Day 26 – The Hills Have Flies
Originally published on Mason Hikes the PCT 2017.
Mileage: 30 + 1 mile from Casa de Luna
I was originally planning to start night hiking today by leaving The Lunatic Lounge in the middle of the night, but Terry, the lovely woman who runs it, promised pancakes in the morning. I can’t say no to food, so I slept in until 6:30 and had a huge breakfast to get ready for the day.
When I was getting ready to leave, I said my goodbyes and we got a group picture in front of the murals, where instead of a traditional “Say cheese!”, we got the more unconventional mooning to get us smiling. I then set off on my next adventure of hiking through even worse heat than yesterday! Hooray!
Luckily, halfway through my walk to the trailhead, a lovely trail angel named Mary from Acton picked me up and drove me the rest of the way. What I didn’t realize at the time, however, was that I had put my bag in the bed of her truck and somehow punctured my water reservoir. This was mishap #1 of the day and I had to throw my 2.5 L reservoir in the trash 😭 Mishap #2 came later in the day when I realized that one of my individual peanut butters had exploded inside my food bag. I’m really glad I like peanut butter, otherwise I probably wouldn’t be too happy about it being on EVERYTHING.
Once I started hiking, I ran into Jim, the guy I stayed with in Big Bear, and we kept passing one another throughout the day. It’s always nice running into people you know on the trail!
Jim!
As expected, it was unbearably hot again today, with my thermometer getting up above 110°. I did my best to push through, though shade was definitely necessary at points.
The problem with taking breaks is not that I’m wasting time or I feel incapable of the challenge at hand, but rather that if you stop anywhere for longer than about 14 seconds (sometimes less), you will have around 30 flies trying to get inside you in any way possible. I’m not sure what was different about the terrain we hiked today, but holy cow, the flies were outrageous. There were horseflies, black flies, mosquitos, the giant mosquito eater things, no-see-ums (which I definitely saw), and tons of other horrible beings from the underworld that were constantly bombarding each and every hiker’s face. Everyone that I talked to today had the same horrible experience, so they didn’t just especially like me. It got so bad that I broke out my headnet even though it doesn’t allow a breeze through on this 100°+ day. I was desperate and needed to stop eating/snorting flies.
Smile even though you’re crying inside!
When I wasn’t battling the heat or the flies, it was actually a really nice day! I got to see a cool cave, hung out at a desert oasis, had some pretty great views, and made it to mile 500!
Cool cave!
Water is life.
It doesn’t LOOK like the desert…
Yay! 🎉
I’m currently camped at a horse campground with some people I’ve met before and I’m looking forward to walking up super early for the sunrise. There’s no real reason to do that tomorrow, but there aren’t really any rules out here, so I can sleep/wake up whenever I like. Maybe I’ll be nocturnal soon!