Day 1 – Campo to Lake Morena Campground

Mile Marker: 20

Trail Miles: 20

Miles Walked: 22.3

It was 37 degrees inside my tent at 0519. We had camped at Lake Morena campground the night before I was to start my PCT thru hike. Betty’s Mom, BILS and the World Savers, plus Betty and Tucker, would drive me the 15 min it took to get to the PCT’s southern terminus and my starting point. It would take me all day, until 8:30pm, to get back to the very same spot.

I told myself 3 things that morning:

1. Don’t overdo it the first day
2. Don’t hike at night this early on
3. Don’t get sucked into the drama of a crazy woman on the trail

One-ish out of three ain’t bad.

Excited. A little nervous. It’s cold. I have to pee and that requires getting out of my warm sleeping bag. Urrgh. -These were my waking thoughts. Welcome to my new life for the next 5-6 months.

We packed up camp in the cold and went to breakfast at Oak Shores Malt Shop near Lake Morena. I had a hearty (and excellent) sausage, egg and cheese sandwich. Not my usual yogurt and fiber cereal, but when you’re leaving for Canada that day you can take a few dietary liberties.

We drove down to Campo (the Mexican border) and took a bunch of pictures. I had bought fortune cookies and put them in every resupply box I would receive. . I’d brought 5 extra to the border – one for each of us to read there at my starting point. Mine had been crushed from the transit to CA, so as I looked at it I could clearly tell there was no slip of paper in the package. I said “I can’t believe I bought fortune cookies with no fortunes!” Everyone else said no, they had fortunes in theirs. WTH? As I was about to start the most epic journey of my life to date, I had no fortune? I try not to place too much meaning in a 2 cent fortune cookie, but I had to chuckle and wonder……

I started walking at 8:46. The others stayed at the top of the hill, where the trail monument is, taking pictures. BILS had hiked the PCT 25 years before and was recreating pictures to document the changes. At the bottom of the hill I noticed there was a small headstone and flag. I walked over to it, away from the trail. BILS, Bety’s Mom and the World Savers thought I had already lost the trail and started yelling, waving and sounding their car alarm to get my attention. It was kind of funny, but the the headstone was sobering. It was a memorial for Border Patrol Agent Robert Rosas, Jr. who was killed near Campo in 2009. The BP presence was very evident at Campo and would continue to be for the next several days into my hike.

Betty’s Mom ran down the hill with Betty and walked with me for a 1/4 mile. It wasn’t to be the last goodbye but when she walked away it was a little bit emotional for me. My throat was tight and my eyes got a little moist. It took a lot of work to get here and tremendous support from a lot of people. I’ve never been good at asking others for help, but this undertaking requires it. I am truly grateful and moved by what others have done to help me in this very self-focused goal.

The excitement buoyed me along and the first mile was quick. I stopped to take selfies at the 1 mile marker. I wonder if any other miles are marked? (Probably not.)

With the travel and commotion of the last few days, my body had kind of locked up. But the exercise of walking did its work and at 9:46 am, exactly one hour and 2.4 miles into the trail, I stopped and dug my first cat hole. Way to christen the trail!

The deserts is beautiful this time of year. The flowers are in bloom and it’s green — at least relatively so for being a desert. Hopefully my photos reflect this.

About 1100 I started running into other hikers. Everyone is going through a ‘breakup-in’ period, finding their pace and trail legs, so you leap frog each other. One person I met was Sierra, a 22-year-old from Maine. Her hiking partner starts in three days but we hiked for a bit together and chatted during a shade break.

It was particularly hot so I was trying out my sun umbrella. It was the first time and I didn’t have a good system for attaching it to my pack. About a half mile after I put it up, I’d lost one of the bungee cords holding it. I loathed the idea of losing gear on day 1, so I backtracked down the trail to where Sierra and I had stopped for a break. No joy. I eventually caught back up to Sierra and a woman from Germany named Anne. Anne had found my bungee cord shortly after I’d passed her on my back track. She had given me a zip-tie to help with my umbrella when I met her the first time. I was so appreciative of her kindness. She was my first trail angel!

