Agua Dulce, October 2
Agua Dulce is the ultimate Hiker's Heaven because the best trail angels in the world live here. Every PCT thru-hiker knows that. When meeting the nobos, I rarely heard them talk about all the wonderful national parks on the trail. Almost everybody was talking about Donna and Jeff Saufley - the trail angels in Agua Dulce. "You have to go there," they all insisted. :) Well...they were right.
With Donna and Jeff
Falling in love with Buddy
When we arrived, we were welcomed by five very friendly dogs all trying to jump on me at the same time. We are staying in Donna's and Jeff's guest house that has access to all the services we can ever dream of - TV, Internet, phone, a library, VCR. It is overwhelming!!!
This place is so hard to leave. We were planning on leaving today, but were so slow and lazy that by the time we got our stuff together, it was time to go to bed. :) We decided to stay for another night. This was our second attempt. We will try a little harder tomorrow. The good news is that we received our camera today (we broke it along the way and had to send it to repair).
The trail has been fairly boring the last 100 miles. Either that, or we are getting too spoiled. Nothing beats the Sierra. The weather is very warm and dry, but not too bad. Days are much cooler than I expected and nights are nice and warm. :)
For 15 miles the PCT skirts the Mojave desert and follows the California Aqueduct. There is clean Sierra water flowing beneath your feet - you can hear it, but you can't have it - that's pretty torturous. We expect to have very little water in Southern California section because most of it is either contaminated or tastes very bad. We carry about 10-20 liters every day.
Mojave desert felt uncomfortable, even a little disturbing at times - crappy trailer homes, broken down cars dotted with bullet holes, people shooting guns in the background, coyotes howling at night, etc. I felt like I had stepped into a strange Hollywood movie. The vast empty lands made me feel like I was going nowhere. At least it wasn't hot, on the contrary, the temperatures were quite pleasant for a desert weather. Despite that it was hard to motivate myself to move. I would find every excuse in the world not to hike and take a lot of breaks.
I later learned that there are streets in Mojave and people live there. Who knew! Still, why anybody would want to live in a place that gets up to 50 C in the summer, is beyond me.
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SHOOTING - AMERICA'S FAVORITE PASTIME
Shooting guns seems like the thing to do in California. You see these signs everywhere, and for a good reason.
I am personally not used to guns and I often felt unsafe hiking in Southern California. I simply can't stand hunters and people who just go out to the woods and shoot for fun, so I was often agitated when hunters were around.
One night I was awakened by bullets flying over my head. I may exaggerate a little, but there was somebody shooting a gun not far from where we were sleeping. I couldn't tell how far he was, because it was dark, but I could clearly hear the bullets zip by through the darkness. So, there I lay awake for hours.
Falling in love with Buddy
When we arrived, we were welcomed by five very friendly dogs all trying to jump on me at the same time. We are staying in Donna's and Jeff's guest house that has access to all the services we can ever dream of - TV, Internet, phone, a library, VCR. It is overwhelming!!!
This place is so hard to leave. We were planning on leaving today, but were so slow and lazy that by the time we got our stuff together, it was time to go to bed. :) We decided to stay for another night. This was our second attempt. We will try a little harder tomorrow. The good news is that we received our camera today (we broke it along the way and had to send it to repair).
The trail has been fairly boring the last 100 miles. Either that, or we are getting too spoiled. Nothing beats the Sierra. The weather is very warm and dry, but not too bad. Days are much cooler than I expected and nights are nice and warm. :)
For 15 miles the PCT skirts the Mojave desert and follows the California Aqueduct. There is clean Sierra water flowing beneath your feet - you can hear it, but you can't have it - that's pretty torturous. We expect to have very little water in Southern California section because most of it is either contaminated or tastes very bad. We carry about 10-20 liters every day.
Mojave desert felt uncomfortable, even a little disturbing at times - crappy trailer homes, broken down cars dotted with bullet holes, people shooting guns in the background, coyotes howling at night, etc. I felt like I had stepped into a strange Hollywood movie. The vast empty lands made me feel like I was going nowhere. At least it wasn't hot, on the contrary, the temperatures were quite pleasant for a desert weather. Despite that it was hard to motivate myself to move. I would find every excuse in the world not to hike and take a lot of breaks.
I later learned that there are streets in Mojave and people live there. Who knew! Still, why anybody would want to live in a place that gets up to 50 C in the summer, is beyond me.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SHOOTING - AMERICA'S FAVORITE PASTIME
Shooting guns seems like the thing to do in California. You see these signs everywhere, and for a good reason.
I am personally not used to guns and I often felt unsafe hiking in Southern California. I simply can't stand hunters and people who just go out to the woods and shoot for fun, so I was often agitated when hunters were around.
One night I was awakened by bullets flying over my head. I may exaggerate a little, but there was somebody shooting a gun not far from where we were sleeping. I couldn't tell how far he was, because it was dark, but I could clearly hear the bullets zip by through the darkness. So, there I lay awake for hours.
posted by MR at 9:15 PM
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