Day 6 - Mmm, Pie

Day 6 - Tuesday, May 1
Rodriguez Spur (68.4) to gully (82)
Miles today - 13.6

Charles and I were moving by 6:00 this morning and hiked nine miles through the desert down to the road at Scissors Crossing before it got too hot.



There are a lot of mean plants right along the trail that you wouldn't want to run into.



We hitched the 13 miles into the town of Julian, our first real town so far. Julian is a really small touristy town, but everybody there was super friendly. Mom's Pies had free lunch and pie with ice cream for thruhikers. The berry pie was amazing.



We spent most of the day just hanging out in town. There were quite a few other hikers there. We hitched back to the trail after 4:00 and got a ride from an awesome woman who had just read the book about the PCT called "Wild." I think she was more excited to give us a ride than we were to get one. She even gave us hugs after dropping us at the trail.

By the time we were hiking again the wind had really picked up and nearly blew me over a few times. I also almost lost my hat, but managed to catch it just as it was about to be blown off the mountain never to be seen again. The trail followed beautifully constructed switchbacks up and around the mountain, meandering through every gully. I saw three snakes today. Luckily none were rattlers because I nearly stepped on a couple of them.

We found a campsite just before we started losing daylight. We're in a sandy wash high up on the side of the mountain. It's pretty protected from the wind.