On day 31 of my PCT Trek, I hiked through the Scodie Mountains to Walker Pass, where Vicki picked me up, and took me back home to San Diego to regroup for the SoCal Mountains that I skipped earlier.
From PCT mile 639.6 to 653.3 Total: 13.7 miles 5/9
I woke in the dark to the gentle yet insistent sound of my phone’s alarm going off. It was seriously early, and the temperature was close to freezing, as it had been for the past week. It was better than roasting hot (as it would be in a month or so) and I had the right gear for the weather. Still, when you’re cozy in a warm sleeping bag it’s not easy to get moving, and the most I’ll admit to is hitting the snooze button at least once.
It was early enough that I decided to take the time to make hot oatmeal and the protein powder drink that was my norm. If I timed this right, I would get to Walker pass by lunchtime, and I still had a my trusty Pop-Tart and a few snacks left to tide me over until Vicki arrived. Hiking in the dark in anticipation of a ride home was all well and good, but it’s hard to take photos in the dark, and I didn’t come all this way to avoid seeing it.
It was true that a few days ago I hiked in the fog for six hours straight, and saw essentially nothing, so an hour or so this morning wouldn’t be disastrous. Plus, I would get to see the morning light as dawn arrived. Always a pleasant sight. I packed up everything, checked the campsite using the bright beam of my headlamp, and headed out of camp quietly. Apparently, another hiker had set up their tent last night while I was sleeping, and I wanted to return the favor of silence.
My tent didn’t have frost on it thanks to the oak trees I camped beneath, but as I hiked into a less tree-filled region of chaparral it was obvious that everything was coated with a layer of frost. The air was cold and crisp as often happens when the skies remain clear all night. The trail joined a forest road after a while, but I didn’t see any cars or ATV’s, just some old tracks in the sand.
The trail stayed relatively level, undulating up and down in typical PCT fashion, gradually rising for the first nine miles of my fourteen mile hike. As it crested various ridges, the snow-covered peaks of the Sierra Nevada came into view to the north. I was extremely glad that I wasn’t attempting to enter that frozen land, which had received 300 percent of its normal snowfall over the record-breaking Winter of 2023. No. Based on my experience during other “Big Snow” years, I predicted that the High Sierra wouldn’t be worth hiking through until late August. Unless you were a very adventurous and experienced mountaineer, which I was not. Sure, I owned an ice axe and hiking crampons, but the only experience I had using them was from watching Youtube videos. Not exactly confidence-inspiring.
The miles blasted by. This was an extremely cruisey section of trail, and my pack was about as light as it gets. It was a dream to carry. The first nine miles were behind me after only a few hours of hiking, and the remaining five miles were downhill all the way to Walker Pass.
It wasn’t even noon yet when I arrived at the Walker Pass Campground, and I hadn’t seen a single hiker all morning. I passed the side trail to the camp and continued on to the highway, where the PCT crossed precisely on the highest point of the pass. That was where Vicki and I had planned to meet. Last year, Vicki met me there when I hiked south from Kennedy Meadows, and I already knew that there was plenty of Verizon signal out of Ridgecrest in the east. I would be able to see her progress, as we had already shared our locations on Google Maps. Nice!
When I arrived, I met up with the Tramily of Deja Vu, Wicked, Cous Cous, and One Way. They were hitchhiking to Kernville in the west, and not having much luck at all. They’d been there for an hour already, which just goes to show how fast I hiked that morning. They camped seven miles closer to the pass than I did!
Google indicated that Vicki was still about an hour and a half away. I was a bit ahead of myself, but that was OK, as I didn’t want to keep her waiting after driving for four hours. Eventually, the Tramily got a ride from a guy with a van, and I waved goodbye. This time was the final goodbye, and I wished them all the best on their thru hike.
After that, I sat around near the monument and read my Kindle. Every so often I checked on Vicki’s location, but I knew that a watched map never arrives, so I kept that to a minimum. Eventually she arrived, and parked across the way. I’m not sure that she even saw me. But once I put my backpack on she did. Hooray! Vicki was here! She was happy, too. Not only to see me, but also because it was now my turn to drive.
I loaded my backpack into the car. It was nice to have something else carry it for a while. Then I got in the driver’s seat and away we went. Vicki handed me a Breakfast Jack that she bought during the drive north. Yes! That was exactly what I needed, and much better than a Pop-Tart for a man who’s been hiking for well over a hundred miles.
Our next stop was Tehachapi Pass, to pick up my water cache and bear cannister that we put there two weeks earlier. This cache made all the difference in my hike, as I didn’t have to hitchhike into town to resupply. When we got there, we met a couple of thru hikers that were heading northbound. We gave them a ride into the town of Tehachapi, where they had a motel reservation. They were from Europe, and the SIM Cards in their cell phones weren’t working here in the US. They were stuck using Wifi, when they could find it, and were hoping to fix this technical issue ASAP. We said Good Luck and continued onward, our Good Deed as Trail Angels accomplished.
The final stop was in Hiker Town, where I left my car after taking some zeros due to a heat wave. Vicki and I both woke up very early, so she took a short nap in the back of my camperized Rav4. After that, we both swallowed a caffeine pill for the final three hour drive home to San Diego. Then we said adieu to Hikertown, and headed home.
The drive home was uneventful, and the shower I took upon arrival was excellent! I put down my backpack in the spare “camping” room where I kept the rest of my gear, and vowed to worry about unpacking it tomorrow. It felt great to be back home, and even better to be in my own bed with Vicki. When you’ve been married almost forty years it gets to be a habit that you don’t want to break.
I decided to take at least a week off, and that I would worry about where and how to restart the skipped sections of the still-snowbound SoCal mountains later on. Yes, 2023 was a very odd year to be hiking NOBO out of Campo, but thus far I was having a good old time.
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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