Day 15 – Wednesday 4/4 – 148.2 to 157.7 +2 (11.5 total)

We planned on skipping breakfast, but we didn’t plan on missing breakfast hours at Paradise Valley Cafe. Ah well. The burgers were good! The cafe was 1 mile off trail, but worth the detour and additional 2 miles tacked on to the days mileage.

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We saw a few hikers there and met Quadzilla, who we leapfrogged with later that day. After devouring the Mercedes and Jose burgers with a couple of beers and four refills of Dr. Pepper, we took a burrito to go and got back on trail. El Jefe and Miley arrived just as we were leaving. He talked about getting Miley a grooming in the next town. Sadly we didn’t see them again, and wish we had taken at least one picture together, and exchanged info to see what happened.

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Once on the trail we met RJ/Tika who insisted  of sun gloves- even though we were already wearing them. Later in the day we met hikers Meg and Simon and then realized we saw them back at Warner Springs and it was her mother who was the friendly woman chatting us up. They were setting up their tent in a site without much room left, so we continued on and nestled into a small space on the edge of a cliff, barely fitting our tent. The view and sunset was spectacular, but video and pictures never capture the beauty entirely.

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Day 16 – Thursday 4/5 – 157.7 to 166.6 (8.9 total)

Day 16 handed us our biggest uphill achievement thus far. 1000 ft downhill followed by an immediate 1000 ft uphill. We walked through a burn zone that recently reopened after being closed the past few years.

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Met a couple more hikers, Shoestring and Bobsled going SOBO (southbound). The guy was much older and had an exterior frame pack- practically an antique! We also ran into Allison and Emily who were going SOBO through this section and then hitching to Idyllwild to continue NOBO.

We made camp at the Fobes Ranch trail junction. The site had lots of furniture rocks and a huge rabbit hole. This was where we cracked a tent pole. It didn’t break, but it meant we needed to get it replaced the next chance we got. It just happened to be an extremely windy night with gusts waking and worrying Marcel all night.

Day 17 – Friday 4/6 – 166.6 to 168.6 +7.3 (9.3 total)

Idyllwild

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To get to Idyllwild, we took the Spitler Creek side trail, a whopping 7.3 mile detour to the nearest hitchhike-able road. This was only our second hitch so we were pretty nervous about how long it would take. We learned last time that a sign is key, so we wrote “Idyllwild” on our white Tyvek tent ground cover using a fat sharpie. We didn’t wait too long before a nice young woman named Lily gave us a ride to Idyllwild’s post office.

We collected our boxes, then checked in at the campground conveniently located in the middle of town. It had been a full week since bucket showers and bucket laundry so we changed into our rain gear and found the laundromat. We felt pretty silly walking around town in rain gear but of course the laundromat was full of hikers looking equally ridiculous in their rain gear and garbage bags, so we felt at ease.

Emily and Allison were there and we met a tall Canadian young lady named “Quoi” which means “what” in French. She hiked part of the PCT last year and had the terrible misfortune of having her wallet stolen. This year she was hiking (at a way faster rate than us) with an older gentlemen.

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With empty bellies and freshly cleaned laundry in hand we marched back to the campground and found the coin operated showers. The facilities were surprisingly nice and the water was hot. Finally we donned our fresh clothes and dove face first into some good ol’ burgers and beer.

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Day 18 – Saturday 4/7 – ZERO (0 total)

Idyllwild

We enjoyed waffles and french toast at The Red Kettle. Higher Grounds gave us the additional caffeine, WiFi, and power outlets we needed to recharge. This also gave me a chance to write and mail post cards. Meanwhile, Marcel worked on researching the next section of trail looking at mileage, elevation gains, burn zones, no-camping areas, water sources, recent hiker reports, etc. to figure out how many days we would need, and thus how much food to buy.

As usual, we weren’t the only PCT hikers there. We met Turmeric, a chick who over did it with the turmeric in her food and also wore a turmeric colored jacket. We saw Lyric and Kelsey who were now going by their trail names Viking Woman and BoShock.

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We ate a whole pizza at the local pizza place, then bought some beer and snacks to take back to the campsite. There were a ton of hikers hanging out around campfires and telling hiking stories, talking about injuries and having a good time. We met a lot of folks we would see many more times, namely, Hulk/Steven, Litebrite/Sierra, Sunny, Pacer, Breaker, Tiki and Mousetrap, who was waiting for an injury to heal before getting back on trail.

Day 19 – Sunday 4/8 – DOUBLE ZERO (00 total)

Because Red Kettle was sooo yummy, we went back for more the next day. We should have stuck with the waffles- the pancakes were a “D-“. The cafe was crowded, so we ended up sharing a table with Sierra and Steven. They are a nice couple, roughly the same ages as me and Marcel. Turns out they are these badass professional guides with their own company SMOR Adventures.

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We had a late lunch at La Casita followed by grocery shopping and another round of showers and laundry. We didn’t feel at all guilty about the double zero days messing up our timeline because we knew we would need to wait for the snow to melt in the Sierra before we could enter. So why not put those days to good use in this great town by resting our bodies and enjoying the amenities. We went to bed early.

There was some kind of argument that woke us in the middle of the night. We fell back asleep but the next morning we learned there was an altercation about a lighter. Yeah. A lighter. Someone named “The Butcher” thought someone else stole their lighter and apparently started a fight because of it. Sounds immature and stupid, so we are glad we missed out on the drama.