Miles Hiked 48.7
Elevation 5,433 feet
Miles Hiked Today 16.7
I am in a rhythm now with the clock and that means up at 5:00 AM. I didn’t sleep as well as I usually do, so the trail is going to be a real drag today. Mount Laguna is about ten miles up the trail. It is a logical first resupply point, but I don’t have a package there. My first package is further down the trail in Julian. I’m still vacillating on whether I’ll stop in Mount Laguna or not. I know everyone else in our group will be stopping there.
I hit the trail a little before 6 AM, and I’m one of the first to do so. No one has mentioned how far they plan to go today, but I’m sure they’ll catch up with me later, and I’ll find out. The trail goes up about 1,000 feet, which doesn’t help my sleep deprived hiking. Eventually, the trail goes up about 1,800 feet to where a side trail leads into Mount Laguna.
So, I’m hiking along. There are rock steps in the trail as the elevation climbs. I get sloppy and catch my left foot under a rock step. I almost recover without falling as I trip, skip and run down the trail, but finally, I fall. No problem. I land in some soft brush. I get up and yes, I twisted my foot, and it is not feeling good. Just to be sure there is no doubt, I do the same thing again five minutes later. Now my foot is really hurting, and it would seem I sprained my ankle. It’s not the first time my left foot has had a problem. On the Appalachian Trail in the Great Smokey Mountains, I sprained my left ankle on a tree root. I kept going and that’s what I did again on the PCT – kept going.
Now my pace is cut down as I nurse my left foot. Mount Laguna just became a definite no as I target the Desert View Picnic Site as a place to stop, rest up and look at the ankle. The trail stayed pretty steadily around 6,000 feet elevation, and I even came upon a forested area. Yeah! Trees! I reached Desert View a little after 1:00 PM. I got some water and hung around for an hour. The ankle was not looking good. It was swollen as expected. The picnic area does not permit camping, so any thoughts of doing so went out the window. After an hour, I decided to move on down the trail.
My plan was to get to the next good tent site and quit hiking early to give my foot time to get better. As I progressed down the trail, I met some of the hikers in my group. They expressed concern, and I told them of my plan, which they understood. They were planning to hike up to about mile 48, which was a lot further than I was planning. I had come to the conclusion that I would not be able to keep up with them considering the physical condition of my ankle.
My target tent site came into view after 3:00 PM, and right away I knew I wasn’t staying there. The view was awesome but it was windy as hell and very exposed. Three of the hikers from my group, James, Dorine and Clare, were waiting for me. They didn’t have to say a word. I told them no way was I camping there. They urged me to press on for their intended tent site and I did.
The group tent site was at mile 47.8, which was only 1.3 miles further. I kept going. When I reached it, the same three from our group were there waiting for me. The tent site was awful and still windy as hell. They planned to go another .9 mile to a water faucet junction where the tent site promised to be less windy. I was hurting at that point and just wanted to lie down in the trail, but I kept going.
Finally, I reached the water faucet junction and yes, it was a much better tent site. Not only that but everyone from our larger group of hikers was there. In the end, I was glad I made it to the tent site. After putting up my tent, I joined everyone gathered in a circle and we all ate dinner. Very nice! During dinner we talked about how far we would go the next day. Water was available four miles from our tent site and then none for another sixteen miles. The plan was to go twenty miles and camp by the water. Normally going twenty miles doesn’t bother me, but with my ankle the way it is, I was concerned.
I was the first to head back to my tent and sleeping bag. It had been a long day. If I was going to do twenty miles on a bad foot, I would need as much sleep as I could get.
