Day 8, Mile Marker 43-59, Sunrise Camp

Thursday, May 2, 2013

Post From Melissa:
We get up early in our Mt Laguna Lodge room and Nick begins making us a hot breakfast which entails heating up some frozen Jimmy Dean sausage and egg breakfast sandwiches in the microwave that he had purchased the day before at the Lodge store. I'm on the couch attending to my blisters and applying copious amounts of mole skin and Rocktape to hold my feet together so we can trudge on. I also do my morning ritual of rolling out my feet on a golf ball lined with RockTape that Dr. Justin Brink gave to me to ward off plantar fasciitis (PF). He helped me overcome my Achilles injuries so I could make this journey and I can't thank him enough!  He also stocked me up with enough RockTape to help me get to Canada! This is the first sponsor I've ever had...pretty sweet. Lastly, I put in my new insoles into my chopped up Salomon's in hopes they will help alleviate some of the blister issues.

We enjoy our breakfast sandwiches and I am washing mine down with a Mike's Hard Lemonade and Nick is polishing off his with a cold Sierra Nevada. Not quite breakfast drinks but we didn't want to waste them and they are too heavy to carry (we had thought we'd finish them the night before but didn't). Yum...breakfast of champions.

Off we go...we walk back towards the Rancheria Campgrounds to pick up on the PCT trail where we left off Tuesday night. It's another beautiful morning! This stretch of trail quickly became my favorite of the hike. The breathtaking views this day were amazing. We also see many beautiful flowering cacti and Manzanitas...and of course lots of reptiles which Nick loves trying to catch (it's quickly becoming Nick's favorite past time on the trail).

We plan on taking our mid-morning break at mile marker 47.5, the Al Bahr Shrine Camp. But before reaching there we take a quick detour up to Foster Point and capture a great picture using our new quick pic that allows us to take a picture using our hiking pole as a monopod.

When we approach the Shrine Camp we see a familiar hiker waving to us. He is all by himself...no other hikers around. We cringed a little inside because we have been trying to avoid him. We had thought staying an extra day at Mt Laguna would put us behind him, but to our surprise there he was. Let me give you some background...this hiker is super friendly and nice, however he never stops talking and after a while it can become super annoying. I feel bad for even writing this, but he has become part of our journey and it's comical so we must mention him. This man loves to complain about all his aches and pains and also that the "pack" is moving too fast and he wants to catch up to the group (his new friends). A day earlier at Mt Laguna he proceeded to pull out nearly ever piece of gear in his bag in front of the store and ask us if we thought he needed it. He knows we are rookies and not qualified to give him gear advice, but he just won't stop talking (even when ignored). He is an experienced hiker and claims he invented section hiking back in the 70's. I'm getting the sense he is lonely and just looking to connect, however he is going about it all the wrong way and coming off as desperate for attention and reassurance. It makes me uncomfortable. From this point forward we will refer to him as "Talker" :-)

After eating some snacks we say good bye to the Talker and eagerly venture back onto the trail. After walking another few miles we take another quick break along the side of the trail to let my feet breath an a beautiful butterfly lands on my toe and hung out a while. I think the butterfly was telling me that my feet were going to get better soon :-)

We finally hit mile marker 50! Yeah Baby! Whoohoooo! Only 2,600 to go...we see horny toads and lizards everywhere. Nick does this funny thing where he flips the lizard on it's back and rubs it's belly which puts it into a trance. Pure entertainment.

At mile marker 52.6 we stop at Pioneer Mail Campground to fill up our water bladders at the lovely horse trough. Thank goodness there was an actual spigot to get fresh water versus grabbing the brownish horses's water (ick). The water still needed filtering and Nick took care of that. We then went back to the picnic table area and climbed on top of the table to take a nap away from the ants. When we awoke guess who had set up shop 20ft away at another picnic table? Yep, the Talker...we couldn't believe our luck. Haha. As soon as he noticed us stirring about he came over and started up. I mainly ignore him, but poor Nick is engaging and looks to be in discomfort. We quickly heat up some freeze dried meals, scarf them down, pack up, and run out of their as fast as we can.

Our goal is to hike into the night to reach the Sunrise Campgrounds and to also create distance between us and the Talker. We don't plan on actually staying at the campground because it's half a mile off the trail. We don't want to hike an extra mile to/from the campgrounds and are carrying enough water so we are okay "dry camping" (meaning camping away from a water source).

During this evening stretch we saw some amazing sites. I don't think the pictures do it justice...it was fuel for the soul! I tried to upload a picture to Facebook real time but had no signal. We passed an area of the trail that served as a memorial for several people. There were placards there in remembrance of those that have passed...I wondered if they were all hikers or some locals from the nearby area?

Time is flying by...it's now after 9pm, it's dark, we have our headlamps on and my dogs are barking and howling at this point (for the non-americans that means my feet are hurting). Nick and I start looking for a place to sleep. It's tough in this area because we are walking on the side of a mountain with a drop off to our right and a steep accent to our left. It's takes some time but we eventually find a patch of flat land on a windy bluff and quickly set up camp and get out of the cold (we are .5 miles away from the campground ahead). This is the first night we are sleeping all alone and out in the complete wilderness...I was a little spooked at first but then the sheer exhaustion overcame me and I fell asleep.