I ran into a bunch more hikers over the course of the day. Bill (from Windsor, Canada) – I told him about how as college student at Michigan we used to go across the border and drink in Windsor where the drinking age was 19. And Gerald from Sacramento. I hiked with them for a bit. I also ran into Cricket, Toga and Peanut — they all had trail names from having hiked the Appalachian Trail (AT) a few years back.

Overall I was feeling good and was debating whether to camp at Hauser (dry) Creek or continue on 5 more miles to Lake Morena CG, where I’d slept the night before. It was 5 o’clock and I had just started the descent to Hauser Creek when I ran into an older woman sitting in the middle of the trail talking on her cell phone. The trail is single track there, so there was no way around her without her moving. As I politely waited for her to notice I was behind her, I could hear that she was in some sort of distress and was talking with a 911 operator.

The operator asked her her symptoms and what her battery status was. She said it was low and in need of a charge. It was at this moment she noticed me standing behind her. She turned and said, “you can give me some juice can’t you?” It must have been my Catholic upbringing and the resulting guilty look on my face, but she somehow knew I had an external battery pack for charging electronics.

I’ll try to keep this short, but it wound up being a complicated situation. EMS was coming for her, but we were in the middle of nowhere and there was no telling how long it would take to reach her. I could only hope the coordinates she gave the 911 operator were correct. Most hikers are prepared for injury or illness, and I would have felt comfortable continuing on in if that was the case. Unfortunately, she immediately started talking about how she had the flu, that her mobility dog had run away two days ago and she’d left her StarWars blanket (NOT sleeping bag) a mile back up the trail. Uh oh. I couldn’t leave.

I decided I would stay with her until EMS arrived and share (not give or loan) my gear, if necessary. Everyone I’d met earlier in the day eventually came along and declined her offers of first $10, later $20, to go back and get her blanket, which several folks had actually seen. She got to the point of even saying how she would freeze to death without it. I told her EMS was on the way and that wouldn’t happen.

The more she talked the less her story made sense. Over the course of an hour she said she had trained herself and her dog to hike on only 1/2 Liter of water a day (that’s about 2 cups). She said a ranger had stolen her dog and was using it to get into Disneyworld for free and cut lines. She said the weather last week had been a hurricane with rain like a nuclear winter fallout. She claimed this was her 3rd attempted thru hike, but it was glaringly apparent she was very unprepared. Still I wanted to make sure she didn’t die of exposure. I couldn’t carry that with me all the way to Canada.

A little over an hour, a Sheriff showed up at which point she started arguing with him and didn’t want to talk with law enforcement. I quietly retrieved my external battery pack and packed up. As she was still arguing with the Sherriff I looked at him and motioned that I was leaving, he nodded to me and continued talking with her. (My hat’s off to the Sheriff — what a tough job.)

I eventually found the hikers I’d met earlier and who all declined to to retrieve the distressed hikers blanket. We compared notes and everyone felt I didn’t need to stay with her once EMS was on the way. Maybe so. I just felt obligated to ensure she was safe. As long as it did not jeopardize my safety, I was willing to do so.

At that point it was 6:30pm. I had 2L of water left, but didn’t feel it was enough for the night and 5 miles tomorrow to Lake Morena. I was a little amped from the encounter with the distressed hiker so I opted to continue to Morena, where I knew there was water (albeit tainted with coliform bacteria).

I made it to the CG by 8:30pm, after hiking 45 min in the dark using my headlamp. I washed up in the CG bathroom (hot water!) and then made my way to the PCT hiker area. As I was setting up my tent, a car pulled up and asked if this was the backpacker’s site. I said yes and continued setting up my tent for the second time in the dark. I then heard the unmistakable voice of the distressed hiker from earlier as she got out of the car. Really Karma????

Day 1 diet:

Bfast: sausage/egg& cheese sandwich w/hot chocoholic,

Lunch: mint cliff protein bar,

Dinner: handful Swedish fish homemade granola while on the trail after 7:00pm

Late Dinner, 10:30 pm burrowed in my sleeping bag: the last 4 oatmeal raisin cookies Vicki had made for me. They were awesome Vicki!!! Thank you!! They were just what i needed after a trying first day.