Month: April 1998

Mexican border to Idyllwild

Greg and his friend and fellow PCT hiker Paul Hacker drove us for 3.5 hrs down to the tiny town of Campo near the Mexican border with California. 70km inland from San Diego, the border area is one of rolling arid hills covered by chaparral bushes and was surprisingly chilly as a wind blew grey clouds across the sky. A cluster of chiselled wooden posts marks the PCT terminal, set beside the strip of barbed wire fences and jeep tracks of the US/Mexican border. A US police border patrol jeep was driving around watching for Mexicans trying to cross over to the USA- I think that they could tell quite easily that we were not what they were looking for. Godie, a fellow hiker, was standing there with a couple of friends, the first of many hikers we would meet on our travels with the same inspiration to cross America. He, it turned out, was starting his walk tomorrow and was at the border to take some photos.

After some photos of our own, we set off from this inauspicious spot at 13:10 25^th April 1998 with feelings of relief and nerves. I felt a bit of a fraud as the ball of my left foot squealed with pain each step and I just hoped to get far enough not to seem too stupid. As we were to find out many times along the trail, often the best solution was just to keep walking and not to think too much about how hard/sore/long it is!! Greg and Paul (see this link where this moment is cited as background to the creation of the PCT kick off event that became huge over the next 20 years) watched us stroll off through the bushes, I think somehow a bit envious of our adventure but knowing also that many hard times were in front of us.

It was difficult, for me especially, to take in that we were actually off on our journey and on that first day my way of dealing with it was just to keep going on and on. Stopping for the first time for some food on a blunt ridge top after a hard 5 hours, Martina politely enquired if this was the way we intended to continue! No, we agreed to take regular stops on our way, it was just felt good for me to get distance under my belt.

From our stop we were able to gaze over the type of country which we would come familiar with over the next few weeks. Back south we could see sandy rounded hills well into Mexico. To the east the land stretched hazily out towards hot flatlands and the Salton Sea, an artificial lake. To the north and west the land broke up into further ridges and hills each marked by eroded, dry river valleys giving a rippling effect of shade and sun. A ranch below us, Hacienda Del Florasol, provided a pleasant splash of green on the arid landscape. The rock in Southern California is mainly coarse grained granite which erodes into a light coloured sandy soil. This supports little of the green grass we were used to in Scotland and contributed towards the typical arid landscape.

We stopped that night beside a tiny creek, high up in the hills after walking a healthy 18 miles and camped in the dark, right on the path, on the only flat patch we could find. Tired but satisfied.

The next day and a half we walked over undulating hills covered in scrub. Our main adversity was the afternoon heat and the hard merciless ground of the trail. The combination made the soles of our feet ache such that when we first stood up in the morning we felt like we were standing on a bed of hot coals!

In the morning we met our first other hiker, also intending to walk to Canada on the PCT (we are called thru-hikers here in reference to hiking ‘thru’ different states to cross the country). Kojak from Tennessee is a veteran of the Appalachian Trial in the east USA and had a deep drawl, which required 2 or 3 takes, but a nice guy. In those first few weeks we met few others on the trail itself but bumped into other hikers in towns nearby.

We continued on with Kojak to climb further into a range called the Laguna Mountains. Here we rejoiced in a change of landscape and our first pine trees as we climbed up to around 6,000ft. The difference in the environment around these Jeffrey pines was staggering compared to that of the chaparral- the trees provided delightful shade and gave off a sweet smell which was to form a lasting evocative memory. As we wandered through, our gaze would be caught by the tremendous symmetry of the trees reaching upward with a cathedral like architecture. Fortunately, in these southern areas the forest consisted of well spaced out trees which allowed distant views unlike some of the deeper forest we were to encounter later on.

Our first mail drop had been arranged to a US post office at the small town of Mount Laguna. We had sent a package with food supplies to the post office and were keen to pick it up and buy some fresh food at the small store. Unfortunately it hadn’t arrived- our first mail drop of around 30 planned drops hadn’t made it and we were a bit worried that our plan of re-supply might prove unreliable. Luckily for us, two other thru-hikers, Jason and Joanne from Canada, were able to help out with some spare food, which would help get us to our next re-supply point four days and seventy miles later.

