Long Canyon

This is part 11 of the “Why We Hike” Series

April 17th / 18.2 miles / Elevation gain: 3,253′
Lake Moreno to Long Canyon

We slept in a little, got up about 7 am. We spent some time prepping our sore feet in the bathrooms and by the time we headed out at 8am Jay was gone, we were one of the last ones out of camp so we figured that he was ahead of us. We never saw him again and deduced that he must have bailed off the trail that morning.

Anyhow despite the weather forecast the day was warming up quickly and Zach was having trouble with the heat. Kelly was also having trouble with all of her blisters. It seemed like she was having the hardest time whenever we started hiking right after stopping.

The mid-morning hike was sort of nice; we traveled through some lowland ranches that were very reminiscent the Texas Hill Country.

We walked for a bit and passed a couple whose trail names were Bogie and McCall. They were taking a break from the heat. Kelly had met Bogie very briefly last night in the ladies’ room. They are a retired couple from Georgia that had hiked the Appalachian Trail a few years ago. Kelly and I continued on under a ever hotter sun and little or no shade.

Hiking the desert means you are always watching your water. The trick is to only carry as much as you need (water is heavy) to the next good source. The first day we carried WAY too much, partly out of caution and party because in Kelly’s sleepy 3 am haze she loaded a larger water bottle than we had planned to. With her damaged feet, we decided to carry less today. By mid-day we were definitely getting low and so I found in the guide what sounded like a good spot at Kitchen Creek to filter water from.

Once we got to the spot and climbed down to it we decided to take a short break. Considering that we were in a desert, this was really a nice place. It had tall lush grass for Zach to lie in and wide flat rocks for us to sit on while we dipped our feet in the cool water. While we were relaxing, Eric (the guy from last night) came down and sat with us for a while. Eric is also from Georgia and he also hiked the Appalachian Trail. He had a lawn care business that he gave up to do this thruhike. I am always fascinated hearing people’s stories – about what they had to give up to be able to take 5 months off to thruhike the trail, and what the trail gives them in return.

Compared to the previous day, it was pretty hot by mid-day. When we put our packs on to head out from Kitchen Creek, Zach actually let out a little whimper! Kelly and I had never heard our tough little dog do that before!

The next few hours were all hot uphill trails exposed to the sun. As we stopped over and over to water Zach, it became apparent that we had not brought enough water from our last stop for all of us to drink as much as we wanted. Since it is more important for Zach to stay hydrated in hot weather (dogs don’t sweat), we rationed our intake and saved almost all of it for him.

Later that afternoon we came across Eric again sitting with his new friend Walt while they were taking a break and we decided to join them. Everybody has a story and Walt’s was a great one, apparently for the last 10 years he had been a “kept” man, a gigolo of sorts to an older woman. Now with that arrangement gone he decided to hike the PCT and figure what to do with his life.

Walt is a bit of a character. He is a big guy, about 6’4” and a little heavy for a hiker. He was carrying a very heavy pack and wearing sandals. Apparently no one clued him in about light backpacking before he started; he actually hauled grapefruit, lemons and other produce on the trail. The funniest item he brought was a glass jar of maple syrup. Eric talked him into at least pouring the maple syrup into a lighter weight plastic coke bottle. We ended up getting along with Eric and Walt fairly well, and spent a while talking to them in while Zach napped in the shade.

They ended up trailing not too far behind us for the remainder of the day.

Going through Long Canyon was a treat – even though we spent most of the day climbing up. Until now we had been walking through mostly desert scrub, which we are definitely not big fans of. Long Canyon had a lot of trees and a creek.

We made the Long Canyon campsite area as the sun was setting but the campsite was small, and Bogie and McCall already had their tent set up in it. At the creek crossing there was another tiny camp area but it too had a tent in it.

We ended up finding a great campsite at on the other side of the creek that had several other PCT Thruhikers already there. There was a really nice couple, Melissa and Jason; Dave – kind of grisly looking guy with one eye; Walt and Eric – and of course the 3 of us. Walt was absolutely exhausted. He fell asleep without making dinner at about 7 pm and didn’t wake up until the next morning. I don’t think he had ever hiked that long before.

Continues here: Mount Laguna