Pacific Crest Trail: Southern California
Pacific Crest Trail: Southern California
The Pacific Crest Trail is a 2650 mile backpacking thru-hike from Canada to Mexico known as America’s Wilderness Trail. The route takes hikers through Washington, Oregon and California (Northern California, Sierra Nevadas and Southern California). We hiked the PCT southbound in 2023 after quitting our jobs back in the UK.
Desert, sun and the PCT southern terminus; safe to say we were pretty elated to reach Southern California. Read on to see how we fared on the PCT ‘home straight’ 566 miles.
Willie Nelson’s voice crackled over the iPhone speaker, occasionally drowned out by passing lorries slowly meandering up the hill. In the distance we saw what looked like a person on a bike swerving across the road. In and out of view, from side to side. The heat shimmered on the tarmac; was it a person? The minutes went by. Eventually, like a drunken Californian phoenix a man emerged on a bike, plastic bags on the handle bars, swerving to try and avoid a direct ascent of the hill. He does not greet us. No top, a bandana, sunglasses, black leather shorts and a small cigar are his approach to the glaring heat. He lies on the side of the road, a signal to us that he expects a long wait. We stick out a thumb to see if anyone might give us a ride today; they won’t. Eventually, after 2 hours, the bus arrives and 45 minutes later we are dropped at Walmart in Ridgecrest. Notable for how unremarkable it is. Not every hiker stops here but it allows us a couple of shorter sections and to use this as a resupply. We eat 2.5ft worth of subway sandwiches, drink litres of everything the refill machine has to offer and stock up on too much food which we immediately regret as we try to repack our bags. The bus won’t return until evening and it’s dark when the bus drops us off again. Back into the wild. Tonight we decide to night hike for an hour, it’s not our usual style but will set us up well for tomorrow. We pitch our tent in the dark and feast on our excessive resupply.
Setting off into the desert is a strange feeling. The Sierras completed and only 700 miles to go. A strange sentence, only 700 miles to go. But at this point it does feel like a home straight, a long home straight, but a home straight nonetheless. We leave Kennedy Meadows South and hike a long 6 day stretch to Tehachapi. The post-Sierra honey moon period quickly wears off as we hike through heat, sand, bugs and lots of ascent. Gav is under the weather and whilst the section is beautiful it’s tough. We start to wake up early before the sun rise to hike in the cool mornings. This time of day is beautiful. We factor in longer lunch breaks to rest from the heat. Generally the approach works well for us. Throughout the desert section we mix up our approach as the weather changes and days shorten. The clocks go back which means the sun is setting around 5pm. The alarm is often set for 5am but this becomes normal and when you’re asleep by 9pm a 5am alarm every day really isn’t so bad.
It’s difficult to capture the desert in one post. The section is long, 700 miles, and during this time the seasons are changing. We start in the heat but by the time we finish over a month later there is often a cold breeze and we hike in extra layers. Our last couple of days there is rain and wind, in the mountains it is foggy and it doesn’t feel like the “desert” in fact it often feels and looks like a hike in the Scottish mountains. The initial section coming out of Kennedy Meadows South was sandy, but this isn’t representative of the whole 700 miles. Often we walk for days in forests and mountains as opposed to hot dusty trails. One thing that is more noticeable in California and the desert in particular is the presence of other people. We often cross dirt roads, which at times provide useful shortcuts and a respite from the trail. We come across more and more hunters, if you can call them that. Overweight middle aged men in camouflage gear and carrying large rifles is generally what we see. Typically they’re friendly enough, but it doesn’t feel very hunter/ gatherer. To arrive in a large pick-up truck, not wanting to stray too far from your vehicle as getting a large dead animal back to the truck will be difficult doesn’t feel especially impressive. We pass swathes of wind farms and walk along the famous Los Angeles aqueduct, it’s interesting but a far cry from the days of Washington when we didn’t see another person for days on end. That said, America and California is so vast that you quickly return to the wild and the wilderness blends with the edge of civilisation. Bears and mountain lions can be found close to or within urban areas and we often saw deer in the most unlikely places.
