Pacific Crest Trail : Campo to Warner Springs

Miles this section : 110
Miles completed : 110

Striking a pose by the monument at the start of the trail.

Some excitement is provided on our arrival in Campo by one of my colleagues from the bus, he has left his phone on it... but we're right outside a store and the lady inside is able to call ahead and recover it.  Meanwhile I decide that as it is only 5pm or so I may as well walk the mile from here to the Mexican border where the trail starts, and then begin the thing a day early.  This goes without a hitch, nobody checks my permit, I take photos, including one of the solid metal barrier stretching away in both directions, and then start along the trail.  Seems to have a lot of footprints on it...  Soon enough I am back in Campo, store is still open so I buy beer, in cans that are, as with so many things in this country, huge.

Class of 2017 - or, a very small part of it at least.

First proper day, nineteen miles through what is supposed to be desert, but is actually pretty green, with plenty of water in the creeks - has been a wet winter I gather.  Easy walking, the path is well made and well trodden, a foot wide ribbon of dirt leading through hills and valleys, mainly flat but sometimes a gentle up or down - the trail is of course graded for horses.  Only real problem is the heat, I can cope though, and I manage not to panic after rounding a corner to find a large rattlesnake crossing the path in front of me.  More scared of us and all that...  The walk goes quickly enough, I'm at Lake Morena for 5pm, and there's quite a welcome, a group calling themselves the Wolverines are handing out free beer and burritos at the campsite - in previous years they ran a 'kickoff' event, but as the trail grew in popularity it became a victim of its own success.

Enjoying myself so far.

The walk continues, more green desert, including wading a couple of creeks, and more snakes, one slithers right past my foot as I eat my lunch.  I detour to Mount Laguna to buy candy, and also get fine coffee and a rather odd pancake - pretty much an omelette to be honest.  The slopes remain gentle but still I gain height, up to over five thousand feet, it's cold and there is a gale blowing, interesting when the route is along the rim of a great valley, the bottom of which seems unfeasibly far below.  Also fun is putting my tent up with wind still blowing, a real test for the €22 tent from Bordeaux this, and the alloy poles I've upgraded it with.  At one point the thing flips upside down with me hanging on to a single guy rope, but nothing snaps.

The tent coping with the wind.

There are certainly a lot of people doing this hike - the thirty or more in the 'class of 2017'' picture from Lake Morena is just part of one day's group.  I often hike alone, as is my wont, but meet the same faces, or sometimes new ones, at campsites, at breaks, and the various water sources.  The latter become important as I get into real desert, sand underfoot, dry, yellow grass, cactus the main source of green.  Some kind people have carried stacks of gallon water bottles out to a couple of points, without them this thirty mile stretch would be tricky.  As it stands I reach Warner Springs on schedule, for a successful first section.

Photos to go with this post can be found here.

Pacific Crest Trail : Getting to the Start

The only photo I took in LA.

The PCT may be over two thousand miles long, but as with Te Araroa a year or two back, it's a much longer journey just to get to the start, beginning with a transatlantic flight that takes me to Los Angeles smoothly enough.  Then a two mile walk or so to the metro station, maybe there was a shuttle bus but I saw no signs... not a long walk, but it's annoying the way that even at minor interchanges I have to press a button then wait some time for a go light - don't want a citation for jaywalking on my first day here...  Next, an hour on the LA metro - interesting experience, it's as if you took the London Underground and removed all the commuters and tourists, don't think I'd want to be here late at night.  My one night in the city is at a hostel (nice enough if shockingly expensive) in the Koreatown neighbourhood, which I must say is rather nice.  Seems to be built with humans in mind as well as cars, there are people walking dogs, going to restaurants (many of which - restaurants and people - are Korean).  I even find a sports bar for a beer or two, all good.

San Diego.

Next day, a bus ride away from Koreatown, as with the metro the bus seems only to cater for poor people, though not the poorest - after travelling through the soaring towers of the financial district we enter downtown, where many of the sidewalks are covered with the tents of the homeless.  Strange country this.  Just a little further and I'm at the Greyhound bus station, an hour or so early but I while the time away with an enormous coffee - seriously, something like a pint and a half.

Mission Basilica San Diego de Alcalá.

The Greyhound takes me to San Diego, where my public transit odyssey continues with a trolleybus, up into the hills where I have a motel booked, rather a nice one as it turns out.  Pretty area too, which is good as I have to spend a day walking around it, mainly buying much food and carting it to the local post office to post off.  The 'push a button and wait before crossing' thing is getting very old.  One potentially big problem arises, my GPS won't boot up, think maybe it can't cope with the many route files I put on it?  I visit many phone repair stores hoping they'll have the right cable to connect to it and delete some files but no joy, finally walk a long way to an electronics superstore where they can, except it doesn't work, aargh.  OK, I do what I should have done before, figure out how to reset the device, which fixes it, yay.  And there's still time to head out for the evening, drink my last few beers for a little while, and eat an enormous pizza.  What with this, the giant burger last night, and the massive waffles at breakfast I am getting fat...

The bus to Campo.

