PCT Day 22

Day 22

Miles 23

I wake up for half 4 am and everyone is slowly getting ready to go, brushing teeth and sorting out bags. The owner of hiker town, Bob has kindly offered to drive our bags 17 miles down the trail so we could slack pack to the water source. We load our bags into his van and Puss in boots and I start walking slowly. My feet are really tight, the heel on my right and the sole on my left. It quieten downs after a while but I’m still aware of it.

The sun rises slowly over the aqueduct and creaks through the clouds. It is actually stunning and I can’t take my eyes off it. We talk all the way - about films, life, love, hiking, food, our futures, education, our upbringing, the PCT, books, writing, jobs. We get to the bridge which is the meetup point and catch up to the two hikers who hiked out last night. They say they heard a mountain lion stalk and kill a sheep next to their tent last night. We snooze in the shade, then the other hikes join us. We all chill and wait for two hours til our packs arrive.

We set off separately and I'm super slow. It’s so much hard work walking across the wind farm. The wind just blows right into me and it takes like four hours to walk from mile 535 to 541. On the way I stop for a sugary snack and get overtaken by two hiker. I trail them up the hill then get a signal and send a few messages. I pack my yucca stick away as it’s no good against the wind - being super light weight the wind is just blowing it all other the place. I get to the top and then descend into a valley. I catch the two hikers at the bottom where I find Walken and Puss in boots. It feels good to be out the wind so I chill for a bit. All the hikers who slept in Hiker town last night have arrived and we all set up camp in various places around the valley. A river flows through it and there are a few places to pitch tents.It's called
Tyler House Canyon.

I collect some water and set up for bed. It starts raining a bit and we put up our shelters then it clears, damn rain. I head to sleep but I can’t. It’s windy and my tent is too warm. But eventually I do and the wind dies down in the late morning.

Day 23 here