The Canadians (or the 2-Jay’s as we called them) were a friendly couple who stuck to a vegan diet. This made shopping in small town stores quite difficult for them and they had chosen to prepare and package all their food in advance of their planned six month journey. This effort had lasted 18 months! – and even then Joanne stated that they hadn’t had time to finish the preparation completely. Martina and I, although vegetarians, had gone for a fairly minimal planning approach where we had pre-packaged food for the first 500 miles but decided to then be flexible and respond to whatever our particular special requirements were from then on. Time would tell whether our minimal approach would be sufficient.

The four of us walked on for 4 miles to stop at a roadside campsite. We discovered on arrival though that it was still closed for winter and panicked that there might not be any water supply available. Thankfully after a bit of running around we located a water pipe and settled down. The site was located in pine forest with a lovely pine cone carpet and we discovered we had red squirrels as companions, dashing around our tents. It was still spring here and the temperature dipped well below freezing at night, the clear starry sky opening up to let the scorching daytime heat escape.

On waking we rushed to eat breakfast then pack the tent with freezing, stiff fingers in the cold dawn and be on the trail by 7.30 – giving us precious time before the heat of the day built up. The 2-Jay’s had constructed umbrellas for this hot climate and they were a great source of curiosity for us, see the box below……

Sun Shades on the trail

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2-Jay’s Attached to the umbrella surface was a silver shiny plastic- much like that used in food wrapping- which reflected the sun. The umbrella was carried by hooking it onto a holder on the rucksack shoulder strap. A good idea but a bit prone to windy conditions- I thought it would never catch on in Scotland!

Hikin’ Mike Mike had gone for this self constructed model which was attached by a band round the forehead and supported by a chinstrap. He had cut down a standard umbrella I think. Again, a covering of silver foil was used to reflect the sun. Very practical we thought and a good design.

Marathon Man A forward leaning design which looked to be based on a table lamp! The shade was held by rods fitted onto the rucksack straps. The whole unit had the unfortunate effect of swaying back and forth as Marathon Man walked. This gave him a somewhat ‘otherworldly’ look.

We stayed high for a while on a great escarpment which dropped steeply to our east down to the plains of the Anza-Borrego desert. Water was in short supply and we had to plan carefully how much water we had to carry with us before we could reach the next reliable source. Our guidebook provided very detailed information on this topic and we were able to make fairly informed decisions as to where water sources would be. Some of them involved striking off the trail for some distance though, and this often added hidden miles to our daily tally.

Our stove had been spluttering since the start of the trail and we began to get a bit concerned that it would fail completely after having no success with cleaning attempts. Since our evening meals consisted of lightweight dehydrated foods we were dependant on the stove for cooking as these dishes were inedible otherwise. We soon made a decision to exit the trail at the next road (Scissors Crossing) and hitch-hike to the nearby town of Julian to try and fix the stove before returning to the same point to resume the trail.

This was to be our general ethic for leaving the trail – we could leave at any point and take any form of transport, but we must return to the same point on the trail to leave a continuous line of footsteps. I had heard of a hiker who took this ethic one stage further and would mark the trail with a stick or pile of stones before he left and insisted on touching the marker before resuming his walk. Not for us, but we wanted to walk the whole journey and realised if we loosened our ethics here it could easily degenerate to hitching large parts of the trail.

Scissors Crossing at the junctions of Highway’s 78 and S2 at the bottom of the San Felipe valley was a hot place at mid-day. The sun seemed to enter into the valley and never escape. We reached here by dropping down from the hills onto the flat, dry valley floor until we reached the road junction, its placid polluted looking river at least providing some trees for shade. Reluctantly we had to give up the shade to hitch-hike on the road and were soon heading for the town of Julian, 10 miles west. The journey out of the valley to Julian provided a remarkable change in climate and vegetation as the road climbed away from the hot valley floor through a twisting hill-lined alleyway.

Julian was cool with greenery and has a hill town feel to it. The streets had a bit of a western movie set, just constructed look, but we took to it and settled down to a night in a motel, soft bed and civilised meal at a table. We noted how quickly our attitudes had adopted to living in the outdoors and, although we had only been walking or camping for less than a week, the tent now seemed like our normal home. We returned to the trail the next morning after failing to fix the stove but feeling hugely refreshed and cleansed after our stopover.