Last day before I'm due to start walking, and one last panic as I find the water bottles I've bought don't fit my filter, the screwtops are too small.  Well, I need to do some last minute shopping anyway, and thankfully there are suitable bottles available.  More shopping, for gas and bug spray, then one more trolley to the El Cajon transit centre.  The 894 bus from here should, with any luck, be the last powered vehicle I get into for a while... Well, after ninety minutes or so the Spanish speaking locals get out, and me and a couple of other hikers have twelve more miles to Campo where the trail starts.  But that will have to wait for the next post...

Photos to go with this post can be found here.

Pacific Crest Trail - Introduction

Avid readers may have noticed the occasional hint in recent posts that I have another grand adventure coming up, and indeed I am now about to set off, so thought I'd write a small introductory piece, rather than fill up the first post from the trail with explanations.

So then - the Pacific Crest Trail, it stretches some two thousand, six hundred miles from Mexico to Canada, through the US states of California, Oregon and Washington, and along with the Continental Divide and Appalachian it's one of the three great American trails.  The route goes through deserts, national parks, and the high mountain country of the Sierras and Cascades, including a skirt around the highest peak in the contiguous US, Mount Whitney.  Recently popularised by the book, and later film 'Wild', the trail now sees some three thousand hikers attempt it each year, so many that the authorities have brought in a system restricting it to fifty starts each day from the Mexican border...

Why this particular trail, and why now?  Well... the first long trail I became aware of was the Appalachian, which I still hope to do one day, however looking into that led me to the PCT, which looks rather more of a challenge - if I only do one of the three, this has to be it.  2017 is a good year for it too, there will be a total eclipse this August, and if all goes to plan I should be more or less on the line of totality, in the region of Mount Jefferson, which sounds pretty awesome.

A lot of preparation has gone into this - I had to attend the US embassy in London to apply for a visa, I've obtained various permits, booked flights, buses and hotels, bought a lot of equipment, and done plenty of planning - in theory at least I know exactly where I will start and finish each day of the five months or so it should take me to walk the thing.  Of course, best laid plans and all that... but if the worst to happen is me failing to stick to my schedule I'll be happy - has to be better than getting eaten by a bear.

Skiing in Sölden

Alpine splendour.

One more ski trip then, before the end of the season, and also before a rather more substantial adventure.  This time it isn't just me, I am off with my brother and family to Sölden in the Austrian alps, I'm sure they'll have no objection to a tangential mention in the blog.  We reach the resort via a somewhat epic drive in the campervan, which I remain a little nervous of given past history, still in many ways it makes for a nice extension to the holidays, including a night in Belgium and another in Germany where I introduce my nephew Aaron to the delights of kebab pizza.  Then to the resort, where I escape the van to a hotel which is perfectly pleasant, if not ideally situated up a hill.

On the 'experience mile' in Sölden.

Sölden is rather nice I must say, situated in a pleasant valley, and of course with many bars and restaurants selling schnitzel and dumplings.  The skiing is pretty good, this late in the season the runs down to town are closed but there's still snow higher up, in particular a long series of lifts takes us to an actual glacier where the skiing is really quite good - the logistics here are tricky though, dropping the kids off for ski school at 10, then coming back to meet them for lunch, or after school at 3pm, makes it difficult to explore the far reaches of the piste map.  We manage one afternoon at least, past the first glacier to take a gondola up, then through a ski tunnel to find a sunny valley with another glacier and excellent skiing, also good for boarding, I am assured by Dan and Donna.

Chang.

There's a lot of interesting stuff here, although we've not arrived at the best time when it comes to events - a festival of some kind has just finished, and we're a week early for 'Hannibal' - some sort of theatrical extravaganza due to take place on the glacier, preparations involve a large elephant, and even larger ziggurat, carved from the snow.  Instead I amuse myself with various ski-pass activated experiences, some of these are cameras located at high points, but mainly there are little sections of winter sports where you swipe your pass and then do a timed run, complete with video recording, it is all very clever.  Nice to have a record of my attempts at slalom, carving and so forth - though the less said about my jumping, and indeed giant slalom, the better.  Fun is had skiing with the kids too, they can both get around pretty well, although the little one doesn't really have the stamina for a full day of skiing.  She certainly enjoys the 'adventure pool' we spend one evening in though, not sure it is something I'd do by myself, still I guess being shot around a kind of stainless steel whirlpool while being battered by German teenagers is not something you do every day.

Family Atkinson in front of the 'princess castle'.

I should mention the apres ski - well, it is Austria, there is beer and largely terrible music, also shots including some out of eggshells, well why not.  Food is generally good, I can't afford the large meat dishes that are big here, but there is good pizza, pasta, and the local specialities of soup and dumplings, often the latter in the former.  One evening I eat a massive meal containing two spinach dumplings, two deep fried cheese dumplings, and even some outsize ravioli - enough calories to last several days I suspect.  Having fun as we are the week of skiing fair rushes by, it's not the end of the holiday though as again we take a couple of days to travel back in the van, the first of which is particularly memorable as it is Sophie's seventh birthday - among other things we visit an even more impressive spa/waterpark, where there is another whirlpool, a water slide and even outdoor heated salt pools, jacuzzi and so forth, it is most cool.  We even have time to make a detour to the famous Neuschwanstein Castle, where we dodge Japanese tour groups, queue to get on a horse-drawn carriage up to the castle and then wander around the outside - tour tickets being all sold out.  It is most impressive, although the birthday girl is a little disappointed that it isn't pink...

Photos to go with this post can be found here.