PCT Day 14 - John Muir

“Go where you may within the bounds of California, mountains are ever in sight, charming and glorifying every landscape”

John Muir

I saw this quote at Mary’s place last night where we camped. Mary owns a house with several acres of land which runs adjacent to the PCT. She has set up an out house with an attached shower, cleared a few camping spots, picnic tables, and even has a water tank and a free library for the hikers when they pass through. Sitting in the middle of the camping area is a large cut out of John Muir with this quote attached. John in his day was called “John of the mountains” and since has acquired another nickname, the father of the national parks, as he was one of the first to understand the importance of preservation. It’s safe to say without him our trail may not exist at all. I particularly like the simplicity of the quote as I quickly started to think of a spot in California where I cannot see the mountains. Madelyn, or “Hero” as she is referred to now, and I have been all over this state, and certainly we would know if mountains are every where. Not too long ago I would sit on my surfboard and look north to The Santa Monica mountains. We’ve been to Redwood, Joshua tree, Sequoia, Yosemite, Sacramento, San Francisco, Anza Borrego, San Diego, Mammoth, and all over LA. A quick run through of my memories and I actually cannot think of a place in California where mountains are not visible. This trip has taken us from one Mountain top to the next canyon floor over and over again. Each peak has offered spectacular views and each canyon has presented thirst quenching water and the hope of shade. Today we started our hike on the ridge at Mary’s and could see a town below us as clouds, which almost broke apart quickly and golfed the surrounding landscape. We hiked in the cold rainy clouds all day. It was nice and cool and quite a relief from other days this week. The mountains today offered us all four seasons in one and it’s easy to see why John loved them so much.

Madelyn’s entry: 

Turns out the plant we’ve been avoiding for the last 10 days is not poodle dog bush! Joe’s been avoiding all purple plants – it’s kind of hysterical. We went to sleep last night with about nine other hikers. We were the only ones to not use a rain fly. I saw big dark clouds in the distance and suggested we use the rain fly – in case of rain- But Joe dismissed that idea, he wants to look at the stars. And guess what? 5 AM it starts drizzling, all of our stuff was wet. Again. Our camp was packed up by 6:30 AM, and just as we were about to sling our packs on Firefly, Pockets, and Bluebird walked up! I was excited to see them. We had 6.5 miles to go until Paradise Valley Cafe. We hit the trail by 7:10 AM. We got to Paradise Valley Café by 10 AM by that point it was cold! 45°. After we got situated in the little restaurant, it started raining. Paradise Valley Café was legit. A very good place to eat. We had gotten there a bit early for lunch, so we decided to split breakfast and then order lunch. Three eggs, hashbrowns, bacon and toast and coffee. Hot coffee. Then the Jose Burger! So much food, we would never order two meals in the same restaurant in real life - perhaps Hiker Hunger has started to kick in. 

We had service and an outlet so we charged everything up, and posted some pictures to social media. We were there for nearly 3 hours and we had another 11 miles to walk still. The plan was to get to mile 158 for water and camp. The plan for tomorrow is to get up early and hike 17. There’s one problem with that – everything is wet, and it’s cold! It’s going to take me forever to get moving tomorrow but we must get to 175! 

I booked our hotel for Idyllwild for Wednesday and Thursday night. We’re going to hang with Firefly pockets and bluebird. There are a few people who are doing the opposite of us, they are hitching into Idyllwild today then coming back to hike. And some (sadly) people are either skipping the 30 mile section, and some are going to town early to get microspikes. Our plan is to hike all the way there and hike straight into town. I think most people are worried about the snow and ice conditions on mount San Jacinto. I am too – but we ran into a couple South bounders who claim the spikes are not needed until after mile 185+. Our camp this evening is about 600 feet down from the trail, we can still hear the wind, and it’s raining every now and then. Joe had found this amazing but creepy giant old tree with branches so low on the trunk it would be perfect for climbing. We were thinking about camping under it but I noticed a lot of the huge branches that had fallen off. That would be a sad story. We ended up camping under a smaller tree.