Hiking the Pacific Crest Trail.

10 days on the trail and already finished 154 miles = 250 km ! We are in good health and enjoy each day of the adventure and nature.

The landscape is changing everyday with new flowers and different landscape, stone cropping’s, sandy gully’s and more cactuses.

Every day we are surprised with the warm conversations we have with fellow PCT hikers and ‘Trail Magic’ we get from local people when we pass a road or a house. Yesterday we had to do a trail detour because of a fire burned region. Therefore we had to walk across the road for several miles. We tried to find a spot to camp. Finally we found a US Forest area after passing a house. We were just setting up our tent and two big dogs surrounded us. We were afraid we were eaten alive. But it was the opposite. Two men brought us several slices of warm pizza and coke/sprite. This is really Trail Magic! After hiking 20 miles with just some cream crackers, peanuts and muesli bars this was absolute perfect and really kind of them. This was the second time it happened to us.

That night it started to rain. We had seen the thunderstorms hanging above us during the day, and we were lucky they weren’t coming pouring down on us. Because we expected that in the dessert it doesn’t rain, our rain pants and gloves were sent to Kennedy Meadows, where the High Sierra section starts. Following day: mist and thin rain (drizzle) . On 1700 meter, surrounded by mountains with pine trees in the clouds, this almost looks like Norway, no dessert!

After hiking a day in the drizzle we finally we arrived at Idyllwild. A cute little place with a lot of log cabins and some Inns/lodges. We were cold and wet and luckily we had planned for our first zero-day, meaning don’t hike for a full day. We are staying in a lodge with a real bed and a Jacuzzi !!! Wow. So we are doing some shopping for the next 5 day hike. Washing clothes, eating big breakfasts, a lot of fruit and eat as much as calories we can. Lian is already very skinny and wants to eat cookies every hour.

That reminds me of the tittle. Since it’s difficult to remember everyone names, trail names are being given. You get one whenever something happens and someone provides one to you. So last week Lian was named Cookie Monster, you already know why. Andre was called Morning Star, since we get up very early in the dark, and walk around with our headlamps on.

Next section is climbing to high elevation (3000 meter) passing the highest mountain of southern California. Good chance that with current rain and cold of today, which is very unusual in spring here, we may encounter some snow.