13.5 miles into Agua Dulce today, knocked em out around 12:30. In truly serendipitous fashion, my mom drove into the parking lot exactly as I arrived.
She picked me up in Vasquez rocks park, which had some cool rock formations formed by some of the fault activity around here. They’ve filmed all kinds of movies around here, particularly westerns, and looking at the terrain I can tell why.
I also gave out my blog info to strangers for the first time! I met a couple out for a day hike who were excited to hear I was doing the pct and asked if I was writing or posting about the hike at all, and I shared the blog info with them. They said they were just discussing how spiritual the experience must be, and I only realized 5 minutes after I left them that I should have shared the story of my campsite the night before.
I was in this valley near a stream that had a couple pools left in it. The valley was steep enough that the moon only rose above the canyon walls around 9:30, which was so cool to see the light race down the valley. I also heard a trickle from upstream around that time, getting closer to me.
Turns out the stream dries up in the direct heat of day, but starts flowing again in the evening. I heard it fill up several pools on its way towards me before turning and continuing down the canyon. I was camped in a spot where the stream took a turn so I could hear it gather and flow on basically all around me. Combined with the moonlight, it was such an immersive experience.
Zero day was exactly what I wanted – I did basically nothing and just let my body and mind recover. The mental part I hadn’t thought about too much before that, but I realized it takes so much focus and determination each day to tackle the challenges of the trail that when I get the chance I just want to go brain neutral. After my slow week of mostly 15s, I think I’m feeling ready to kick it up a notch towards 20 miles per day. I’m starting to get nervous about getting as much of the hike done as I want to by winter and it looks like the terrain from here to the sierras is moderate enough to start upping the mileage.
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