May 18

454-479

After our late night out, we struggle to get up at sunrise and take off. The route takes us on a few mile paved road walk out of town, but we pack out a mug full of coffee to sip and that makes the miles pass quickly.

After a long climb, we get back on a classic meandering PCT ridge walk.

We can see the trail miles ahead of us as we walk seemingly back and forth making minimal northward progress. You can see the trail cut into the hillside ahead of us in this picture:

After 20 miles we again run into a little restaurant and of course we must stop.

As we are walking back into town we run into Terrie Anderson, who hosted hikers at her home for 20 years- including me in 2013. She is the honorary mom of hundreds of hikers. Her and her husband stopped hosting hikers in 2019 as the trail became more popular. The Anderson’s are true eccentrics. Terrie used to host annual oil wrestling matches in her front yard, where she would pick out the skinniest hiker guys and easily pin them. Terrie is an an angel of a woman, and it was wonderful to be able to see her and chat for a little while. She pinched my butt as we were taking this picture.

We get back on trail and finish at 25 miles for the day, camping on a hilltop campsite with our first view of the Mojave desert below us.