May 3, 2008 Pacific Crest Trail

Destination: 5 miles above Scissors Crossing
Miles: 19.5

Adrian: Woke up at 5:45 a.m. to get a start on what was a warm, not hot, day. Esoteric Ninja walked by when we were getting ready. A bit later, we saw a guy walking southbound early morning, which was a bit different.

Shortly into the hike we came across Nonstop, who asked me if I had seen her husband. He was the guy hiking southbound. Turns out they were short of water and he thought it would be best to hike south to find some. We wished her well and told her there was water just a couple miles north. It's a tough situation with the water.

We walked a long way east to avoid private property. We descended all the way down to Scissors Crossing and the temps soared. The sand was so hot we could barely hold the soles of our shoes. There was supposed to be a cache of water at the road crossing so we kept our eye out for it.

Speaking of private property, it is one of the biggest issues facing the PCT. Negotiation and purchasing of land/easements is a non-stop activity for the Pacific Crest Trail Association and is the number one expenditure of PCTA funds. Because of this one landowner, we had to detour the true crest for more than 20 scorching miles.

So we found the cache of water, all 50 some gallons of it. We walked over to the road overpass and met Wild Bill and Ninja under it. We imagined ourselves trolls for those 3 hours.

At 4:30 p.m. we walked from the overpass and began our evening walk up the big climb and longest waterless stretch of the trip, 24 miles. Kirsten led us up the hill for 6 miles before we found a nice but windy camp in a wash.

It was a great day. We walked good. I don't expect tomorrow will be as good as today.

Kirsten: I was sitting under a bridge with Wild Bill and his brass knuckle-handled Buck knife and 1-gallon bottle of Skol vodka when I got to thinking about the life of a hobo.
Hobos are nomadic and often sleep under bridges. Crap. I am becoming a hobo. Not that there is anything wrong with being a hobo. It just isn't a career move I'm ready to make at this time.

Adrian talked about the dry, waterless stretches. He didn't talk about walking through rattlesnake country, which is where I come in. We didn't encounter any snakes today. Signs of them, however were everywhere.

When a rattler eats a rodent it digests just about everything except the rodent fur. And can you guess what littered the trail all the way into Scissors Crossing? Yup, coughed up fur. Either there is one or two giant snakes with Las Vegas-all-you-can-eat-buffet-sized appetites or there are thousands of rattlers cruising around those hills. I'm not sure which option is worse.