PCT miles 30.6 to 43 – Kitchen Creek Road to Mt. Laguna Lodge – Total PCT miles 43
Today we hiked to Mt. Laguna from Kitchen Creek and traveled through beautiful scrub oak canyons and up into pine and oak woodlands with grassy meadows. Meadows covered in spring flowers including yarrow, baby blue eyes, popcorn flower and paintbrush.
Gabriel and I saw our first Jeffery pine of the hike, a western tanager and chipmunks along the trail! A beautiful day interspersed with lounging in grasses and looking up at bright blue skies. We would have lounged longer in one shady meadow if not for the realization that we needed to get to “town” before the post office closed to pick up our next resupply box. It turned out that our package went to the store and not the PO, so we could have had a few more relaxing hours in the meadows. C’est la vie.
We strolled into to Mt. Laguna around 3:00 pm and decided we’d take advantage of the accommodations to shower and wash our dusty, sweaty clothing by spending the night at the lodge. Not only are we adjusting to hiking in the heat, we’re also slowly desensitizing ourselves to normal standards of cleanliness (but not hygiene!). We met our first “big” group of hikers at the store and started to immerse in a little in trail culture.
Showers, clean clothes and restful mileage made us feel like we’d taken a partial day of rest. Cheers to the first 43 miles and our first resupply.
marmot's adventures 