I’m sitting here watching my last sunset of the desert. 
 
I know that I still have to come back for San Jacinto and I can’t wait for that trip next year but those miles don’t take away from me being finished the desert this year and coming back after everything I went through attempting to PCT last year 


I spread some of my grandma and grandpa’s ashes tonight and had a good cry. 


Watching the trees in the sunlight, the sun hitting them in the most beautiful way. 
 
It’s cold, but it’s worth walking the .4 mile to watch the sun go down.


Hearing the birds sing and chatter to each other. 


Feeling the wind on my face, making my sunburn feel less hot. 


Watching the colours of the mountains


Feeling the salt of my tears hit my lips


Feeling so proud of myself for my resilience in my determination


Feeling ready for whats to come


These last desert miles went by too quick


There are moments when I just wanted it to be over and now that it is, I just want to redo the whole thing


The beginnings of chaffing, shitting my pants, getting caught in thunder/lightning/hail/rain storms, having my first zero on trail that was not what I expected and honestly it was not fun. In the moment I look back at that, and I wish that I was right back there again scooping water out of my tent with my trowel. 


I still can’t put everything into words. I want to say everything and nothing at once. I love the PCT. Every single moment, even the ones that sucked. ​

June 20-27th.
So from Walkers Pass to Highway 58 (Tehachapi) was 84.5 miles. However, I only did 67.8 miles if my math is correct because I was dealing with some hip pain and knee pain throughout this section. I made this decision because I didn't want to get off trail again to wait it out on the two days I felt pain because logistics to get off and back on would be too much.. and I didn't have enough food to not stay on schedule. I'm okay with that decision for me. People can get mad at me if they want, but I'm being transparent over what I didn't finish so that's all folks. 

I didn’t write down every single day in detail like I usually do because I wanted to try to stay in the moment more. And let my mind rest when I get to camp instead of writing my blogs each night. 

So it’s time for the highlights. The first night on trail I saw a beautiful sunset. I camped the first night with my new tent. I ate ravioli. I jumped for joy with the sun setting all around me. 

The next day I had an extremely difficult day of hiking. Very exposed, very hot, and long miles (for me). So because of that, I got a ride from the trail Angel (Optimist Prime) the last mile to where he came down to trail Angel me and anyone else who came by. He made us quesadillas and brought me much needed orange juice and cheese strings. optimist hiked the PCT last year and was one of the only people who managed to do the whole thing before the fires came. That night I met people named Mando, Nicole, Pockets, Baby caveman, and more. 
​I camped with everyone around me, my 2nd night I believe camping with people around me. My feet and hips hurt a lot today (hence the 1 mile pick up) 

That night we saw another beautiful sunset AND a crazy lighting show. We chatted until almost 9pm (hiker midnight) 

The next day was a rough day for me as well. My hike definitely was hurting from yesterday pushing it too hard. So I got a hitch again and skipped around 7 miles because I knew that I needed to get to the planned campsite otherwise I’d run out of food. My hitch was on a motorcycle/dirt bike so that was freaking cool. Very fun experience. Then I was dropped off and hiked some miles. I saw a hiker I met at Hikertown again named Peach. It started to rain as I was sitting down so I quickly got back up and started hiking to my campsite of the night. However, the weather had other plans. See I left my raincoat at Abel’s because the weather didn’t call for any rain for this section. Lesson learned. It started to HAIL AND RAIN AND THUNDER LOUDLY on me. I was trying to hike as fast as I could. Eventually I used my Tyvek sheet to protect myself a bit from the rain, but it was coming down hard and mean. I set up camp earlier than planned. Basically a foot off of trail next to a bunch of large boulders. My tent was soaked, I was soaked, my gear was soaked. It took me a long time to get everything situated and my tent was flooded from the hail and rain while it took me the time to set it up. I used my soaked sunshirt to soak up the water and ring it out over 10 times to get the tent only slightly damp. Then I got out of my cold and wet clothes and put on my sleeping clothes. It was only 2:30 pm but I was done for the day. I went to send out my garmin message to see that my garmin had reset and nothing was working. It said I had to activate it by going to the website…. Welp. Then I started balling my eyes out. No service. No way to send my message out that I’m okay. And now the thunder was so loud that it felt like the boulders and trees next to me would fall on my tent. I could see flashes of lightning through my rain fly immediately after the thunder boomedz I broke down and cried for over an hour. I didn’t know what to do. I started to fiddle again with my garmin and it kept saying skip or activate… so I eventually did a Hail Mary (excuse the pun) and hit skip. And it started to connect. Then it let me send a freaking message (not a preset free one) but a message nonetheless. Thank god. I could finally stop crying. Then I was able to think straight. After 6pm the rain had stopped and it presented me with another pretty sunset. What a day. I ended the night eating raw ramen and watching my show to help me calm down after everything that happened before. 

