Pacific Crest Trail Day 11: BBQ Lays Are My Boyfriend

PCT Day 11 — May 7, 2025
Snow Creek to almost Mission Creek
Jacinto View Camp to Big Moony Camp
PCT miles: 25.6 miles
Total miles: 230.3 miles
Elevation change: 3865ft gain, 4783ft loss

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With an unfathomable consistency that was hard to believe, I was awake to check my phone at 5:09am. I couldn’t be sure, but I was almost certain that it had gone the same way at least three times already. Without setting an alarm, that seemed nuts. Or maybe it was just a touch of deja vu. In any case, it was time to get moving for the day. I was expecting a scorcher, so it was super duper important to make the most of the morning. Yep, super duper, at least.

The clouds that blotted out the moon last night had transformed into a thick layer of dew, and my camp was saturated. No matter, I was sure that wherever I slept tonight would be warm and dry. I stuffed my damp quilt into my backpack and swiped the small drops off my ditty bag before tossing it in as well. My leggings were cooling, not really what I was looking for before sunrise, but not unpleasant. I told myself it was dew and not residual sweat. Like it mattered anyway.

The horizon brightened to a nuclear orange as I continued the mega descent from San Jacinto. The yellow flowers were nuclear too, so progress was slow as I kept stopping to take pictures and enjoy the last of the dawn. Icey couloirs split the steep north face above, webbing like cracks in a windshield until they dwindled to dry chutes of scrub lower down. That was about my level now, but there was a long way yet to the bottom. Already, the summit was far above, and the desert floor was far below. In the middle, this was flower country.

Then came boulder country where I recognized two big rocks of mottled patina, where I had hunkered in the shade for a long break in 2015. But it wasn’t time for a break yet this time. The sun was just up, and it was already cooking. I followed two hikers that I couldn’t keep pace with to the very bottom, which was really the top of a mighty alluvial fan of Jacinto’s sheddings. There, as before, was an unexplainable water fountain, seemingly planted by the gods of the PCT themselves. It gushed an exuberant jet, and although I wasn’t in desperate need as I was in 2015, it brought me joy to relive the strangeness of this modern oasis. Instead of palm trees, there was a rock. Instead of camels, we had hikers. Instead of carts, we carried backpacks. But there was sand, and sun, and unspoken worship of the miracle of water in the desert.

I didn’t recognize any of these hikers who now spoke of a different oasis as they squeezed water into bottles. In-N-Out was just a short hitch from trail along I-10, which the trail crossed in four miles, and this group was hungry. I was fine with all the meat talk, but had to speak up when someone said rude things about Taco Bell. I wouldn’t abide by that kind of behavior. To make my point, I hiked away without saying goodbye. Hrmpf, I think they got it.

Those four miles were a cruise. I could have used a breeze to keep it cool, but my umbrella did enough while the nearby wind turbines stood slack. The creosote bushes filled the air with their resinous fragrance, and the sand crunched softly under my shoes. Ten years ago, I had thought this was all very cool. I still did, and as I sat in the shade of the I-10 overpass, bare feet dangling, I had to say to no one in particular, “Dang, thru-hiking is so cool.” I was elbow deep in my bag of BBQ Lays, lying down a salt base in my stomach in anticipation of the heat ahead. It was just 10am now, with hours of heating up left in the day, but I had sweated freely on the flat walk here, and I knew what was coming. This next stretch of trail had obliterated me in 2015, turning my feet to rare burger patties and stabbing knives into my brain. “Not this time,” I told myself. I was both more prepared and more handsome.

All the kids figured out rides to fast food, but I had business in the desert. I took a gallon of water from the cache, and headed back into the heat.

Ten years ago, there was a legendary trail angel couple, Ziggy and the Bear, to whom all hikers paid a visit as they walked through this random desert suburb. I stayed the night there, like so many others, camping in their carpeted backyard. It was interesting to notice how quickly the memory of their hospitality had faded. Now, hikers were excited about catching an Uber to In-N-Out instead of meeting Ziggy. They hadn’t even heard of her. As I walked around the neighborhood, I tried to remember which house had been theirs. I think I got it, but without the row of porta-potties in the driveway, it was impossible to be sure.

