PCT SOBO DAY 113 – I just want to eat real food
4th November 2016
Little jimmy campground - wrightwood
14.4 miles
4001ft up 4108ft down
It's cold and dark again as we set off. Catwater is feeling much better today and we keep a good pace. It's 6 miles of uphill to Baden Powell. The sun rises over the desert and we realise that it's totally flat to the left of us and totally flat to the right and we are climbing up the only massive mountain in the middle of the flat desert. But on the bright side the views are incredible.
I eat a lot of chocolate on the way up and I start to feel a bit sick. I really don't know what I'm going to eat from now on. I hate everything.
It's not warm. I wasn't all that warm last night and I did have my first thought of 'I've had enough of this'. I don't want to be cold anymore! I was able to remove my jacket but everything else stayed on, including the gloves.
I reached the spur trail to Baden Powell summit and dropped my pack and went to the top. It was windy and cold so I took a quick picture and came back down again. I waited for Catwater by the 1500 year old tree. We then set off down the seemingly endless switchbacks, losing about 2300ft. There were a bunch a day hikers about and I needed the toilet the whole way down but couldn't risk it. Thankfully there was a pit toilet, a pretty gross one, in the parking area at the bottom.
Only 4.5 miles to the road and to the trail head where we can hitch to Wrightwood. All I could think about was food and I powered on and down to the road. I looked at my GPS and I figured out which way Town was and which side of the road I needed to stand on. I looked down the road at nothing. Not a single car. As Catwater was coming down the trail a car came from behind me and she stuck out her thumb. It pulled over. But it's going the wrong way I said. It wasn't. I had got the direction of town wrong. My brain needs food!!!
The man who gave us a ride was a hunter who hadn't caught anything. Hunting with a rifle is over on Sunday. Oh good I thought. Then he tells me hunting with a bow and arrow begins. Oh great! And it's open season. You can only shoot buck with a gun, you can go for anything with a bow and arrow by the sounds of it!
He dropped us right where we wanted to go and we went to the hardware store to meet Crusher. Then we headed straight for food. A double western burger. Two pattys, bacon, cheese, onion ring, BBQ sauce. It was so good. And I almost managed the whole thing. Just two bites that I couldn't squeeze down.
We said goodbye to crusher, she has to speed up to meet her deadline so we might not see her again. Then we went to find the cabin Catwater had booked us into. It's a cute little cabin with more bear paraphernalia than I had ever seen. It has an awesome recliner chair and that's where I intend to stay for a while, but unfortunately there are chores to do.
We pop next door to see the lady who owns the cabin and give her some money, when we go inside she is holding a raccoon. I am amazed. I've never seen a raccoon before. It's really young and they rescued it after it's mother got killed. They took it to a shelter but they said they had no room. It's into absolutely everything. It took quite a liking to my shoes (probably because of all the times I've wee'd on them. I was terrified it was going to bite me but it didn't. I was amazed by its hands. They are so human like the way they pick things up and they move about. They look adorable until they show their teeth!
Next we go to the grocery store which was every bit as agonising as I thought it was going to be. I hate all food. I can't even face sour patch kids anymore. I buy the most ridiculous and random resupply yet. Mostly consisting of bread and cake. I bought a cheese and garlic loaf and a cheese and artichoke focaccia. And swiss cheese. That's a lot of cheese I have realised. Well, it's either going to be ok or it isn't.
America is full of all sorts of foods that are weird and wrong. But this one is up there on the weirdness and wrongness scales...
A blog reader gave me some advice to have some cider vinegar and honey to ease my flatulance issues. I found this in the supermarket but I couldn't bring myself to drink it because it sounds gross!
Back at the cabin I put everything I bought into ziplocks, I drink a green juice drink to try and get some nutrients inside me and I try and update the blog. I end up wanting to launch my phone out the window when the Wordpress app - which I just updated – just crashes every time I try to upload a picture. I give up and order things from the internet instead.
Neither of us are hungry but part of my resupply strategy was to have leftover pizza so we walk to the pizza place and get a pizza to share. The very nice man in there gives me a free Sprite. Magic.
We shower. There is no laundry facility and we aren't really that dirty anyway.