Noah got off to a leisurely start this morning from Mount Laguna Lodge, headed out for a four-day stretch of walking solo before I meet up with him again at Warner Creek. That means I’ve got a few days to myself.

First I headed for Julian, a historic desert town I’ve heard about from time to time, and quickly discovered that, at least on a Saturday, it’s not my cup of coffee. It was wall to wall people, no place to park, no fun. Kind of Sisters, Oregon, in the desert.

So I kept going through the vast Anza-Borrego Desert State Park to Borrego Springs, the park HQ, where a kindly ranger, in answer to my question where I should dayhike for seven or eight miles, said, “Too hot here. Go up to the PCT.”

When I said I had just come from the PCT, she sent me up a short but spectacular canyon, Palm Oasis Canyon, that ends, not surprisingly, in a huge and, even despite the name, quite unexpected palm oasis.

The big surprise, though, was the small flock of bighorn sheep that I encountered halfway up. They were browsing in the floor of the canyon despite the 100 degree midday heat, and seemed hardly at all disturbed by my showing up. This was by far the closest I’ve ever been to a bighorn, and there I was with nothing but a wide-angle lens on the camera (12-12mm, for you camera geeks). Still got photos, though, as the sheep sometimes stood about 10 feet away.

The heat was misery, so I finally headed, as the ranger suggested, back up to the PCT, though to a different stretch than we’ve seen so far. It lies a couple days in Noah’s hiking future at this point. When I parked at the trailhead, deserted except for a white van, I was sitting in my car reading a map when an older guy walked up, politely, and
enquired: “You waiting on a hiker?”

I explained about Noah, and he explained that he was running support for his own son, also making a thru-hike attempt, though their family history with the trail is quite deeper than ours. They tried the hike the first time in 2005, if I remember right, and had to quit with various injuries, but in the process became addicted and now seem to go each year. Last year, the father said, the son finished the entire 2,650 miles in 89 days — averaging 30 miles a day. (I assume this is made possible by full-time trail support….) One other year, the son was hospitalized for a week in Reno after blisters became badly infected.

I love the whole PCT culture. There’s a good magazine article, if not a book, in this world of thru-hikers and would-be thru hikers and the people who keep them going, from parents delivering food, to — a new term to me — the PCT “angels,” all along the trail, who offer to help out random hikers just because the angels like to help.

I headed north for an hour, before looping back to the car, in the blissfully cooler (72 degrees) mountain air, through fragrant chaparral and grassland that looked like it could have been a set for “Bonanza.”

I’m holed up now in a pleasant little ’50s-vintage motel in Borrego Springs, planning on hiking a long day tomorrow heading south on the trail from the same trailhead.

Meanwhile, Noah called. He slowed down today, putting in just 13 miles on the trail — possibly carrying a full pack with food and tent and sleeping bag made a bit of difference here — and set up his tent in a gorgeous spot on the high rim overlooking the Mojave desert floor.