The desert is notorious for the lack of water sources. There are horror stories (we think they’re horror stories at least) of people having to soak water up into clothing and then squeeze it out as all they have access to is a muddy puddle or the dregs of a remote concrete cistern. In some cases the skeletons of some unfortunate wildlife accompany the dregs. For us that’s not an ideal scenario, although others seem to readily embrace this approach. True to form the water sources literally dried up, there were fewer and often they were running out of water. It wasn’t actually as bad as we had braced ourselves for, but nonetheless we needed to pay extra attention to when we were likely to find our next good source and we would often be carrying 2-3 litres as opposed to 0.5 litres or less during times in Washington and other times in the trail. All of our water was filtered or treated. During times on the trail some water could almost certainly be drunk straight from the beautiful rivers running fast and cold with snow melt. However, we wanted to be as safe as possible and so used a mixture of purification tablets and then an actual filter for water that looked more dubious or contained a lot of sediment/ material. The filter was used more than often in the desert and our boundaries were pushed a few times when it came to what we thought was acceptable. When you don’t have a choice you have to just roll with it somewhat. A few highlights below!
For months, twenty miles a day hasn’t really dented our overall goal. But all of a sudden that begins to change. Twenty miles a day, 140 miles a week begins to really eat into the remaining miles. Suddenly, we’re at 500 remaining, 300, 200 and then one day 14. Fourteen miles to the Mexican border. We arrive in Campo, a small village that does a roaring trade off the back of hikers. It’s around 2 miles from here to the border. We stock up a few beers and set off for the final few steps. The trail is functional, it gets you to/ from the border. As we approach we have a call with both sets of parents, trying to describe what we are seeing and the last few steps. Behind the southern terminus is the incredible border wall, incredible in size as opposed to what it represents. It’s actually quite startling. Together we touch the small terminus monument. It’s taken us almost 5 months. We’ve experienced every type of emotion, for most of the trail the idea of finishing was so remote you could momentarily dream but not really think about how it will feel, so much lay ahead. Now there is so much that lies behind. Some tourists pass by and ask what the terminus monument is, we explain that from here there is a continuous footpath to Canada. They find it hard to believe and even harder to believe that we have just finished such a hike. It’s hard to believe ourselves. On a cool Californian afternoon in November we smile, kiss and swig cold beer, reflecting the best we can on what’s just happened.
As is typical on the trail, we meet a trail angel at the border unexpectedly. He is waiting for some others but says he can drive us to our hostel in San Diego, a one hour drive away. We jump in and all of a sudden we are leaving the trail and heading for the coast. To finally see the Pacific Ocean, having hiked, laughed, cried, endured and enjoyed the Pacific Crest Trail.
Kennedy Meadows South - Tehachapi - Agua Dulce: 249 miles
Mile 1952 - 2201
Wilderness Areas: Domeland/ Chimney Peak/ Owens Peak/ Kiavah
We’ve mentioned this section a little above, a beautiful yet rather intense start for us as Gav was ill and we were contending with heat, dust and flies. We were also particularly aware that we were now in spider, snake and scorpion territory (we had been for most of the trail really, but the desert seems to be where most encounters happen). We only saw one small snake and it was no where near the trail. Scorpians scored nil which was nice. We did encounter a few tarantulas, although generally they were only present at night and most of the time we didn’t walk at night. Those that we did see were totally fine; only one became confrontational when we tried to encourage it to leave the path, the option to go around wasn’t really possible due to the steep sides and dense undergrowth.
The section from Tehachapi to Agua Dulce proved to be exceptionally windy whilst we were there. The presence of multiple wind farms suggesting this wasn’t a one-off. Wind is great (or bearable at least) when pushing you along, but when it’s driving into you or gusting into your side as you walk along small tracks with steep edges it’s not great. It sounds strange, but your senses also just take a bit of a battering, it’s noisy and there is often dust in your eyes and nose. When you finally find a spot out of the wind you suddenly realise what a relief it is. We were strategic (and lucky) with our camping spots, managing to find areas that were reasonably sheltered. We also had a reasonably sturdy tent. Others with super lightweight tents, who often tended to be those who also hiked at night, struggled not only with their tents but also to find suitable camping areas. A number of people ended up camping in national park public toilets. Something we are very glad that we managed to avoid.
