Returning to form- border to Lake Morena

Day One

I was as nervous as a schoolboy on his first day when Lily and I pulled up to the monument at the southern terminus of the Pacific Crest Trail. What was I thinking? I was too old to face the physical challenges or reap the psychological rewards of a long trek of self-discovery. And anyway, the trail is overrun with dilletantes in the wake of that damn book (and corresponding damn movie). My day had come and gone.
Or not. We snapped pics and starting walking north at an ambling pace, and everything I ever gleaned from circa 10,000 miles of wilderness travel snapped right into place. I felt at home. I felt healthy. I could breathe.
Lily turned around after a couple miles and hiked back to the car; I'd see her that night at a campground. I looked ahead, drank water, and let my anxieties erode in the stream of footsteps.
Open landscapes dominate the PCT in Southern California. It's my favorite chunk of the trail. The horizon can encompass a dozen named ranges, and as you focus on  your direct, close surroundings, there are cacti and wildflowers in bloom. Cholla and prickly pear with their paper-rose blooms, yucca's tall stalks that remind me of early Yes album covers.
And, of course, there are the other hikers to focus on. The trail is indeed crowded, a topic to which I will later return. Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of the PCT's popularity is that it is attracting less experienced hikers.
Consider the Silent Warrior. I found him sitting like a latter-day Buddha on the side of the trail at mile 5, his pack beside him. Said pack had a lot of objects strapped to it, including a wooden paddle (like for a canoe) that had been wrapped in duct tape. We exchanged pleasantries, ignoring the paddle and the question of its utility in a desert. He was clearly proud to be the Silent Warrior. And who would be able to hear him approach, given that he seemed to be wearing Ugg boots? He seemed pretty hazy on such details as where the next water was, or where he was.

This could be dangerous for him. And it didn't used to happen like this on the PCT -- the crew that hiked this trail was almost entirely veterans Appalachian Trail hikers. Not so any more. Well, I couldn't save him, so I wished him luck and got on with it.
The day progressed and got hotter. As noon approached, I met a lot of hikers taking "siestas," hiding from the heat at midday by scrunching under shrubbery. Some were sleeping, some making lunch. One dude had crept deep up into a pile of boulders, apparently clinging to the underside of one rock like a lizard. I tossed him a hello and moved on.
Noobs, amiright? As a decade-plus veteran of DPW, I am pretty accustomed to laboring in full sun, so I just hike through the day. As long as I have water, I'm good up to 100F or so. But here's the thing. I, Mr. Triple Crown himself, began to sense that I was runni g short of water. At like mile 10 -- of 20 that day -- I checked, only to find that my tank had run dry.
What a damn fool I am, I thought. I knew what this meant -- Taylor Maurer (hereafter referred to by his trail name Heavy) and I had run dry in New Mexico several times. The Continental Divide Trail is wholly untamed, and in that southern desert, you have to get water where you can or keep hiking until you find it. That was my situation. It meant I'd be uncomfortable. I would walk into camp irritable and parched, but I would still be walking safely into camp.
Safe does not mean comfortable. When I talk about being seasoned at wilderness travel, much of what I mean is being able to discern what side if that line you are on.
At any rate: I made it just fine, nothing injured but my pride. And that night, as Lily and I walked around the hiker site in the Lake Morena campground handing out beers to celebrate, we learned that I was far from the only one that had run dry. I met a gentleman who cheerily told me he had been medivaced out. By helicopter. And rumor has it he was the seventh this year. I try not to judge, but I know my DPW peeps will feel me when I say the following: Drink water, dumbass.
Or, alternately, your own urine. That's what yet another hiker I met that night had done. I have to say, I love this dude. He ran out of water, recognized his situation, and made the tough choice in a completely matter of fact way. That is the essence of a wilderness survival mindset. It is also, probably, the result of that idiot Bear Grylls' urine drinking fetish on his survival-themed self promotion show. I asked him so you don't have to: It tasted mettalic and thoroughly gross.  Anyway, as long as we have dudes willing to drink pee rather than call for help, the terrorists haven't won.

prickly pear going off. the blossoms are bruised red until they open in canary yellow