We had a hasty wakeup before sunrise, and had Erin's blisters dressed in record time. The mistakes made hiking yesterday were not to be repeated today. A team effort at breaking camp yielded a sub-60 minute camp break, foot dressing at all. Despite the promise of cooler temperatures, we planned on avoiding the midday heat by hanging out by the water cache under the bridge at Scissors Crossing (mi 77) before pressing on to the next cache 15 miles north. We broke camp by 6, and passed a woeful Joe who had been woken up by a camelback-platypus water bladder leaking over everything inside his tent. He offered me a toke off of his chillum, and I politely declined in the interest of getting to Scissors ASAP. I steripenned a liter of water for Erin and I to chug before hitting the trail, and then we were off. We made good time: Erin's spirits were high, the sun was rising on the desert, and Erin's feet were in good repair.
We passed through the shady northern slope of Granite Mountain in the cool, dry morning air.
We leapfrogged with The Hons for a spell, as various breaks overlapped with the other group walking. Ol' 'eagle eyes' Wiley spotted a nice and fat horned lizard (Phyrnosoma platyrhynos) scoot from the trail to the cover of a bush, while I spotted a cactus wren nest and Cassin's kingbird along the way.
A horned lizard hid in the brush after scurrying off the trail.
After spending some time birdwatching and pointing it out to The Hons, I ran a ways to catch up with Erin, who was speedily contouring across the landscape - later, my knee-in-repair let me know that I had made a poor decision. We walked through some intact lands with beautiful cactus blooms of pink, yellow, white and green, and we walked through some fire-scarred habitat with nothing save boulder fields and bibilcal amounts of grasshoppers (not sure what they were eating). We crossed the desert floor and arrived at the Scissors Crossing bridge water cache around 10.
We passed the day there with some former PCTers, this class' PCTers, and even met the famed Yogi by chance, as she and Worldwide came to visit us denizens under the bridge.
It was windy, and the fine alluvial soil blew into and onto everything. Several hikers went into Julian for free pie and sandwich from Mom's, where your thru-hiker permit comped the delicious items. Erin and I opted out, as we had a ton of food to eat before Warner Springs. We made a delicious lunch of stroganoff instead, and tried to hide a good amount of our Nido brand powdered milk (which we sent ourselves a lot of) in the mix. Two of the three Germans who started out with us stopped by, two southbound alums Detour and Charge arrived shortly after us, Joe arrived with his gear dried, Ronin walked in, we met Ben and Jamie from Salt Lake City (Jamie beat us soundly in a round of Yahtzee), and Joe and Nancy stopped under after a long trip to Julian.
Despite a lack of improvement in foot condition, Erin was in great spirits after the walk into the cache and the day spent meeting our fellow adventurers, and we set out again around 5 to make our way to the next camp (rather than spend the night in the dusty wind tunnel under the bridge, which we later found out was lousy with coyotes at night).
Despite a lack of improvement in foot condition, Erin was in great spirits after the walk into the cache and the day spent meeting our fellow adventurers, and we set out again around 5 to make our way to the next camp (rather than spend the night in the dusty wind tunnel under the bridge, which we later found out was lousy with coyotes at night).
A box of scissors just north of the Scissors Crossing.
The trail switch backed up the south face of the San Felipe Hills without any manner of shade, then contoured along towards the 3rd gate water cache. I managed to kick a portion of cactus that had blown onto the trail and found its way through my shoe. Bummer. 'Eagle eyes' Wiley was on fire today, and observed a RV pull up at the bridge about 45 minutes after we left. The only logical conclusion is that the RV was showing up to deliver more trail magic, which we were too late for. After five miles of weaving in and out of deeply hewn desert canyons, the sun started to set and we were hungry.
We made camp 5 miles in at a saddle in a burned section of landscape. A hot dinner of mashed potatoes (eaten from the comfort of the tent, which breaks one of my usual rules) rounded out the day. We fell asleep, warm and full, to the occasional scuff and clack of hikers' boots and poles as they made their way north towards the 3rd gate cache in the cool of night.
Coolest critters: The Cassin's kingbirds that I observed on the north slope of Granite Mountain were the first that I'd seen, and were a definite bonus. I always enjoy seeing horned lizards, and was grateful that Erin was reveling in their obese and hilarious antics. I'd also lump the cactus wren nest in this group too, though sadly I did not see the largest and most-oddball member of the wren family attending to it.
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