Got a text on Friday from Don that, after hosting 1500 hikers this season, Ziggy and the Bear, trail angels at PCT mile 210, were no longer allowing hikers to overnight at their place, so I put a sign up at my place, so hikers would be prepared.

A few of us hiked down to Tule Spring to do a closer inspection of the spring, after a thru hiker season with no functioning water source.

Despite pretty thorough investigation, we could not find the spring box anywhere. Some people had hypothesized that the spring was actually dry, but there is evidence that there is still plenty of water bubbling up from underground. We were able to locate several places where seeps were sending up a gallon+ per minute.

It’s hard to make out in this picture, but there is a small flow visible in the center that I estimated to be approximately two gallons per minute. There were a few other seeps in the surrounding 100 sq ft.

We confirmed that the fire tank is still empty, so the system hasn’t fixed itself. CA State Park does not seem interested in fixing it, which is a shame, since this is the only natural, reliable water source in the 38 miles between Lost Valley Spring @PCT mile 120 and Live Oak Spring @PCT mile 158. Obviously, several well-based water sources, including caches, provide water in this interval, including the (we had hoped) temporary cache where the PCT crosses Tule Spring Truck Trail.

I am usually the supplier of postcards, with my two custom cards that I give away to hikers who pass by. However, this week, I was on the receiving end: got a postcard from a hiker who wrote to express appreciation for the plant guides in my Little Free Library. Pretty cool.

PS – Got the book back in the mail on Saturday.

 

 

I left the notebook requesting hiker comments on PCT 145 Little Free Library for the upcoming article in Adventure Journal (described here) for a second week. When I checked on May 21, there were a few more comments:

I removed the notebook and copy of the issue of the magazine.

Following up on last week’s post about the article on my Little Free Library, I got some create comments on my Little Free Library. You can see the results here.

Thanks to Tom (who helped me cart the tank from Tractor Supply in Hemet to my place) and Carl (who helped me grade the raised platform for the tank), PCT 145 now has a new 550 gallon tank just below the picnic tables, available for hiker water.

The two signs on the tank read: “Tank is filled by hand from neighbor’s [read: MY] well. Please take only what you need” and “WARNING: Water in tank should be filtered before drinking.” It’s a little late for this thru hiker season, but it is in place now for the southbounders this year and all hikers and equestrians in subsequent years.

I filled it with ~170 gallons over three trips, just to see how the tank handles having some water in it. The spigot is working great, but one of the set of threads looks like it might be leaking every so slightly (a drip per minute), so I may need to readjust that. Once I think everything is good to go, I’ll fill it all the way.

As a security to keep people from accidentally contaminating the water, I screwed the plug for the upper opening in from the inside of the tank and put a locking mechanism on the top:

 

Not sure how this came to be, but Adventure Journal plans on running a piece on my Little Free Library in their next issue. I got an email from the article’s author asking for hiker quotes about the library. Since this weekend’s traffic was so light because of the weather, I wasn’t able to interview a hiker to gather comments. As an alternative, I opted to repeat a trick from last year’s comments notebook on water caches: I placed a small notebook and letter asking hikers to comment. The letter and notebook are attached to the copy of the Journal that they author left when he came to photograph it. You can see the results below. I’ll check it again in a few days to see if there is anything “quotable” that I can pass along.