Day 36
Start: Near Spunky Edison Rd.
Finish: Maxwell Rd.
Daily Mileage: 18.5
PCT Mile: 489.9
I didn’t sleep that great on a slope last night, but it could be worse. I took off slightly before Cookie Monster since I was ready to go and he stayed up super late until 9:30 last night.
The terrain started off similar to yesterday, but today it didn’t strike me as much as yesterday. Same untouched vegetation and everything, but it was now somewhat boring to me. Super easy though, so I just put my head down and hiked it.
I took a break next to the first road crossing of the day and had a very early lunch and regrouped with Cookie Monster. We stared at the next climb right in front of us. It was heating up but we had already done a decent amount of our daily miles, so it shouldn’t be hard to complete the day regardless of the temperature.
We grabbed some water at the bottom and started up the climb. Since I stared at the climb for about an hour on break, I knew how it was laid out. We progressed amazingly quickly on it, and flew right up. I wasn’t even breathing hard. The miles just disappeared. Maybe a combination of getting into thru-hiking shape and the climb looking bigger than it was.
Down the back side we wound around for a bit, but once again it wasn’t too exciting or remarkable. Just some hiking. We got to the bottom of the hill and Cookie Monster took a break since we weren’t too far off from our intended campsite. It was getting hot now, and we had a climb last thing, so he wanted to take a siesta for a bit at the hottest part of the day.
I do like to keep moving, generally, during the day. Though I have adapted to the start of this hike with more breaks to kill time, I would still rather get to camp early and kill time in camp than still have some miles and a climb to go. So I decided to push on.
It was hot climbing up, and the bright sand was reflecting the sun back at me as well. The climb was 1,500 feet, but I had the entire afternoon to do it. Worst case, I figured I could just pick away at it and I would still make it to camp early.
I started up and soon came to 3 old mine shafts. They looked big inside, but I didn’t go in since ancient mines can be dangerous. I was also driven to get to the top since I started in on the climb.
About half way up, I came to a spring to gather my water for the night. Since it was hot, I grabbed a full gallon just in case. The extra 8 lbs made itself immediately apparent on my back, and I slowed my pace but continued steadily up the hill.
Reaching the crest of the hill, I entered yet another burn area, putting the virgin unburned land of the past couple days behind me. I still had to climb some, but the grade lessened to where it wasn’t too perceptible.
Easy trail for the last couple miles climbing along the crest of the ridge. I arrived at camp by 3:30, pretty early. It had gotten windy since I got on the ridge, and it supposed to stay quite windy tonight.
Camp was under some oaks untouched by the fire, and there were two big clusters of oaks in fairy circles. A fairy circle is where a single original tree dies or is killed, but its roots give sprout to new trees in a circle around where the original tree was. I’ve never seen a fairy circle in person, and to see 2 right next to each other was impressive.
I found a leaning tree where I could lay back on it. I almost took a nap, or perhaps I did. I watched a hummingbird above me coming and going, sitting on its nest. The nest was super tiny, and made even the hummingbird look big. Quite relaxing to just sit in the fairy circle and watch the bird dash in and out in a flash.
Cookie Monster arrived later and actually set up his hammock spanning the fairy circle. I’m not sure what that means for those who are superstitious.
Today was just an ok day. The scenery wasn’t too inspiring, though it wasn’t bad. I think I actually enjoyed the last hot climb the most, powering up it in the heat, then relaxing in the fairy circle up top.