Agua Dulce allowed us some respite for the night. We ate a lot of pizza and enjoyed some cold beers from a restaurant nicely out of the wind!
Agua Dulce - Wrightwood: 91 miles
Mile 2201 - 2292
Wilderness Areas: Pleasant View/ Sheep Mountain
The strong winds blew us out of Agua Dulce, along sunny, sandy hills; long dry grass swaying and tumbleweed dancing down the hill sides and clogging the trail. We crept around corner after corner mostly being blown around but occasionally finding a quiet spot. Increasingly we came across dirt roads and in some cases old cracked tarmac tracks. These roads occasionally provided opportunities to cut off a few miles or at least walk side by side along a fairly easy going terrain as opposed to the single file track of the trail. A highlight of this section is ascending Mt Baden Powell, we set off early this day and walked along a trail diversion along a quiet road (there aren’t many people driving through the mountains at 7am), this led us through a long empty tunnel. We shouted to each other to hear the echo and played music as loudly as we could on our phones. The empty tunnels in the quiet Californian mountains reverberating to the sounds of 90’s indie music at 8am. Another day on the PCT.
Baden Powell was a big ascent, it was hot and steep but standard by now. The trail provided some amazing views of Los Angeles, far away in the distance and down by the Pacific. It was a rare glimpse of the ocean and reminded us how much we missed the sea. Close to the top we entered Sheep Mountain Wilderness area and joked about this being Claire’s very own wilderness area, the herdwick sheep from the English Lake District having a special places in Claire’s heart and there being a lost and found tag in the shape of a sheep attached to Claire’s bag the entire journey.
Shortly after the Baden Powell ascent we arrived at the pick-up point for Wrightwood and our ride and host met us shortly after. Another section down and closer to the end…
Wrightwood - Idyllwild: 184 miles
Mile 2292 - 2476
Wilderness Areas: San Gorgonio/ San Jacinto
This long section also saw us pass through Big Bear for a couple of nights where we stayed with a great trail angel. It was actually a really good reminder of how you might have very opposing views to someone but can still find common ground. A staunch Christian with a mural to D Tr*mp (I don’t even want type his name) and the forthcoming election in 2024 sounds like a conflict waiting to happen for us. However, we chose topics that didn’t put us on any type of collision course and had such a welcoming stay. Beers in the hot tub, lots of incredible home cooked food and rides around town to resupply etc. We left very much refreshed.
The seasons were changing, the evenings were cool, often there were clouds in the sky and noticeably leaves on the trees started to change colour. We found ourselves walking through and looking down upon orange forests and over fallen leaves, soggy in the morning mist and crispy in the afternoon sun. This was actually a magical time, with hiking much nicer in the cooler weather and an insight into America during the autumn/ fall, as opposed to the extremely hot summer that we were used to.
As already mentioned we increasingly felt closer to civilisation the further south we got. Returning to the wild never took long though. One night we camped high in the hills at a beautiful spot with incredible views. In the distance we could see the main highway between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. It was a Friday night and as the sun went down the car lights turned on so that by the time it was dark there were two huge trails of light cutting across the landscape. The following morning the trail led us down to the road and ultimately under the highway. This was one of a number of road and rail crossings during this section, all of which felt a bit surreal. We looked down at the train line before passing underneath and watched the stationary cargo trains slowly move out of the station, these trains were kilometres long and moved so slowly to begin with it felt like they would never get to where they were going.
It would be remiss of us not to mention Mission Creek. In previous years the trail had crept down for 10 miles through this incredible creek. Unfortunately significant storms and possibly the rare West Coast hurricane in 2023 washed away most of the trail and what we were left with caused us all sorts of problems. Extremely steep sides led to some dangerous moments where one could easily slip and fall far enough to do some serious harm. Where the trail led around a re-entrant (an indent in valleys typically where a stream runs down) it was washed away and we were scrambling up loose rock and gravel to try and find the trail. Eventually we hiked in the creek itself, it took us a full morning to navigate the endless stream crossings, rocks, boulders, dead trees and general debris. Whilst super interesting it was also quite a challenge and slowly wore us down over a number of hours. The damp sand held footprints well and we spent a bit of time trying to identify who had come before us. Sometimes a little tricky although we did find tracks from a friend we hadn’t seen for a long time - a very large bear.
