Trail Day 5: Tentsite (mile 71.1) to Third Gate water cache (mile 91.2)

20.1 PCT miles, plus 0.6 miles round trip to the water cache

Last night the wind had pickup up so much that the sides of my tent were whipping me. I had cell coverage so I checked the weather for the nearest town, Julian. There was a wind advisory: 25-35 mph wind with local gusts up to 50-60 mph. Supposedly it was only going to last until 3 am. There was a lull at 3 am, but then it picked right back up again. I waited in my tent for sunrise hoping it would abate, but I ended up packing everything up in full wind.

Be advised.

When I packed everything up I noticed my sunglasses were missing. I either packed it up with something else while I was trying to keep it all from blowing away or I dropped them while looking for a tentsite last night. I checked all around the camp and even backtracked on the trail a bit but couldn't find them, so I started on my way.

Good morning from my tentsite. It wasn't exactly a good night

I was walking in a completely different environment than yesterday. It was more of what we normal think of as desert, dominated by cacti (prickly pear and cholla) and yuccas. There were diverse and colorful wildflowers everywhere.  Even the cacti were blooming. I was stopping way too much to take pictures of them all.

Sunrise yucca bloom.

Wildflowers and cacti.

Cactus bloom.

Cholla spines in the morning light.

Cholla blooms.

Prickly pear blooms

As I wound down the mountain, I bumped into a couple section hikers headed from Scissors Crossing to the Mexican boarder. Due to my morning brain fog, I don't remember either their trail names or their real first names, but their last name is Weaver. They were super friendly. In passing I asked them to look for sunglasses that I may have dropped along the trail. They said if they found them, they would hand them off to someone headed to Julian to put in the "hiker box" at Carmen's, a restaurant and hiker hostel. I really hoped that I mistakenly packed them in my bag because the other scenario seemed like a long shot for their retrieval.

After I left the Weavers, I made it down the mountain and walked across a wide, sandy valley to get to Scissors Crossing,  where the PCT crosses the highway.  There is a wonderful group, the Shelter Valley Trail Angels, who regularly maintain a cache of water to resupply PCT hikers. This part of the trail is a dry stretch with almost no natural water supply. Those trail angels are amazing!

Walking across Shelter Valley.

The cache is stored under a bridge. Someone had also left a cooler of oranges, lemons, and a bottle of tequila for PCT hikers. I grabbed an orange to eat with my breakfast. I left the tequila.

The Shelter Valley water cache. Bless those angels!

While I was there I heard a couple other thru-hikers talking about the weather last night. They rode out last night's wind storm indoors in Julian and were still impressed by the wind. Right, guys? I was outside in that storm!

After eating breakfast and refilling with water, I crossed the road and started heading up the mountains on the other side of the valley. In addition to the tons of prickly pear and cholla cacti, there were now barrel cacti. They were blooming too! The wildflowers were also ridiculously abundant here as well, and really dense in some places. It was a truly magical scene to walk through.

Barrel cactus blooms

Is this real life? So many flowers!

More wildflowers.

Where there are flowers, there are flower eaters.

Different colored blooms mixed together.

Stop taking flower pictures, you need to hike!

Oh, Hello lizard!

So colorful!

Wow!

I ended up walking through this magic for a long time. The trail traversed the valley-facing side of the mountain for a long time. In this stretch I was leapfrogging with two men (whose names I never learned) and another man named Jeff. Eventually,  I saw the Swiss couple I keep running into. I confirmed with them that they are actually Swiss (I guessed right!) and finally learned their names, Beat and Michele.

Eventually, the path turned inward, down a valley, and climbed back up. There were still flowers in this section,  though less abundant. I started leapfrogging with new people in this section, some of whom I recognized but whose names I still do not know.

Everyone was headed to the Third Gate water cache. The stretch from Scissors Crossing is really hot and dry.  I have had plenty of excess water so far, but I ended up on my last liter with 3 hot, exposed miles still to go.

It seemed like everyone was struggling with the hike the closer we got to the cache. I had to take much more frequent breaks. My feet and legs felt swollen. Jeff seemed to be on the same pace I was, so he followed close behind as I went into “black out and just get there” mode for the last mile and a half.

Since there were so many people headed to the same place I was worried that most of the water would be gone and there would be no more campsites left, since the Guthook app listed the location for having "a small amount of space for tents...".

When we finally got to Third Gate I saw tons of tents already set up. At the moment I was more concerned about water. Jeff saw a sign that said “Water” and we went down a dirt path for .3 miles.  I'm not sure if either of us knew knew that it was downhill or .3 miles or we would have left our packs at the top, like all the other hikers we passed. No one besides us two idiots was still carrying their heavy backpacks.

Path leading down the the water cache.

The water cache still had plenty of fresh, store-bought jugs of water. Whoever supplies this is amazing! It is definitely in a remote, hot, dry section where water is much needed. There were even  a couple stumps to sit on which were also much needed by me and my feet. I took comfort in the fact that everyone, even those who passed me by when hiking, was complaining about their feet hurting.

Jeff, Beat, and Michele at the water cache.

After resting at the cache for a bit, I headed back up the hill to look for a campsite. It turns out there were tons of sites. I managed to find a secluded and sheltered site slightly away from the crowd. My tent will not be blown down tonight! Unfortunately, even after unpacking everything, my sunglasses were still MIA.

Home sweet home for the night.