Day 3 - Great Day

April 18

Depart Mile 36.1

Arrive Mile 55.9

Before I start this days blog (its Sunday evening), I want to apologize for the delays in getting the blogs posted. I have had a terrible time with my service provider and my wife has been working extremely hard to sort out the problem. Hopefully this problem is now corrected.

After such a slow start yesterday we were determined to get away early today, and succeeded by being on the trail by 8.00 am. The first hour or so was very pleasant before we hit a hilly section through some very pleasant country. Along the way we saw a couple of PCT’ers who were just breaking camp and said good morning as we passed. A little later one of the hikers passed us and introduced himself with his trail name, Gargoyle. One of the traditions of the PCT, and any of the other long distance hikes, the AT and CDT, is the giving of a trail name and I will reveal more on that in a future blog.

Turns out Gargoyle is from New Hampshire and we thoroughly enjoyed his company. The trail was very pleasant and meandered down under a road and through a beautiful pine forest where we stopped for a short break. As we we getting ready to leave I enquired where Gargoyle had gone when we heard his voice. We couldn’t see him anywhere until he said “I’m up here”. Turns out he was up a tree! He explained that’s how he got the trail name Gargoyle because of his love of climbing trees. 

The walk now had us heading uphill and the scenery was spectacular as the views of the desert to the east were revealed. At this point we passed by an Observation station high above us and at the same time helicopters flew overhead. Turns out it’s Uncle Sam searching for illegals entering the country illegally. 

The trail eventually brought us to some shade, at the bottom of a hill where enjoyed lunch. A short time later a fellow strolled down the hill and introduced himself as Lumberjack. Now Lumberjack did not look a hiker but he had lots of courage and was not a quitter but it will be interesting to see how far he gets. At this point Gargoyle excused himself and left and we followed a few minutes later. 

The next stretch of hiking was exhilarating as we followed the trail downhill round the corners and deep into the canyons before sending us back out into the sunshine which was very pleasant.

A short time later we reached a road with a layby and a viewing platform over the desert. There was a sign that talked about the native indigenous people who frequented the area over 10,000 years ago. They used to live up in the mountains in the summer and return to the desert in the winter for the warmth. 

From this point on the walk was really pleasant, as we went up a long gradient before some amazingly beautiful scenery came into view.it was so step they had inserted safety barriers in places. The afternoons walk was arguably our best so far

We eventually reached our campsite set in a boulder field and the wind was really blowing which was a portent of things to come!!