Our attempts to hitch back out of town were appearing futile until we saw a lone man walking out of the town on the road towards us. People walking any distance is a rare sight here so we perked up and took notice – was he going to reprimand us for hitch-hiking (we were not sure if it was entirely legal) or was he an American ‘crazy’? It turned out his name was Jeff, he was retired in Julian and a hiker interested in the PCT. He was keen to chat about the trail and help us out by giving us a lift down to Scissors Crossing. A quick walk back to visit his wife in the town bakery, through the back of the bakery to his car, and we were on our way back to the trail. Jeff’s help was one of our first experiences of the tremendous generosity of the American people.

Jeff dropped us back at Scissors Crossing at midday to the foot of one of the most formidable sections of the southern PCT. Our route ahead for 23 miles was waterless and over the San Felipe mountains- a range of hills that were not particularly high but their arid and shelterless nature meant that they had the respect of other PCT hikers we had spoken to. We climbed quickly, keen to put in some miles after our late start and, to our surprise, found a fresh wind in our faces. This cooled us during a long meandering ascent that lasted well into the evening. A glorious display of desert flowers kept our mind off the heat and we decided to camp in a small sandy meadow near the summit ridge of the range. Brian had taken to wandering around camp in his bare feet to try and freshen them up in the evening but was caught out as he stepped on a small cactus bush and squealed in pain as tens of tiny barbed spikes bit into him. Thankfully with lots of help from a patient Martina, we were able to remove them all before settling down to sleep.

By carrying water up to a high camp, we had split the San Felipe mountains into two manageable chunks and we set off at an early 6.30am to walk the last 15 miles down to the next water supply at Barrel Springs. Our breakfast stop was enlivened by a tremendous display by a hummingbird which would hover high above then swoop down near to us to stop 10 meters away and hover again. We thought it might be some sort of defensive strategy so we moved off soon to leave it alone. Walking was tough with the heat and the hot hard ground and we both were relieved to reach the springs around midday to settle down in the shade for a good siesta. Around 3pm we headed on over a strange landscape dotted with granite tors and past some cattle grazing on dry arid fields.

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The main surprise for us on the trail in the south was the abundance of wild flowers- the wet winter had some positive influence! Cactus were springing to life, sprouting beautiful flowers of pink, yellow and blue. The desert floor was a vibrant carpet of flowers in places and even distant hillsides could be seen to shimmer colour from the bloom. I had never seen anything like it and hadn’t even dreamed that the desert could be so alive. The Mojave yucca, agave, ocotillo and lovely teddy bear cholla were an inspiration to us, as in the searing heat they had managed to evolve and survive, and perhaps we could too.

Wildlife was also surprisingly abundant. Lizards and snakes sheltered under the bushes, ground squirrels and chipmunks dashed out of the way when they heard us, blue jays and chickadees were common and we saw coyote, deer and even mountain lion tracks in the sand.

It wasn’t till seven days out, north of the small town of Warner Springs that we came face to face with our first real mountain ranges. Snow covered San Jacinto (west of Palm Springs) at 10,000ft dominated the view to the north. We headed for it with enthusiasm, for it meant cool mountain air, shady scented pine forest and the adventure of high mountains. Two days later we were climbing its southern ridges- the Desert Divide – in deteriorating weather. We made it to a grove of red barked cedar trees at 6,800 ft to camp after our longest day yet at 23.5 miles. Next day the wind had turned stronger but we set out in the shelter of trees. A path marked on the map seemed to be a short cut back to the main trail – instead it presented an exhausting bushwhack through wiry manzanita scrub. At one point we had to crawl ahead without our rucksacks to find the path junction. It was a scraped and ruffled pair of hikers that eventually slumped on the trail. After this we brushed ourselves down and ascended more easily along the undulating ridgeline but amidst worsening winds and rain.

Large patches of winter snow soon appeared and we made good use of the ice axes we had carried since the border, as the path contoured round the side of the summit ridge on steep slopes. The heavy rain and wet snow easily saturated our pitifully lightweight desert clothing and we were soon pretty miserable, keeping warm only by constant movement. Much to our surprise a figure appeared out of the shifting mist and rain, heading towards us. It was Brian Sweet, another thru-hiker who had turned back as the trail was difficult to follow on the snow covered steep slopes ahead. We decided to go back up the trail to attempt the snow again together, but soon gave up because of the severe conditions.

