Miles hiked today: 0
Miles hiked total: 478.2
During the night I wake to the sound of wind and rain outside. When I wake up properly in the morning, the weather is truly miserable. Rainy and windy and cold, and we are not even in the mountains here. But pancakes are served every morning from 6:30 at Casa de Luna! So I make my way through the forest back to the house, and head inside for my plate of fluffy pancakes and syrup. I find a seat on a sofa outside, that is slightly damp from the rain, although it is covered by a gazebo. I share the sofa with a few other hikers, and we huddle for warmth under a blanket, eating our pancakes, and wrapping our hands around warm styrofoam cups of coffee. We stay like this for a while, as no one can really muster up the courage to pack away their things in the rain. Odin is here too – he hiked in early this morning, not wanting to turn up drunk yesterday, after having successfully completed the 24 challenge.
So I spend the morning huddled for warmth on this sofa, and we chat, and play word games (including a great one called Contact), and then Max and I play a game involving coins. And no one wants to leave, because the weather is so miserable, even though we were promised 700 miles of almost unbearable heat on the PCT. Some people go bowling, some go to the cinema, ordering ubers to come and give them a ride. I help out with the washing up, and chat to Terrie about how this whole thing got started. She says that many years ago, on a Monday, she found two hikers trying to have a meal in town, but as all the restaurants were closed, she invited them back to hers. And now they run this operation every single day during hiker season, no weekends off, no holidays, with the help of volunteers. It’s amazing, and just another example of the incredible generosity shown by trail angels to the hiking community.
As the hours draw on, it seems like we might end up taking a zero here, in this little bubble of hikers. Very few people seem to be hiking out today, and the ones that are arriving here from the trail look shell-shocked and near hypothermic. They report getting stuck in freezing temperatures and 60mph winds. So I settle into this sofa life and get to meet lots of new hikers. There is lots of laughter despite, and sometimes because of, the weather. I spend a little bit of time in my tent catching up on my blog, but for the most part I socialise at the front of the house.
The Andersons do not usually provide lunch during the day, but today they lay on a feast of burgers and hot dogs, partly because it’s Memorial Day Weekend, partly because the weather is so grim. There is definitely a party atmosphere as people keep doing runs to the store for beer and wine.
At dinner (every night is taco salad night here) Terrie tells me that there are 81 hikers here tonight. She knows because she counted the number of plates used!
After dinner I watch another episode of Game of Thrones with Odin, as the rain pours down around us, more heavily than it has rained all day. On the way back to my tent, I need to wear my bin liner skirt for the first time, and it is surprisingly effective. I’m not sure how well it would hold up on trail, as it will get very easily scratched and torn, but for this it works perfectly. Luckily all the things in my tent are still mostly dry – I say mostly because some water gets through the mesh as splashback from the ground. But there are no major breaches, and soon I am warm in my sleeping bag. As I fall asleep, my mind is filled with thoughts of the Sierras – surely what is falling as rain here is falling as fresh snow there, making our passage through these mountains even more treacherous. A problem for another day.
Notes from the PCT 