Pacific Crest Trail Day 2: It’s a Dud

PCT Day 2 — April 28, 2025
Boulder Oaks Campground to Pioneer Picnic Area
Campfire Camp to Old Road Camp
PCT miles: 26.8 miles
Total miles: 52.8 miles
Elevation change: 4757ft gain, 2618ft loss

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I awoke at 5am, well-rested and happy to be dry. Cowboy camping had paid off, revitalizing my confidence in the benefits of risky behavior. “Fortune favors the bold,” was a phrase that I freely bandied in 2015, oftentimes to mock my stupid decisions. Really, it would be better to say, “Bold people get lucky a lot.” Well, I got lucky this time.

A ceiling of clouds still covered the sky, and a small corner flamed pink with sunrise. I was hiking shortly after at 6:30am, breakfast cookie in hand. My legs and feet were surprisingly fresh, or at least, the fatigue was less than expected, and I was still in awe that I had zero blisters to contend with. Contrast that with 2015, “Big toes have blisters on toe side and left heel blister swelled up to a quarter.” Or in other words, “Muscles feel good, but feet are sucking hard.” Ahhhh, memories.

Also still amazing was the sage and other green things, whose plumpness was epic. I let the shoots slide through my loose fist as I walked, bringing the comforting scent up to my nose in a cupped palm.

Unfortunately, my head was feeling a little off as I walked under the interstate and started the long climb to Mount Laguna. Had I really managed to get dehydrated with a flowing spigot within view of my quilt? That was a stupid thing to do, and I resolved to have it sorted by lunch at the general store. If not, a cold soda would surely do the trick. Alternatively, my body was maybe just freaking out. It wasn’t every day that it carried a weighted backpack 26 miles, after all. I imagined alarms blaring, flashing red lights, sparking monitors, and burst pipes spewing steam in some submarine-like control station within me. Some of my systems might have been overwhelmed, right? Well, it was probably dehydration, but I liked this image better.

Pink Pony Club quickly became the mantra of the day, as my brain found a melody that matched the rhythm of my steps. Fine by me. Thoughts drifted like the clouds, always coming back to the few lyrics that I remembered. Down below, the highway shrank to the eastern horizon. An arm of Lake Morena glinted to the south. An unnaturally straight line scratched across the hills beyond that. The border, barely still in view.

Kitchen Creek pooled and rushed where there had been only dry sand during my last visit, until finally I reached the site of my day 2 camp. It wasn’t much, just a sloping flat in a small meadow near a trickle, but I recognized it instantly. It was where my painful feet had finally won out, bringing me to a halt a few miles short of my goal. Exciting stuff.

But not this time! I was feeling good, especially after figuring out that I was wearing my leggings backwards. Hopefully, that was the cause of my headache, which had stubbornly refused to dissipate even after an hour of lounging.

Hiking higher, the season turned backwards. Flowers turned to buds, and dried oak leaves filled the gaps between tufts of brown grasses. And then there were pine trees. Glorious pine. Shading me from the invigorated sun, they towered above, shockingly large compared with the adjacent scrub. And so in an instant, everything changed. The desert was gone, replaced by the most pleasant of forests. Ponderosa, cedar, and some other red-coned trees hissed in the breeze as I cruised on the idyllic trail of springy duff.

But whatever, I needed soda. Badly. Turning off the trail at Burnt Rancherita Campground, I joined pavement for the short roadwalk to the general store.

Suspiciously, I was the only hiker around, but the store was open and the beverages cold. Ahhh, everything I’d wanted. Bye-bye, headache. I sat in a plastic chair on the porch, enjoying my caffeinated sugar water and digging in my bags of various foods with grubby hands. Recovery was guaranteed.

Somehow, someway, I was in worse shape when I left town and returned to the trail. That damn soda was a dud! However, using my muddled mind to gaze through the haze, I realized that I hadn’t had anything else to drink in a few hours. D’oh. Soda, for all the magical powers it possessed, was not enough to undo my negligence. I drank a bunch of water and gritted my teeth. This was going to hurt until I fell asleep. Served me right.

The next 11 miles are some of my favorite, and I was a little bummed that I couldn’t fully enjoy them. Still, I had lots of memories to support my legs as they carried me along the high ridgeline. With roots running deeper than 2015, this stretch had been nostalgic even then, and contributed to my trail name, “AtHome.” Now it was doubly so, glazed with an icing of pain and Chappell Roan. “Looking west to the familiar peaks was comforting too. Still haven’t really left home.” Garnet Peak, Cuyamaca, and Anza Borrego, they were all home in one way or another, and here I was again, smack dab in the middle.

The ludicrous drop to the tortured desert far below was as stunning as ever, but eventually it wasn’t enough to counteract my disdain for the afternoon. The sun was too bright and somehow always blinding. The trail was too rocky and longer than it should have been. When I finally pulled into Pioneer Picnic Area in the shade of a long ridge, I was doused in relief. Almost all done. I just needed to filter water and go to bed.

After lugging five liters a short distance from the spigot, I quickly made camp and lay down. Only half of my couscous was appetizing enough to keep me awake, and I soon rolled over to doze. A few hours later, my headache was even sharper, but somehow I coaxed myself back to sleep. Even though there was no promise of soda, tomorrow couldn’t come quickly enough. I’d be smarter tomorrow. I vowed to never let dehydration get the better of me again. Hah! Anyone willing to put money on that? Yeah, me neither.