Skip to main content

Water, Wattage & WiFi (D-2)

By
Today was going to be tough one. If yesterday's elevation gain of 1000+ m was difficult, today's 1400+ m was going to be relentlesly uphill from the start to the end. With hiking legs still to be developed and 3 liters of water carry for a total pack weight of around 18-19 kg, it promised to be a challenging day.  And it lived up to the challenge šŸ˜„.  There were a few bright spots though including coming across the cold and clean Kitchen Creek and meeting a bunch of hikers both local & PCT.  The second half of the day was a slog and I was ready for it to end. The goal was to reach Mt Laguna town and find a place to replenish water, charge my phone and get some WiFi as I doubted there would be any decent cell phone signal.

But, lo & behold, as soon as I stepped off the trail to go to town, I was introduced to the famed Trail Magic!! A few trail angels has setup a picnic and generously welcomed all the hikers with cold soda, snacks, cookies, pie etc.  They also have free spots to pitch our tents, in addition to hot coffee & pancake breakfast the next morning.  All this for free with not even donations wanted or accepted!  What a wonderful thing. On top of that, they had a generator running to charge phones too šŸ˜„. Finally, the cell phone signal was so good that I was even able to make a short video call home.
The gentler start

Trail crosses under a highway overpass
Cooling down in Kitchen Creek
Wet cloth on the head for the afternoon hike
Trail magic!

For my data-minded friends:

Comments

LisaB saidā€¦
You are amazing Ravi!! The scenery is beautiful. Thanks for sharing your experience this way. Look forward to hearing and seeing more.
Lisa
April 19, 2022 at 12:04ā€ÆPM
Sreedevi saidā€¦
Wow SR! too good yaar...please keep on sharing your experiences...I am getting the feel of
the PCT through your posts.
April 20, 2022 at 2:04ā€ÆAM
Mangala saidā€¦
This is an adventure of a life time! Thanks for taking all of us along!
April 20, 2022 at 5:56ā€ÆAM
Kavita Nair saidā€¦
who took ur pic from the back? its come out well!
April 21, 2022 at 2:20ā€ÆAM
Vipul saidā€¦
You look fully charged up Ravi, nice pics.
April 29, 2022 at 6:51ā€ÆPM
Elvis Almeida saidā€¦
Hi Ravi, thanks for sharing your journey. It's absolutely amazing and inspiring to first experience it and the other to do it all by yourself. I really envy you. Great going. Best wishes and keep sharing so I too can feel your experience.
August 7, 2022 at 10:00ā€ÆPM
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 šŸ™), 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