Day 8... Wind, wind and more wind

Tents a floppin the wind

Pioneer mail picnic area to Scissors crossing
Miles 24.32
Total miles 76.96

Where the hell did this wind come from. Seriously, yesterday was so clam and perfect. Next thing you know tents are being knocked down and things are being blown away. Like my 2ft by 2ft piece of Tyvek that I used in my tents vestibule for like my little front porch. Yeah Thats gone. I am just so glad I made a last minute purchase at the store in Laguna and picked up some ear plugs cause dam its noisy wind.

The plan was to get up at 5 and get an early start on the day. I have 24 miles I want todo, but I decided to sleep in and maybe wait out the wind. haha nope it lasted all day pretty much. I did finally get out of my tent to get all packed up and the last thing to do is pack up my tent. So I like to have my tent and folded nicely and rolled up all perfect like so it fits good in the sack... nope, not happening today thats for sure. I managed not to lose anything to this like 50mph wind (thats what it felt like) and made my tent into some sort of messy ball and stuffed it in the sack, blah good enough. I was the second to last to leave and I still needed to get water.

I found the water, it was a cement horse troff. So I guess I get to use my water filter for the first time. At least the water is clear. So that is exciting. I'm using a sawyer squeeze for a filter. It uses these bags that you fill with water and screw on the filter and squeeze it through the filter. It works pretty nice actually.

So I was finally off, SnakeFarm was still there he didn't have such a good night his tent blew down a couple times. He ended up sleeping on top. One of the prices you pay when you want a lighter weight shelter without poles. he said it was miserable.

I wanted to take more pictures of the incredible views but I was just trying not to fall over seriously it was crazy. We walked along the skinny path on the side of the mountain with like a 2000ish foot drop on the side. It was awesome!

Just a couple photos





I tried to wear my hat but it kept getting blown off.

Finally some relieve from the wind. One thing I like to do is look back and see how far I have come. It's cool when you can see the trail go up and over the mountains you just passed over.

I made it to the Rodriguez spur truck trail where there is supposedly the last water for 30 miles. The water cache at Scissors Crossing is no longer going to be maintained cause hikers have been trashing the area where the cache is located. But I am following Carrot Quinns blog and she is two days ahead of me. So I knew there was a small cache down there. So you can't count on a water cache to be stocked. So I decided to carry 6 litres which is almost 13 lbs of water. It was a long day but pretty enjoyable I felt good the whole day.

I met a guy named Dan I told him I was going all the way to scissors crossing so he decided to go the distance with me. I took a lot of breaks along the way I would take a 15 min break every hour. I was averaging about 3 miles a hour. I could estimate 10 miles takes 4.5 to 5 hours with breaks. Earlier in day I met a girl named Heather she was walking at a snails pace but she didnt take any breaks or very few. she would catch up to me when I was resting and then I would shortly pass her. We call that leap frogging. It was like the story of the tortoise and the hare. I also talked her into going all the way to Scissors crossing.

I was all by myself I started passing people that had already set up there tents and there ready for the night I was about 4 miles till I reached my goal of 24 miles. The temperature was perfect as the sun went down and the wind died down to a nice breeze. I put on my head lamp and did my first night hiking on the trail. It was really cool seeing all the mice running around,and the stars coming out. It was really nice.

I was expecting to see the bridge that goes under the highway. I didn't see it anywhere. I sat down by the side of the road and was checking my maps, and I could hear the sound of trekking poles coming down the trail. It was pitch dark and they didn't have a headlamp on. It was Heather she managed to catch up. Shortly after that Dan showed up and he knew where the bridge was it was further down the trail.

Arriving at the bridge there was like 5 other people cowboy camping under the bridge. 7 or so other people also just arrived from hitch hiking from Julian as well. They all went in and got dinner and drinks. I found a nice flat spot and set up my tent. This was the dustiest place I have ever been, dust was flying with every step. I was so exhausted I was barley able to cook my couscous. It was really good on a tortilla. Sleep never felt so good and my feet are really beat up. Took some vitamin I (Ibuprofen) and passed out.

Tomorrow is also going to be a 20+ mile day. Alarm set for 5am everyday.

Sorry for the lack of photos I was so focused on making the miles.



- Posted from my iPhone