Mike’s Place

I was still in the cloud when I woke up, and all of my things were just a bit damp. It was nice to hike in though. Winds were fairly low but started picking up as I moved over the ridge and into the next valley. The next water source was a tank at Mike’s place, a trail angel who keeps a water tank near the road on his property full for hikers, and has a bunkhouse for them too.

I figured I’d sit down and eat an early lunch since I was there already, and thank Mike for the water if he was around. Turns out he is here on weekends, and he was cooking up food all day for all the hikers that came in.

It kept looking like it was about to storm, and the weather report was not looking good, so I kept hanging around, undecided whether to hike out or not. Mike put some chicken on to smoke for dinner so it was even more difficult to hike out. The weather did keep getting worse so I eventually grabbed a spot on the floor of an RV he also lets hikers sleep in. Earlier we had fifteen hikers hanging out in it to get out of the wind, but there are only six of us set to sleep in here. I bet there are at least thirty hikers on the property somewhere, between the campers, bunkhouse, garage, and covered porch. The sign leading to his house promised shelter and it is not a nice day out there.

It turned out only to be a  7.3 mile day for me, which I would call a nero. Really, anything less than ten miles I’d call a nero out here since the miles go so quickly, even uphill. The PCT is graded way better than the AT.

The wind is whipping outside the camper so I am glad to be inside. The weather should clear up at midnight so I’ll hike a big day tomorrow.