Day 1 southern terminus to Lake Morena


 


Day one the journey begins in earnest.

20.1. Miles 32 km


Everybody started setting out from their cowboy camping positions at about 5 AM and slowly getting ready for the days hike. The idea was to get an early start before the heat, as the temperature drops very low overnight and give some nice cool hiking early in the morning.


We wandered up to the southern Terminus from the campsite full of excitement and expectation to meet the PCTA volunteer who gave us our through hiking tags for our backpacks and some more good advice and checked off that we had permits for the right day.


One more photograph with with the boarder wall and then we hiked off together towards Canada.


Now after less than 1 mile Trail Angel legend and his helpers were offering blueberry pancakes for breakfast. It is a very long-standing tradition in our family to have pancakes for breakfast on a Sunday and as it was in fact a Sunday it would’ve been wrong to not stop. So Jared and I went to the old army barracks which legend is in the process of converting into a PCT hiker hostel. 




Well after some amazing whole wheat blueberry pancakes together with farm fresh eggs over easy, we had some lively conversation on the mission statement for the new Postel project.


By this time the sun was coming up and the air was heating up and it was time to head towards Canada. So I made my thank yous and goodbyes and got moving.


It’s been a very very warm day and I am about 7 km from the finished for today sitting in the shade waiting out the heat of the day. I’ll finish off the last steep pitch up towards Lake Marina in a couple of hours when things have cooled down.


After a siesta for a couple of hours I was back on the trail. Straight into a big climb still very hot so a tough afternoon to begin with. After a couple of hours the sun got much lower and it was beautiful temperature for hiking and amazing views.


I was very very happy to get into Lake Morena and takeoff my backpack.  Just a short walk into town I could get a small re-supply and most importantly an ice cream. I would never ever eat a snickers ice cream under any other circumstances but today it was perfect.


It felt great to get a shower at the campground even though there was no clean clothes. Cooked up dinner and then collapsed into my sleeping bag. 


Luckily just on the way back from the bathrooms I spotted there was a lunar eclipse. I was able to  share this with all the other hikers. A magical end to the first day on the trail.





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