As said the night was cold and in the morning it was not easy to get up, but you don’t have a choice 🙂

 

After 3 miles I ran into a part of my trailfamily who camped just ahead of me which I didn’t noticed because my camp was off trail.

 

 

At the next waterstop another 3 miles after I saw them we had breakfast an a 15 minutes Yoga class. But I think next time I’ll skip it because its not my thing…

After heading out again I realized that I my stomach wanted another pause, but the designated place to have lunch was a parking lot where a toilet was.

 

 

Nothing lets you hike faster than the change to poop on a real toilet. 6 miles and 2 hours later I finally arrived and I could do my buisness 🙂

There were camping tables in the shade too, so I set up my gas cooker and made myself some ramen with seeds and extra cheese. I took another hour to rest before I headed out again to get to the hotsprings.

On the way there I passed the 300mile marker. It was nice to have some shade on the stretch from lunch to the hotsprings so that the 9 miles didn’t felt to lang and hot.

 

 

After arriving I immediately set up my tent to get a good spot before saying hi to the other tru- and dayhikers. Then it was time to get into the hot pool of water. There were 5 of them which were hot and a cold one.

 

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I sat in the largest and hottest pool of them for about 2 hours before cooling of in the river which flows next to the pools. I got offered a beer be a dayhiker and I more than enjoyed it 🙂

I got into bed quite early because I still lacked some sleep and I had another day at the hotsprings tomorrow!!

I slept great, it was warmer next to all those hotsprings than it has been for the last two weeks on trail. That’s why I slept until 8h00.

When I got out of the tent there were already two rangers telling people to pack up their twnt because officially its forbidden to camp here. But they tolerate PCT hikers because we leave no trace. The dayhikers however dont care to much about this place.

They chased away all the campers except for the hikers and cleaned their mess up to carry it out later in the day.

After I packed up my tent, I took some pictures of the place in the sunrise light and later sat down in one of the pools to relax.

More and more hikers I know arrived and we sat all together in the pools soaking in our feet an getting some rest.

The whole day basicaly consisted in getting from one hotspring to another, into the cold river and back to the hotspring again. And some food in between.

 

And yes I did it the mighty spoken a lot of but never done zero day in the nature!!! 🙂

 

I decided to cowboycamp to be of faster in the morning but it wasn’t a good idea, sand is not as fluffy as is seems to be when you want to sleep on it. The night was rough because of my sleeping choice and because there was a small party from locals nearby.

 

Nevertheless I started at around 7h00 and decided to keep the pace nice and slow during the next few days to get a rest before the Mojave desert.

 

 

Julia wanted to do her second 20 mile day so she joined me to get the right pace for the day.

 

We got some nice trailmagic from Coppertone at 11h00 on a highway pass.

 

 

Ice-cream with rootbeer. Onknown taste to the european gourmets, but as a hiker, everything cold tastes like a 3 Star Michelin Menu when you’re in the desert.

 

The day was long and hot. Not a lot of water and almost no shade at all during the whole day made it hard to get the 20 miles done.

 

 

But as always the views were gorgeous and kept you moving forward 🙂

 

The last 4 miles before the pick nick area we wanted to camp we had to hike around the silverwood lake. Beautiful place, with lots of jet-skis and powerboats driving on it.

 

 

As we got closer to the beaches while hiking downhill we decided to get a quick bath before attacking the last 2 miles.

 

At the pick nick area we met around 15 hikers, some I haven’t seen since a few weeks, some from the hotsprings. It’s always nice to see people back after 2 weeks to see that they are still hiking and in a good mood.

 

Well this place gave us all a good mood!

 

 

The local Pizza delivery had a hiker service where the driver would pick up beer for you if you wanted them to. We had a delicious dinner and I even had 2 slices over which will be breakfast tomorrow 😀

 

Now I am laying in my tent with finally some cellphone service and after 3 beers, more then ready to sleep.

 

 

Tomorrow we have 14 miles to hike past a McDonalds stop there for a few hours an than hike out again for a 28 mile walk without walker up a mountain to Wrightwood where my new sleeping bag is waiting for me.