May 9
Sunday 369 - 373
Monday 373 - Alternate (14 miles)
"I'm the glue that holds the gears together." -Centerfold
Sunday afternoon, we walked down through town to the main road to catch a hitch, and this lady had a rescue dog and was like "he's an amazing dog," and the dog put his paws in my lap and licked my face to prove it, and I was all like "omg I need this dog," and then we caught a hitch with a veterinarian who was about to go shoot a dog dead — no lie. Literally the first car we pointed our thumbs at pulled over, and in it was a nice older couple returning from Mother's Day brunch. On our way to the trailhead, we stopped at their home, where the older gentleman, a retired vet, popped in and returned with a gun. Apparently he had to go put his friend's dog down after dropping us off...the old fashioned way.
We then hiked just three miles in the cold fog to give Adam's knee a little test run and camped under a pine tree on a ridge after stringing our food up over a tree because this here is bear country.
[The cutest puppy; Our hitch with the retired vet; fog times!; fog on a bench; view when clear-ish; fun signs, only 2277!; camping spot with and without fog]
The next day we...kept hiking! This was exciting because Adam's knee was working again! We took a weird alternative route to the PCT, which is closed for four miles to protect an endangered frog MUCH to Animal Style's chagrin, who apparently doesn't give a damn about fragile ecosystems and whatnot.
Literally no one was on the route we chose except for three Japanese day hikers because PCT hikers are a bunch of masochists, and they all elected to climb up over Mount Baden Powell instead of meander around the peak like us.
[Morning mug; lunch spot under the tree; looking back at what we hiked (you can see the switchbacks if you look closely); desert flowers!; Fellow hikers!]
However, to our surprise, we came across a lively campsite just as the sun was setting. It was our "sister group" AKA the people who let us sit in their cabin and eat their spaghetti and salad out of grocery bags when we were waiting to check into ours.
Little Spoon and Chuckles are a married couple from New Hampshire, who met through Centerfold, Little Spoon's coworker and Chckles' Craigslist roommate. Chuckles is also the connection to Toetouch, a super intense trail runner athlete working in Jacksonhole, Wyoming, and Camel, a traveling trail worker currently living in Portland. These three met doing Americorps, doing trail work on the PCT.
This group of five has been hiking together since the beginning, which is really rare and awesome, and they gladly let us share their campsite and enjoy the fire they had built.
We learned of a game they created recently: they all picked a company, wrote it on a piece of paper, and threw it in the pot. Then they all picked a piece of paper out of the pot. Now they each have to write to their respective company, and whoever gets something free sent wins. Companies include: Hunts Ketchup, the Chicago Cubs, Crystal Hot Sauce, Nutella, and Trader Joe's. This idea was inspired by Little Spoon, who has apparently been writing to companies all his life. He once got a 500-bag of Tootsie Rolls that actually had 538 in it, so he wrote them a letter asking if they would like him to return the extra 38; they wrote back telling him to consider them a gift and included a gift certificate for more Tootsies!
A fire and a broken windmill.... what could be better!
