The “day before the day” finally arrived, and it was time to begin my Pacific Crest Trail Thru Hike. In 2023! What a crazy year to make this attempt. After record-breaking snow in the High Sierra (70 feet deep on top of Mammoth Mountain!) and tons of snow still remaining in the mountains of Southern California (five feet in Wrightwood) I knew that it was going to be a challenging endeavor, to say the least. In fact, there was a four-day storm due to arrive on my start date. No, I was not amused.
But I wasn’t deterred, either. I had already come to the conclusion that I’d have to lower my expectations for completion. Just the same, I would give it my best effort and enjoy it anyway. I also decided not to make it a sufferfest, by trudging through snow and ice with crampons, ice axe, and snowshoes. No thanks! I’d done enough snow camping during my adventurous youth to not want to do it again. I’d simply have to flip past the snowy sections of trail, or wait out the eventual melt. I had time, after all. I’m retired!
Last November, when the PCT lottery assigned me a spot midway in the queue, all of the April Start Dates were taken. My choices were either early May or late March. Meanwhile, I had no idea what the Winter would bring! I knew that starting later would doom me to heat in the desert, so I chose the earlier slot. And then the Winter of 2023 happened! I watched helplessly as successive atmospheric rivers slammed into the Sierra. Each storm was like a nail in my Thru Hike’s coffin. My only solace was that I’d already hiked (in sections, over many years) all of the PCT in the High Sierra, from Walker Pass to northern Yosemite. If I had to skip (flip) past my favorite mountain range, then so be it. But I really wasn’t expecting to flip beyond the three biggest SoCal ranges.
Normally, March is relatively dry down here where I live in San Diego. But not this year. Even the local Laguna Mountains had a few inches of snow. With more to come as I prepared to start my hike.
The day before the day, Vicki dropped me off at the Old Town public transit hub, where I took a ride to the Mexican Border on the Southern Terminus Shuttle, a relatively new service. It saved her a two hour roundtrip drive, and I got to meet a few of my fellow thru hikers en route. I also wanted to support this service, because big vans and commercial insurance don’t come cheap. It is run by a thru hiker, not surprisingly. It turned out that he was a former Park Ranger and was also in charge of the CLEEF Campground in Campo during the three hectic months of PCT start times. Paul is a real great guy and makes everyone feel welcome.
We arrived in the camp in late afternoon, and Paul suggested that we tag the border a day early. Partly to give us something to do, and also because it was supposed to rain tomorrow. It was only a half mile away. Time to stretch those legs. And, yes, I carried my backpack the entire way there, mostly for the photo-op.
The last time that I was here with Vicki, doing a dayhike section back in 2016, the border wall was still the older version. It was ugly and covered in graffiti. Now, I’m not a big fan of border walls in general, but at least the new wall allowed you to see through it. I was able to touch my foot to the Mexican side, a major plus. But I like the Canadian border much better because it has the opposite of a wall, as Vicki and I discovered last Summer when we section-hiked to the Northern Terminus. The feeling of freedom was much more satisfying.
We posed for a bunch of photos, then headed back to the campground. I set up my tent and put my gear in order. Then we all headed over to the roofed 2-sided enclosure that blocked the breeze, and hung out on the picnic benches. As night came on, Paul lit a propane fireplace and those of us who were cold stood around it. Very nice. Paul gave us the official talk about Leave No Trace camping, and there were several other Trail Angels in attendance, who also chimed in with useful advice on what would surely be a monumental event in our lives.
By nine PM (hiker midnight) the fireplace and lights were shut off and we retired to our tents. I heard it drizzle once during the night, but by morning my tent was mostly dry. I woke up in the dark, as usual, and packed up my gear. Due to the cold I was expecting to encounter up in the Laguna Mountains, I decided to bring my warmer sleeping bag (Western Mountaineering Ultralite with extra down) and now my base weight was closer to twenty pounds. Oh well. I packed up everything and headed over to the enclosure. By 6:30am Paul arrived with cookies, donuts, and coffee. This alone was worth the ten dollar campground fee!
Even though it was technically my official starting date, I wasn’t really feeling the desire to head out into a storm. This is not the way I wanted to start my thru hike. Should I head home instead? That also wasn’t the way I wanted to start my thru hike. Living in San Diego made it far too easy to take as many zero days as I desired. At least until Vicki got tired of driving me out to the local mountains. I ate my cookies and thought about it. Soon, Paul would be driving the big van back to San Diego for the morning shuttle run. As the time grew near, I asked him if I could get a ride. I was wimping out and I knew it. But I didn’t care. Much. Camping in lousy weather was what you did when you had no choice. I had a choice and I took it.
Along the way, Paul and I stopped off at the airport to pick up a lost bag for Vlad, a Czech hiker who still had his backpack with him, but all of his snow gear was in the lost bag. He was super excited when I called to let him know that it would arrive by noon. Paul is truly a great guy. I chipped in on a tank of gas for the van, then we picked up the next set of hikers in Old Town. He dropped me off at home on their way to REI, the second stop on the route to Campo. I said so long to everyone in the van and shouldered my backpack. I was only temporarily defeated. I decided to call the next few days Zero Days, which, as everyone knows, are perfectly acceptable when thru hiking. Not that I’m fooling anyone, least of all myself. My new trail name might become Wussy Boy if I wasn’t careful.
For a topographic map of the hike see my CalTopo Page
For LOTS more photos of the trek see my Flickr Page
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