What a day. I’m currently laying under a kitchen table inside a cabin at the top of Mt Laguna. It’s almost 9pm, snowing and very windy. The occasional hard ice piece smacks the window with a “tick” sound.Today has been one I’ll never forget. We woke up at about 6am to face a massive climb out of Hauser Creek. The mountain is intimating to stare up at from the valley floor. Wish I took some photos of it before I climbed. But the view at the top was great
That climb was very hard. We were lucky that it was cloudy. Now we had a 4 mile walk to the next point, Lake Morena. Once we arrived to the bottom of the trail and we were greeted by a park and a small town. About a half mile down the road is a small store and restuarant. A mecca in the middle of nowhere.
We quickly drop our packs out front, fig the wallet out of the pack and head inside.
Oh was it heaven. I was craving salt hard after the crazy climb we just did and for the last 4 hours I have been thinking of pickles, olives, salty salsa, anything briny. I saw a jar of green olives and grabbed it, snatched a Gatorade, paid and walked out front. I opened that jar of olives and drank the brine, damn it was good. Shortly after I ordered the best burger I’ve had in a long time. It was hard to eat, really its suprising how much you dont actually eat for the first few weeks. You have to force feed yourself to stay feeling good.After eating and relaxing for about an hour I proceeded to lighten my pack by tossing out about 6 lbs of food into the hiker box.We waited for about 2 more hours for our trail magic ride to take us up Mt Laguna to spend the night in a cabin. While we were all sitting out on the patio, more and more hikers started to show up. We made new friends, had some laughs and I was sad to see some hike on.
We got picked up by bumblebees family and were driven about 23 miles up the road. As we get there the snow starts coming down and its beautiful. Her family fed us, we had hot showers and some really great conversation. My parter had his pack shook down and he and I both sent items home to lighten our loads.Everything has felt like a dream and I dont ever want to wake up from it. I never knew that the PCT would hit me as hard as it has. There is nothing to compare to this experience and it’s only day 3.
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