4.4.2018 Day 11

This morning started with a conversation with Charlie (Spicy). He was so worried about us girls not cooking a big meal last night OR breakfast this morning. We kept telling him we ate in small amounts and that we were conserving water. He was super cute. He explained to me this morning that he was having the whole bag a spaghetti for breakfast this morning because it was the energy he would need for the full day of hiking. He also told us that (jokingly) his wife is upset that she is not hiking with him. He explained that her not being there allowed him to eat the whole packet of spaghetti instead of only half. Such a nice man and inspiration as he’s 65 years young and cranking miles harder than we are as he started a day later than us. Impressive.

Once we got going we knew we were headed to Mile 151 for our pickup ride to Paradise Valley Cafe. We luckily had 2 water sources today, one of which was a cache another which was on private property of a trail angel named Mary. The water cache had been well stocked last on the 30th of March and was almost empty today as I took one liter to get me to Mary’s Place. At Mary’s, which was mile 145, she had just dropped off a large jug of ice cold lemonade. Her little hiker oasis was pretty cool. It was complete with tent spots, a water tank, benches underneath a canopy and a makeshift portapotty and shower. I rinsed my head off as I could feel how matted my hair had been for the past few days. The simple things can fee so good.

After Mary’s all we could think about was those burgers calling our names at mike 151. We hiked as fast as we could. Took a quick photo at mile marker 150 and found our awesome trail Angel Kel. Man, I have some great people in my life.

Kel rolled up, let us put our dirty bodies in her car and brought us cold beverages to hydrate us. She said she could quite put her finger on the “smell” that us 3 girls wreaked of. Since I had told her we’b be there by noon which turned into 2:30pm she was about to do some of her own trail magic. She helped a few hikers by giving them rides to Idyllwild and to the Paradise Cafe.

During lunch a few of our trail mates walked up. Spicy was one of them who crammed into the car ride back to the trailhead. Kel went back for Justin, Sam and Dahlia after their meal was complete. Those three ended up night hiking just past us a few moments ago.

Our spot tonight is beautiful altho I did some super shady setup on my Zpacks Tent so tonight could be the night that my house blows down. I can’t even close the doors!!! Oh well, it’s all part of the adventure. Also today Kel brought me some supplies that I wanted to switch out so I’m onto a different pack and some different hiking clothes. I also found a blister on my left heel so now I’m included in that club. Thank you Paul for sending the knee brace. I’m going to give it a try tomorrow. The compression braces seem to be aiding my cause so I’m looking forward to a new style of brace tomorrow.

The plan from here is to make it to Idyllwild sometime Friday. By trail it 25 miles although there’s a fire closure from years past so we will have to figure out which trail we’d like to take from here. Saturday will be a complete rest day. It’s time. It’ll be a laundry and relax kind of day. Idyllwild is supposedly a pretty cool town to hang out in, so that should be fun.

Putting the feet in the sleeping bag… goodnight!