Doug Anderson, retired music teacher, picked us up from Jean’s at 7:00 AM. He had a van and was very familiar with the road up to Potato Hill. During the drive, he told us about dropping Rocket Llama at the same trailhead in 2013. She started off in a blowing rain that became 3 feet of snow. For 8 days she was hunkered down in her tent while rescue teams searched for her. The search was national news. Rocket was 22 years old and it was her first time hiking without her father. TV showed her worried father and grandmother in a nearby town awaiting news. On the 8th day, the snow was hard enough to walk on, and Rocket followed a creek down to a forest service road where she bumped into searchers. In 2014 she started from Mexico again and successfully completed the entire trail. We hiked on and off with her in the desert that year.

A washout forced Doug to let us out 4 miles short of the trailhead, so we started walking. After about a mile, a Hoodoo campground pickup pulled alongside, and Charlie said to jump in. In about 10 minutes we were dropped at the trailhead.

We then walked for about 10 hours. We met the usual array of flying annoyances (flies and mosquitoes). A teacher stopped to talk to us and wanted advice on classroom management. Well every principal has to impart her or his wisdom. Hubris always extracts its toll. In this case it was Deb’s mosquito net left on the trail.

A few miles later we met two guys who were students at Williams College. They were so amazed that our friend’s grandson would be a freshman there next year. They checked their phones to see if he were on their counsellee list. Juniors counsel freshmen. When we walked on, they were still talking about how they would tell whomever got the grandson that they ran into someone who knew him on the PCT-which isn’t quite true. We don’t know this kid just grandma.

We never left the cool forest all day. Often the path was over-grown. But generally it was an easy day. We found a fabulous campsite by a gurgling stream. We thought we’d be alone but a girl showed up, and then the Williams Guy. And finally a young woman who erected her tent in haste a few feet from ours smack dab in the middle of the trail.  

This picture looks grainy but these are mosquitoes.