I heard from Chip and Vicky, the stewards who stock Anza’s main water cache at PCT mile 143, that the cache is back in operation as of Sunday, March 20, so I had to ride Gracie down to check it out. (Gracie appears more interested in the nibbles of fresh grass in front of the cache.)
Hikers are writing too big for the many hundreds of signatures I expect this hiker season to fit on my surfboard trail register. Luckily, the permanent markers I am using are not really permanent under the desert sun. Each signature lasts for a few week: long enough for me to capture it in a photo. Then, it fades. So, I’ve decided to use regular updates of the trail register photo to document all the souls that have passed by. Here’s the most recent installment, taken Sunday afternoon. (It includes the signature of <name omitted>, the missing hiker.)
This was the busiest weekend yet on the PCT near me. There were no hikers at all on Saturday. Then, on Sunday, I had eight people visit my place while I was there with Gracie, practicing the banjo. Here’s a picture of the first group, posing next to my surfboard. They were a combo of section hikers and thru hikers.
I then had two singletons stop by for a rest and a chat. Not ten minutes after the second one, “Chad,” left my place, a Riverside County helicopter came swooping down. Over the copter PA, they asked whether I was <name omitted>. When I did a thumbs-down to answer no, they flew off, trail-south. I checked my trail register, and sure enough, <name omitted> was there. He was one and the same “Chad” who I had just finished talking with. (Not sure whether “Chad” was a nickname or a trail name.) Anyway, the copter circled back and I did my best to flag them down. We tried communicating by my writing BIG on the ground. You can see one of my responses in the image to the right. When that didn’t get anywhere, I signaled for them to land so we could talk. (Keep in mind that, during all of this, my poor horse was tied to my hitching post nearby, terrified of the helicopter hovering just overhead, ready to bolt at any minute.) I showed them the signature on my trail register and we figured out that this person was “Chad” who had just left, so they took off (this time in a way so that they didn’t fly directly over Gracie) in search of the hiker. Turns out, his family had reported him missing. Luckily, this story of a missing hiker ended more happily than the missing hiker, Chris Sylvia, who disappeared in the area at about the same time last year.
Two more pairs of hikers with backpacks passed by my place in the latter part of the afternoon. All -in-all, we had 12 people on this section of the trail — all of them multi-day hikers.
With this much activity on the trail, I am thinking of starting my soda and hiker box rest stop sooner than last year.
My Little Free Library continues to be quite the hit with hikers, judging by the volume of books disappearing each week. The title that is (far and away) the most popular: Thoreau’s Walden. — I’ve already gone through the six copies I purchased to stock the library … for the whole year! At five bucks a pop (for the cheapest paperback of Walden on amazon), not sure whether I can keep this up.
If anyone out there has copies of Walden they would like to donate (or would like to chip in to purchase a bunch more copies), please contact me at pct145trailangelmary@gmail.com.
Sunday’s weather forecast called for lots of rain, so my hiking companion bailed.
Well, Anza weather is hard to predict. It turned out to be foggy/drizzly in the morning, then clearing in the afternoon. — Perfect weather for hiking. So, I did the planned hike any. (This was a recon hike for a possible public event sponsored by the ABF.) I opted to do PCT north to “Anza’s Grand Canyon,” then back with a couple side hikes down Alkali Wash and up to the summit (such as it is) of Table Mountain. Got some nice photos for a booklet I’m working on about the flora in the Table Mountain area of Eastern Anza. Also took a few other photos showing the variety of interpretative subjects on this hike.
First, here’s the route:
(The hike is in yellow, with the PCT shown in background in red.)
And here’s some cool pictures:
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We had off-and-on rain clouds in Anza on Sunday. I caught a photo of a rainbow during the brief few minutes of its existence. This picture was taken from the building pad on my property looking west, toward Terwilliger Valley.
My trail register is accumulating quite a few signatures, mostly from day hikers coming up from Highway 74.
While I suspect that several of the signatures on the board are from thru hikers, I have the first one that identifies as Canada bound. Good luck, Johanna. You go, girl!
Before dinner at my place on Saturday night, Bob surprised the group with what may become a regular feature of the Anza February work event: the Pulaski Ceremony.
I placed mine in a place of honor above my PCTA recognition letter.
— Thanks, Bob! What a great idea. ~m
On February 18-22, the PCTA Trail Gorillas held the annual five-day trail work event, focusing on a section of trail that will be part of a temporary reroute around the area damaged by the Mountain Fire. Here is a video of a few of the guys — including our fearless leader, Don — working on a rock that would be a problem for equestrians. Looks like fun, doesn’t it?!
The work day offered other types of activities, including choosing the location for the new rerouted signs. — Now, that’s more my style.
PCT 145 Trail Angel Mary 