Pacific Crest Trail Day 6: Sweltering

PCT Day 6 — May 2, 2025
Lost Valley Road to Riverside County
Flight Path Camp to Big Sandy Camp
PCT miles: 24.2 miles
Total miles: 142.7 miles
Elevation change: 3694ft gain, 3783ft loss

---

The worst night of sleep yet left me with no choice but to try something different tonight. Sure, it was partly my fault for picking a rocky spot with a slight slant to it, but didn’t this 1/4″ foam pad have any dignity? Sleeping pad, my butt. As I hiked away from camp, leaving Gabrielle to eat her breakfast, I considered my options. The laziest and cheapest potential solution was to double the pad thickness by folding it in half and resting my feet on my empty backpack. I actually liked the idea. It sounded pretty badass, like something a great thru-hiker of many trails might do. Could I pull it off? In 24 hours, I would know.

But first, the day. Birdsong accompanied me during the gradual climb above a bouldery valley that was partially filled with fog. The morning was otherwise quiet and peaceful, and I admired the undercast as the sun brightened the tips of the vapor waves. I also ate breakfast, flossed, and brushed. Multitasking!

I passed a big group after about a mile, camped in the same spot that we had been shooting for last night before I called it quits. Glad I did. I liked all of these people for as little as I knew them, but it had been awkward enough to pee with just one person around, let alone a dozen. Pretending that my heel blisters weren’t painful and affecting my stride at all, I waved and wished them all a good morning as I gingerly rounded out of sight.

The bulk of the climb was mercifully on the shaded aspect, but the trail eventually flopped over the ridge, where I began to ponder how many swipes of this new sunscreen stick I needed for it to work. Meanwhile, infinite bees hummed about their work. It was all I could hear. They seemed to be going nuts for the pink manzanita flowers, which hung like small bells in dense clusters across the entire hillside. I’d only ever seen manzanita berries before, so seeing these got me excited too, though not bee-level excited.

It wasn’t even 8am yet, but I was cooking as I walked through a different bouldery valley. This one reminded me of that scene from the movie Galaxy Quest. Or at least I thought it did. It’s been longer than a decade since I’ve seen it, so I could have just been making things up to pass the time. Sometimes on a thru-hike, that’s just the way it goes. Without the all mighty Google to settle my own internal debates, how could I really be sure of anything?

In good time, I made it to the infamous Mike’s Place, where a trail angel provides visiting hikers with water. I had been surprised to find a big hiker Cinco de Mayo party going on here in 2015, and hung around for a few hours despite it being “Kind of a gross place.” Hiking out in the afternoon, I’d hoped to use the opportunity to get ahead of the hiker herd, who at that point were drunk and/or stoned. Today, there was no one else around. The property was deserted, enhancing the post-apocalyptic vibe that already congregated in strange heaps of busted stuff. I did a lap for old time’s sake, then retreated back to the water tanks near the trail.

I was packing up to leave when none other than Peg Leg appeared to get water for herself. I’d orbited around this pseudo-famous thru-hiker for a few years, so I easily recognized her. And after hiking with Punisher on day 4, I wasn’t surprised that she was out here, though I had heard a rumour that she had already passed me. But here she was. We introduced ourselves, then I left to gain some ground and buy some time before she passed me for real this time.

I held her off for a few miles, but then I realized that I was actually curious about her hike. Doing the same border-to-border calendar year triple crown as Punisher, she’d already walked well over 3000 miles this year. How was it going? She caught up just as the day reached ‘scorching’, and I was weirdly proud when she said that I was the first hiker that she hadn’t caught immediately. Ancestors, I’ve done you proud.

She was happy to let me set the pace, and I could tell that, like Punisher, she hadn’t had many conversations so far on the PCT. Pretty quickly, she put the pieces together of who I was, partner of SpiceRack, who hiked the ECT in 2022 and is friends with her friend, Sparkle, whom we met on the ECT in 2023. Peg Leg and I are also both a pretty big deal on TheTrek.co, so there was that connection too. With my identity accounted for, we had a lot to talk about. Mostly, I just hung on, trying to hike fast and ignore my burning heels. I did learn that Peg Leg runs on chocolate milk when she can get it, and that it is okay, and probably a good thing, to wash my stinky backpacks.

Meanwhile, the trail was no picnic. An endless maze of washes and low ridges wiggled us over and around. Bushes eight feet tall blocked most of the views and breeze, so we sweltered in the baking sunshine and still air. 75°F had felt hot in the morning. 87°F was much worse.

Ultimately, I was glad to have finally met Peg Leg in person and share about ten miles with her, but I was practically delirious when we split. After donating my last liter of water to her cause, she carried on to do famous thru-hiker things. I turned left down a dirt road to reach a different Mike’s place. I hadn’t drunk nearly enough while we hiked, hence the extra liter, so I shuffled as fast as I could over the rise where I would hopefully see some sort of hiker oasis. I felt slower now, and thirstier. I was confident that I would have died if I had continued like that much farther.

Mike 2.0 was a well-run ship. Eighteen hikers sat in the shade of four pop-up tents while Mike himself cooked up hot dogs. I beelined for the water spigot and quickly drank half a liter. Then I found a chair of my own, too tired to do all the other things that I needed to do.

With a mixture of lemonade and electrolytes, I gradually came back to life, listening to strangers converse and eat hot dogs before speaking occasionally myself. Focusing on repairing my impaired hydration, I made sure to drink consistently. I might just get out of this debacle without a headache if I was diligent. Remembering the misery of Mount Laguna, avoiding that pain was all I cared about.

Some people went. Others came. I upgraded my chair whenever I could, until I had the comfy lounger hidden in full shade. By that point, there were just five of us, and I had pumped a full two liters into my body. Feeling mostly recovered, I waited out a freak desert rain shower, then headed out to get a few more miles.

I called it a day after three more, finding a big sandy spot to stage my grand experiment. With a double-thick pad and my tender heels hanging free from the edge of my backpack, I felt like a king as I dove into my bag of All-Dressed Lays. Reading my notes from 2015, I had been feeling good then too when I camped around this spot, “Hiking/camping with Tarzan feels cool too. Like some awesome club. He’s legit.” Tarzan was way cooler than I, and it felt like a privilege to hike with him. I was less starstruck today hiking with Peg Leg, but I couldn’t deny that these inglorious hills had given me another thrill. I was beat up and content. I had a good feeling that with my new setup, I would sleep like a king too.