Idyllwild - Julian: 102 miles
Mile 2476 - 2578
Wilderness Areas: Beauty Mountain/ Hauser
After a relaxing few days in the great little town of Idyllwild we set off again. We had been apprehensive about the hike back to the trail, coming down we were practically running in order to not miss our ride but had still noticed the steep gradient and how long it took. As it turned out we were fine. Rested, well fed and having only 200 miles to go was great motivation. We had heard that the trail for the first day or two would be challenging as it was overgrown with lots of blown down trees. This turned out to be very accurate, by now we were used to slow and difficult hiking so took it in our stride, nonetheless it’s always a little frustrating when you’re trying to get through the miles and instead having to navigate your way through an assortment of dead trees lying across the path every few minutes. The scenery was stunning and at times cloudy which added to the atmosphere. We pressed on and the cloudy high mountains gave way to a landscape more like the desert we had expected. We still wound our way through the mountains, but we were lower, the temperature was warmer and the flora was mostly made of cacti and similar looking plants. Gav managed to walk straight into a a cactus that was overhanging the path one evening, the spikes were barbed and when we set up the tent soon after it became a hospital tent for the first twenty minutes as Claire painstakingly removed the spikes.
During this section you pass by eagle rock, a culturally significant landmark for native Americans and also a popular spot for tourists today. We passed by late in the afternoon with nobody else around, we spent a few moments taking in the scene - a huge eagle shaped rock overlooking the fields around it as it must have down for thousands of years. How many people had sat where we were now sitting over the years and what were their hopes and fears at that time. The day was getting cool so we wrapped up, had a quick bite to eat and drink and then moved on to find our campsite for the night.
A few days later we reached the highway that connected us to Julian. Julian is a pleasant enough town. It’s a tourist spot where people will come for the day to buy some pie and see what life is like in the country, before returning to city life. Down town is essentially just one road with a cluster of shops around it. We were treated to some incredible free pie from a local shop that supports PCT hikers. It’s a good tactic as once we had tasted, seen and smelt the pie we then immediately bought a full pie, it was totally worth it though. Getting to Julian is a great feeling, all of a sudden you only have 70 miles left, one last stretch. It’s also a little strange to think that for the majority of hikers, those who are hiking north, this is the first stop, with 2500 miles to go. We reflected a little on the prospect of walking that far again and everything we’d learnt along on the journey so far. It’s safe to say we were glad to be close to the end, with so many miles behind us. We resupplied with a little more than we needed, some treats for the following days. Overpriced, again they saw us coming but at this point we were pretty much beyond caring we were so close to the end!
Julian - Campo (and the end)
Mile 2578 -2655
The last seventy miles, there is a temptation to rush and many do at this point. This wasn’t our style though, 3.5 days is how long we factored in. Relaxed enjoyable days. Just as we had counted the first milestones back in July, we counted the last milestones now in November - the last big ascent, the countdown of miles to go, the last this and that…
Days on the PCT can be funny, some days feel as though they last forever, the hours drag on endless uphills. Yet at the same time they fly by, this was the case here. Before we knew it we were waking up on the final morning with fourteen miles to hike. We’d slept at a nice spot not far from a river. Our tent was soaked in condensation. We ate our breakfast, drank our coffee and set off for the last time. There had been so much anticipatory excitement over the previous days and even weeks that this day felt a bit funny, of course we were excited to finish, but perhaps, with hindsight the beginning of the processing had already started. Trying to reflect on what we had accomplished and the experiences we had had. An almost impossible task.
We hike fourteen miles and then reach the physical end of the trail. It one sense it’s the end but in reality even as we type this months later the trail is in our minds daily. What we learnt, the experiences we had, both good and bad, what we’re inspired to do next. All sorts of thoughts. We’ve covered the very end earlier in this post so won’t dwell on it again here. For now, that’s the end of our PCT story :)
