the
world of pitching tents and treating water and cooking on camp stoves.
Kobe wanted to reach
Warner Springs that evening, but I didn’t have another 8 miles in me and Afghani had
completed his 100 miles and was heading off of the PCT at Barrel Springs. We tried to convince Kobe to stay, but he was determined to push on so we took photos and said goodbyes.
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| Saying goodbye to the boys |
 |
| Kobe is sad to leave. |
 |
| Our campsite at Barrel Springs |
I
was worn out from the two days and it was still cold and windy, we chatted for
awhile through the walls of our tents but I soon fell asleep. In the morning we hugged walked out to
Afghani’s departure point, hugged and promised to keep in touch, and I set off
for Warner Springs. I walked through
open fields sprinkled with scurrying ground squirrels, and welcomed the change
of scenery.
 |
| My first livestock sighting on the trail |
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