Day 22 – Thursday, June 15

PCT Mile 406.6 Sulfur Springs Trail Camp to PCT Mile 430.4

Day Total: 24.2 miles

Have you heard of Poodle Dog Bush? 

Yes, it sounds like a silly, made-up name, but it is real and it is scary.

PDB, for short, is a desert plant that causes skin irritation allegedly worse than poison oak. When Stephen and I ordered our PCT maps around Christmas, there was a full-page warning about PBD for miles 300-450ish. It has purple flowers and it grows mostly in areas that have burned recently. Today we saw a lot of it.

Some that were close enough to the trail that we had to dance around it. 

But we also wondered if it's a big hoax, some kind of elaborate practical joke on all hikers. Hilariously, we met up with another group of hikers who had discussed the same thing. We agreed that we don't want to touch it and find out. 

It was unbelievably cold when we woke up this morning, and we hiked for the first half hour in rain pants and down jackets. Hard to make sense of the cold, knowing that by mid-morning it'll be a scorcher again.

We climbed for a few miles this morning before meandering through a rolling burned area and then a big downhill to a road crossing where there was water.  

On the way down, we talked to a guy who is doing a big section southbound. He had thru-hiked the PCT several years ago and clearly knew the trail well. He gave us a great pep talk about not listening to anybody else and hiking our own hike. It was empowering to have this guy tell us we could do it. Thanks man!

We arrived at a forest service fire station where they let us use a water spigot at about 11:30 a.m. and it was already getting hot. We decided it wasn't going to make sense to hike in the heat, so we agreed to spend the day there until it started to cool off and then hike into the night.

Spending the day turned into an adventure in its own right. 

First, the only shade by noon was under the overhang at the entrance to the pit toilet. So, that's where we laid out our sleeping pads and sat. If anyone needed to use the bathroom, we would've had to move, but nobody else showed up. 

Then, the fire fighters decided they were going to fix the spigot in the afternoon. When we got there, and presumably for a while now, the spigot shot water up into the air. While this did provide many an impromptu shower, it was very hard to fill bottles and water bags. We thought great, they're fixing it!

The guys dug the old spigot out of the ground, creating a 3-foot diameter hole in the ground. Then the fire fighters were called out to a car accident. We heard them get the call on their radios from our spot next to the pit toilet. The whole team ran back to the station and left with sirens. No faucet. 

So we waited, and while they were gone a trail angel showed up and gave us cold cans of Coca Cola! I don't like coke, and Stephen had given up soda for more than a year, but did we both drink one? Yes. 

Eventually, maybe an hour later, the fire fighters came back and resumed working on the spigot. During this time, the water was shut off so they could work, so we couldn't get anymore water, even from the fire station building. Ironic, isn't it?

About 7 p.m., they turned the water back on. The new spigot was beautiful and we finally got water before starting hiking.

It was cooling off by the time we started, so we hiked in T-shirts (rather than our long-sleeve sun hoodies) for the first time. 

It was pleasant hiking, and the long daylight made it so we didn't need our headlamps until after 9 p.m. We hiked 12 miles, well into the night, finally rolling out our sleeping pads just before midnight.

We crested a hill and were stunned to see the seemingly endless expanse of lights that is Los Angeles. I feel grateful that on the trail we're in a different world than those bright lights.