Eventually the three of us retreated back to a wet cold camp beside the trail in continual rain just below the snow line. That night was miserable as much of our gear was sodden wet. Martina’s foresight of storing her gear in extra plastic bags paid off as she had the only dry clothes of the three of us. At 6am the next morning we set off to retreat the 10 miles back to the road toward the town of Idyllwild. Brian said he’d had no sleep at all in his ‘bivvy’ bag and had done sit-ups to keep warm during the night

In Idyllwild we were able to dry our soaking clothes, warm up and eat with a vengeance. We also met a few other PCT hikers, as most seemed to be resting up out of the stormy conditions.

Here we met Mike and Lynn (in the laundrette), Tony from London, Tahoma and Janelle from Washington, and Carl and Dotty, who had been laid up for a week after Dotty had come into contact with the feared poison oak plant which causes a horrendous skin rash.

PCT Home

Planning Resources Fortunately there is a depth of information available about the Pacific Crest Trail which we were able to tap into. The Pacific Crest Trail Association produce guide books containing detailed maps for the whole trail and these were a chief planning resource. They also have a little gem of a book called the PCT Data book which provides information on important features (such as water supplies, road crossings, nearby towns, landscape features) where we could plan out the distance we would have to hike between refreshing our supplies. Once we had a list of preferred resupply stops and the distance between them, then we had a basic structure to our hike. It has to be said though that, partly because of the type of people we are, and partly for flexibility, we did try and build in as many variations as possible and were constantly changing plans as we went along. I suppose we would only find out how we would hike over thousands of miles when we started out and hiked!

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One other major source of help to us was an internet PCT mailing list where aspirant hikers, seasoned hikers and anyone interested can talk away online. We were able to put questions to the group and to get caught up in the enthusiasm through the previous winter with other hikers preparing for a long hike. It was here that Martina chatted to Greg from near LA who had hiked the trail twenty years ago and, fantastically for us, agreed to help out with our resupply parcels whilst we were on the trail. In defiance of modern technology and equipment he walked the whole PCT in jeans! His generous background work was the key to giving us a chance to succeed.

From the online discussions we thought that there might be around 50 people trying to do a complete thru hike from border to border. That sounds like a lot but given that some might start from Canada and some from Mexico and all might start on different dates we guessed we would probably be hiking alone much of the time.

Resupply Tactics The purpose of our resupply was to pick up food and any other items that would allow us to hike to the next resupply. In reality this was mostly food, but also stove fuel, repairs and replacement items. Some towns that we were to encounter would provide all our needs but in some more remote areas we decided to pre pack a box of supplies and mail it to ourselves to be collected when we arrived via ‘general delivery’. We also packed maps for each section of the hike and some photographic film to avoid having to carry these items too far.

In addition we gathered some other optional gear in a box and forwarded this on to ourselves to the next resupply- this contained things like spare warm clothes, a music player, novels, other guidebooks, repair items, new socks etc. Before starting the hike we pre packaged supply boxes for the first 4 weeks or so and arranged with Greg for him to send them to our next post office when we were nearing it. After this initial period we adopted a more flexible approach which was just to shop locally for supplies at the time as much as we could. This allowed for our changing dietary requirement through the hike and mostly saved us one big supply packaging job!

Gear We were both fairly experienced outdoors people before starting the PCT so had a good idea of what equipment to take and it was mostly well tested. What would be new to us was the huge length of the six month undertaking and the need to travel as light as possible in order to stay fresh enough for the duration. I had read a handbook by Ray Jardine who had some imaginative ideas about lightening the load to carry on a long hike and had proved these worked by completing some ultra long hikes (including the PCT) with his wife in fine style. Ray was known to me as he had also achieved success inventing a new piece of climbing equipment – the camming device or friend- whilst being at the forefront of rock climbing standards in Yosemite National Park.

Our main items were our Terra Nova Voyager tent, down sleeping bags, inflatable thermarest sleeping mats, MSR Whisperlight stove running on Coleman fuel (a cleaner petrol readily available in the US), tried and trusted rucksacks and we intended to try lightweight footwear from hiking boots, running shoes to sandals. Our rucksacks weighed about 10kg loaded with gear but without food- not super light by any means but we were prepared to change the gear we carried and evolve as we hiked.

Read about our journey starting on the Mexican Border in Southern California….

