Skip to main content

More trail magic and a lesson learned (D-5)

By
 
The day was pleasant with lots of wind again, but the trail was mostly flat or gently uphill.  It also went through a very large meadow with only grass and cows for miles around 🙂.  My goal was to reach Warner Springs since I had seen this sign yesterday at Scissors Crossing.
The shower, recharging & WiFi along with possible cold/hot drinks was very tempting.  BTW, this is the first time I found out that there was a name - "bucket shower" & "bucket laundry" - for what I had thought was normal bathing and washing clothes all during my childhood in India 😀.

Made it to Warner Springs after 23 miles, well before the 7 pm closing time.  The Community Resource Center provides all these services for PCT hikers.  Though the Center itself was closed (no cold/hot drinks alas), their grounds were open and showers/laundry/recharging were all available and I made full use of it. Very thankful to the Center!

Sinks for laundry and then shower stalls on the back porch

Before I forget, had trail magic lunch thanks to a San Diego-based couple whose son had completed the PCT a few years ago & had been a beneficiary of trail angels. They were doing this now as a way of "pay-it-forward".  Respect! 🙏

Post-laundry, some of my clothes were still slightly wet and I figured I would hang them up in the tent overnight to dry. I kept the tent fly (the outer "door") open to facilitate some wind.  In the middle of the night, I woke up cold assuming it was cos of the open fly, but as soon as I got up, my head hit wet tent walls! Condensation inside the tent 🤦🏽‍♂️, thanks to wet clothes. Duh me!  Then I had the brilliant idea of keeping the tent mesh door open while keeping the fly closed. However, within a few minutes, I had some scraping noises and turning on the headlamp revealed a 2-inch long ant strolling next to the tent.  There went my idea of keeping the door open!  Lesson learned: never dry your clothes inside the tent. Leave them outside.

It was cold wind which meant hiking with the fleece on the whole day

The famous 3rd Gate water cache which has 4 pallets of gallon jugs of water and is the most reliable water cache in the desert

Today:




Comments

Kusum said…
Wow Ravi, you are clocking more and more every day! Trail angles, bucket laundry, bucket shower- learning new phrases every day. Your blogging is great. Keep it up.
April 22, 2022 at 3:02 PM
LisaB said…
I would have made the same clothes drying error that you did. Keep having fun! I’m having fun watching your journey.
April 22, 2022 at 7:07 PM
Kavitha said…
Wonderful to read about your hike, Ravi!! So inspirational! 😍
April 23, 2022 at 10:00 AM
Vipul said…
I am late but as I read through it in sequence I am now amazed with what you are doing, that world you are experiencing, can't explain enough.. Thanks Ravi for sharing
April 29, 2022 at 7:04 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

In-town & Trail Activities (D-45 @ 903.3 and D-46 4.3 miles plus 906.7 - 924.5)

By
I am still surprised how busy in-town zero days can be. You think that you have a lot of time to take care of everything that you had planned to do while hiking earlier. Yesterday, in Mammoth Lakes, first I had a large breakfast (very important thru-hiker activity) & then visited 3 different stores to research and buy new shoes & glove liners. Old ones were completely gone. Post that, went to the big grocery store to buy the resupply food till the next stop & as usual, got overwhelmed by the number of the items available, picked up excess items, realized I can't carry all this, put back a lot of stuff and still ended up with extra food to carry. Next stop was the pharmacy to get blister-care bandages, then a decent sized pizza lunch and then back to the room to sort and repack. Speaking of blisters, I have got 2 till now and I had to prick one of them with a needle a few days back and then cover it up. First time, I had to sterilize the needle in a flame and the...
Post a Comment
Read more

The High (& sometimes scary) Passes of Seirras - Part 1 (D-38 760 - 774.7; D-39 774.7 - 795.5)

By
The 7 main mountain passes (a pass being the low-point saddle between two mountains that one has to cross to go on the other side of the mountain) that I had to cross were as follows (south to north): 1. Forester Pass (13200 ft / 4023 m) 2. Glen Pass (11957 ft / 3645 m) 3. Pinchot Pass (12127 ft / 3696 m) 4. Mather Pass (12094 ft / 3686 m) 5. Muir Pass (11970 ft / 3648 m) 6. Selden Pass (10913 ft / 3326 m) 7. Silver Pass (10778 ft / 3285 m) All of these passes have some ascent and then a descent and essentially, the descent of one pass leads to the ascent of the next without too much of a flat area in between. Because this was a low snow year (some reports put it as only 43% of the average trail snow which means a bad summer drought for California 🙁), hikers like me are able to enter the Seirras and hike through these passes so early. Of course, this also means that there is still quite a bit of snow left on the passes and around them, which makes them more difficult and...
Post a Comment
Read more

My gear and my tramily (D-97 @ 2148 - Zero day)

By
Some of you have asked about what gear I am using. Since today is a Zero day (the last Zero day was on D-57) and there is nothing much to report other than the fact that I shipped the last set of resupply boxes to different places in Washington state and ate substantial amounts of food today, I figured I might as well talk about my gear, and also a bit about the other most essential component on the hike - my "tramily" (trail-family).   Tent : 1-person Rainbow Li from Tarptent (bought new). This has worked very well for me and as you know from my earlier posts, Tarptent has given very good customer service too. I haven't had the chance to use the tent in heavy rain or snow (luckily) though and can't comment on it. I use a Tyvek ground sheet (already owned), also from Tarptent. Backpack : Catalyst from ULA (already owned).  I started with Zpack Arc Air Robic 60L (bought new) and used it for 700 miles, but it was not comfortable at...
1 comment
Read more