mile 0.4- mile 20 lake morena campground

We woke at sunrise to coffee and a pancake breakfast, hosted by the good people at Cleef. And then hit the trail by 7am.

Early in the day we ran into another hiker stopped on the trail. This is his first time in the desert and didn’t know what to do. We did our best Steve Irwin impression and ushered the snake off the trail with a trekking pole as it angrily rattled at us.

I was shocked to see all the flowing water along trail. There were at least 10 running seasonal streams in the first 20 miles. It was a very wet end of winter in California, and we are reaping the rewards of that. When I hiked in 2013, during a drought year, there was no water until mile 20.

The water proved to be very necessary, as it began to get very hot. By 2pm, temperatures soared to the high 80s.

That may not seem very extreme, but with the constant sun exposure and lack of a breeze, it felt very hot for two resident Washingtonians with loaded up packs.

By mid day we were propelled along by the promise of a Malt shop at mile 20.

i drank 2 gallons of water today and it still didn’t feel like enough.

After a long, hot climb out of Hauser creek, we began our descent to lake morena and it’s fabled malt shop.

We limped in at 630pm, threw down a burger, a gyro, and an acai bowl and then walked back to the lake to set up camp.