Up a slope of knee-high scrub into a narrow valley rimmed with wind turbines. “No wind. Really hot. Really steep. I called it Hell Canyon. It sucked, but a nice breeze at the top.” It wasn’t miserable today, but there was still time for that. But before full-blown misery could develop, I pulled off trail to visit the wind farm office. I had skipped it in 2015, but comments suggested that they had a shady spot. I was all about that shade. Shade was severely lacking out here, and it was unthinkable to continue through the heat of the day without it. 2015 me would have tried. He did try, and, to reiterate, “it sucked.”

The shade pavilion was dilapidated, but it did the job. I wished I visited in 2015 as a point of comparison. Feeling like a genius, I hunkered with the lizards out of the noon heat, and dug back into that bag of chips. A hiker whom I hadn’t seen since mile 100 joined me after an hour, apparently regretting their second milkshake in town. We chatted and stayed cool. I kept snacking and drinking water.

Eventually, it was approaching the heat of the day, and I couldn’t sit on my butt any longer. Surely I’d waited long enough to make a difference, and my umbrella would do the rest. Or maybe that cloud forming above? Refreshed, I saddled up at 2pm, feeling good about the next seven miles to Whitewater Creek.

The second part of Hell Canyon smashed me in the face, handsomeness be damned. No wonder I had such a potent memory of misery from 2015. Deceptively steep, breathlessly windless, and stupidly hot, I walked through an oven. The yellow flowers were super pretty, but I would have traded them for a smidge of shade in a heartbeat. I came to a gasping halt, turning back to look at the snowy San Jacinto glittering far above. Sucking on jelly beans to keep my mouth closed only worked when I wasn’t breathing hard, so I stopped to let my heart catch up. Then, just a few more minutes, and I caught that breeze I was looking for at the top. Oh, sweet glory, it was better than I remembered.

I was kind of over effort and thinking at this point, so I turned on Thoreau’s Walden for the final few miles to the creek. The trail dipped and meandered through another canyon thing, which would have been equally uncomfortable except that it was mostly downhill. However, it wasn’t all great. My baked brain couldn’t make much sense out of the old-timey language. I was no Chris McCandless. Why wasn’t this ‘classic’ translated into something a modern gentleman like me could understand? It was fun to listen to, but I was missing most of what, presumably, made it great. Oh well.

I shuffled through the sand to the mighty Whitewater, which, though only a few feet across, cut a pebbled scar through the desert a quarter mile wide. Mercifully, there was shade there below an embankment. I hoped it wouldn’t crumble while I rested below it. In 2015, I’d gone for a swim, but today I settled for a foot soak in the warm water before retreating to my sandy lounge.

Between 5-6pm, I drank as much as I could and relaxed as much as I could. The best part of the day was coming next, and I wanted to be ready for it. As I roughly calculated my water needs, I chuckled, remembering how 42 had screwed us all by misreading the water report after smoking a joint. I’d wanted to name him Bong Water Report to commemorate our near miss, but he declined. This time, the water needs didn’t seem so dire, and I packed out three liters for the night. Not too bad.

I chased another hiker through the shadows up to another ridge. I rode the edge of sunset to the top, staying cool just below the burning transition. As I walked from there, with a wide panorama of mountains and desert surrounding me, I wished that the earth would stop turning for a few hours. This was the perfect time to hike, and I wanted it to last until my legs gave out. The temperature was perfect, the light colorful and soft. Birds sang, and the distant highway rumbled low.

For thirty minutes, I had these gifts all to myself, though I would have given anything to have Spice with me. She likes sunsets more than I do, so they’re always better with her around. Under the bright moon, I set up camp, surrounded by the same great stuff. This stretch of trail was better this time around, I thought. Still hot, still hard, but better. My chips were one obvious reason why, but there were others too *Crunch Crunch Crunch* (that’s the sound of me eating chips)