the next day I walked only like 5 miles to give myself a nice easy day after the events of yesterday. Which was great because I got to a wonderful campsite and met Awesome, Billy, and Big Green. 
awesome and Billy stayed the night with me and we camped together and chatted a lot all day. (Since I got to camp at like 2pm) I slept with my rain fly off that night and saw the stars all night shimmering. It was gorgeous. I will sleep every night that I can with the fly off from now on. 

The next day I met Gazelle. She is a southbound hiker so we decided to camp that night together! We hiked the day separately and kept passing each other as we took breaks at separate times. We chatted lots that night and slept without our rain fly’s on. (I convinced her to do it for the first time) 
I also saw Wayfinder at the camp a few hundred feet away from my that night. And Daisy showed up later that night around 7:30 and we chatted as well! 

Next morning Gazelle left about 30 mins before I did but I caught her as she was eating breakfast. I ate as I was hiking so I sat for a bit and then kept hiking on. She then caught up with me when I took my lunch break, then I hiked on and she eats. I got to camp that day about a half hour before her and she was going to hike on but we heard from other hikers ahead that there was a cougar not far ahead so she decided to stay with me. I met someone who I named tiny pack. At the camp/water source because his back was like a kids pack and weighed only 5.5 pounds before food and water. Crazy. I hope he keeps that name haha. 

Next day was a  solo day. Gazelle was going to get into Tehachapi that day doing a 17 mile day whereas I didn’t want to get there till the day after so she left around 6:30 am and I leave camp at 8:30/9am. Today was a hard elevation gain, but I had a super good day. I started to get better at taking breaks (or siestas as some people call them) I don’t nap midday cuz it’s too hot so for me it was just breaks. But I split up the hot hot day and didn’t hike from 12-2pm and had a nice long rest. I got to camp around 5pm which was the latest I’ve gotten to camp by far. Nice secluded spot to myself. Tonight is the last campsite of the desert. My last sunset of the desert. My last night in the desert. So when it was time to watch the sunset I walked like .4 of a mile to get to a good spot. I brought my grandparents ashes with me. And I had a good cry and moment watching the sun go down. 

The next day I booked it to town. Abel was going to meet me 3-5 miles up as I was on my way down. I did 8.5 miles or something in only 2 hours and 45 minutes. I met Abel at 3.8 miles from the bottom. He brought me a cold pop and water and we chatted all the way back down to the car. I had such a great day today. We then picked up Gazelle as she slack packed the miles I did before. And Abel dropped us off at the Mexican restaurant for some food. I had Optimist come by and eat with us too so I could say goodbye for now. 

Done and dusted is the desert now. 

7 ish miles 
Slack pack day 


Today I had to wake up super early because Abel had to drive to Agua Dulce to drop off hikers around 7am. So 6:30 wake up for me. 
 

I got dropped off and started hiking by 7:40 ish.
I made it in record time because I jogged a bit and got to the other road by 10ish. What a luxury hiking without the heavy pack haha. 


After I got a massage and then went to Walmart for resupply. 


Abel picked me up from Walmart and we went back home and I took a nap.



Then I made dinner for everyone (Mommy Dinner I called it since I was a kid)


We watched a man named Otto…. I cried my eyes out. 


And then we chatted a bit and I went up to bed to be alone for a bit.


Tomorrow I hit the trail again :) 


I can’t wait!