May 5, 2017
Scout and Frodo's to Campo, CA
Campo, CA to Lake Morena, CA
Pacific Crest Trail Thru-Hike: Day 1
Woke up at 4:40 am, packed up, tried to go to the bathroom one last time while another hiker stood right outside (probably with their ear to the door) and tried to will myself out of having a shy bladder. I quickly abandoned that effort, and headed outside to assume my spot sandwiched between apprehensive Hiker A and too-talkative-for-this-early-in-the-morning Hiker B in a car filled with hope, worry, and eagerness.
The trailhead was a mess of photography, and I was excited to head out. I powered past a guy in flip flops speaking bad Japanese to a Japanese guy speaking bad English, and quickly reminded myself not to be so quick to judge.
Two big climbs challenged me today, one in the beginning and one out of Hauser Creek, which was made absolutely fucking brutal by the heat. Wearing a tank top I was a little worried about sunburn, but quickly found that my bandana made a great shoulder cover.
Remember the guy with sandals? He has a name, as it turns out, and it's Sam. He passed me today and asked how my shoulders were doing. When asked for an explanation, he replied "they're pretty exposed". I responded to his question with a question. "How are your feet doing?" I asked. When asked for an explanation, I replied "they're pretty exposed". Not that this is a wits-off, but if it were, I'd say Cedar: 1, Sam: 0. We ended up having a snack together later in the day, under the only piece of shade for miles around.
I started with 4.5L of water, chugged a liter before we got to the trailhead (per Crash's recommendation, called 'cameling up'), and the rest lasted me until Hauser Creek.
Visual highlights of the day: huge rocks, burnt trees, and wildflowers in bloom.
Overall I feel relaxed, cool, calm, and collected. And hungry. I ate so much for dinner. Really glad I have so much feeze-dried fruits and vegetables. I tried to make chocolate trail frosting, and it was too hot so it just turned into a gelatinous, oily mess.
I spent nearly an hour taking care of my feet once I crawled into my tent. I used my bandana to wash my legs, feet, and face, and put Boudreaux on my legs because I have some sort of heat-or-other rash (hopefully not poison oak, clearly I need to brush up on my rash diagnostic skills). I threaded four blisters, which is a pretty good showing for the first day.
It's supposed to rain tomorrow, which I welcome after today's heat. I made some trail friends, Rise and Shine (twin sisters), Colin, Kelsey, and Claire.
As a closing thought for the day, it's still quite warm, my clothes are sweaty, and I had been looking forward to sleeping naked. Unfortunately, I just found an ant and a tick in my tent and would like to be able to rest easy without worrying where they might crawl into while I'm sleeping