PCT Home

The Trail The Pacific Crest Trail itself is pretty much a continuous path over 2,600 miles long and the construction of the trail is an impressive tribute to the hard work of park services and hundreds of volunteers. Each year repairs are required to the trail as bridges collapse, trees blew over the trail etc. Although the path exists there are many variants and we new that we would have to be flexible in snow covered areas, where the trail wasn’t possible due to damage and when we wanted to do more scenic diversions.  You can camp almost all the way along the trail with few restrictions which was a great delight to us.

Our Style Our aim was to stick to the wildest route that we could and to spend the absolute minimum time walking on roads. To do this, we aimed to carry camping equipment and up to 10 days food, water and stove fuel with us. This will give us the freedom to camp where and when we like, vary our itinery and stay as flexible as we can…

Our general pattern was to walk for around 5 days at a time then descend to town and ‘rest’ for a day. In practise though the rest days were a busy hotch potch of eating, washing, cleaning and repairing with a little sleep thrown in!

When to tackle the trail Because of the great length of the trail, many hikers choose to tackle a section at a time and split the walking into a number of separate holidays. This enables them to choose a suitable season to walk a particular part of the trail. For instance, a desert crossing could be arranged to avoid the summer when the highest temperatures could be expected.

In order to cover the whole 2,600 miles in one continuous journey however, we had to plan carefully to fit our walking into the most suitable seasons. In particular, we wanted to cross the mountain ranges in reasonable conditions avoiding the worst weather and after the winter snow pack had melted. In the highest mountains this restricted us to June to September. The desert areas can be a cauldron of heat in mid-summer and many water sources can dry up. So these are best tackled outside the summer season.

We eventually decided to leave from the Mexican border in late April, planning to walk between 15 to 25 miles per day in order to reach the Canadian border by early October. This meant that we would cross the dry arid regions around the Mojave desert in early May and begin our crossing of the highest region, the Sierra Nevada mountains, in June, hoping that the winter snow pack which had accumulated would have melted sufficiently to enable our crossing. By keeping to our planned daily mileage we would also reach the northern Cascade mountain ranges of Washington by October – hopefully before the winter snow falls start in earnest. At best though, this plan was a compromise and we realised that we would be walking through many regions in less than perfect conditions.  

We decided to allocate a rest day per week into our plans which would allow for much needed rests, washing and dealing with mail etc.

PCT Home

Our walk from Mexico to Canada through the USA in the summer of 1998

In the summer of 1998, Brian and Martina from Scotland attempted to walk across the United States from the Mexican border to Canada. The route we aimed to follow was the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT), which, at 2,600 miles in length, is one of the most magnificent long distance walks in the world.

[1997-8 was an El Nino period characterised by a wet winter and spring and resulting in plentiful water availability, great spring flower displays, and higher amounts of snow lingering into the summer.]

PLANNING

• Introduction
• The trail, when to tackle it and our style
• Resources, resupplies and gear

THE WALK

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

• Introduction
• The first steps, Mexican border to Idyllwild
• Idyllwild to Big Bear City 
• Big Bear City to Wrightwood
• Wrightwood to Aqua Dulce
• Aqua Dulce to Tehachapi
• Tehachapi to Walker Pass

WASHINGTON

• Introduction
• Canadian Border Manning Park
• Stehekin to Stevens Pass
• Stevens Pass to Snoqualmie
• Snoqualmie to White Pass
• White Pass to Cascade Locks Oregon

OREGON

• Introduction
• Cascade Locks Oregon to Ollalie Lake
• Olallie Lake to Cascade Summit
• Cascade Summit to Crater Lake
• Crater Lake to the Californian border

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA

• Introduction
• Oregon border to Etna
• Etna to Castella
• Castella to Burney Falls
• Burney Falls to Beldon

CENTRAL CALIFORNIA – THE SIERRA

• Introduction
• Beldon to Echo Lake 
• Echo Lake to Tuolumne Meadows
• Tuolumne Meadows to Independence
• Independence to Walker Pass (the final stage)

SPECIALS

• Sunshades
• Flip flops
• Camp life
• Beards on the trail
• Giardia
• Hiker gallery
• Statistics

Note that this account was written in 1998, and in the intervening 20+ years the trail has changed in some ways;

• it has become much, much more popular
• help for hikers, called ‘trail angels’ have become more common
• the impacts of climate change are more noticeable with forest fires and hot drier conditions
• although for the most part the scenery remains as fine!