[pct-l] Hike report - Odds and ends

[Anthony Biegen]

Some odds and ends from my section hike from Cottonwood Bridge to Trail Pass

Cottonwood Bridge

I first hiked from Hikertown to the Cottonwood Bridge in 2009 with Piper.
If you have hiked this section before and plan on doing it again you will
be surprised. The windmills now come down all the way to the bridge. You
are immediately hiking through windmills and their service roads. On the
plus side, the windmill companies have paved 170th Street in Lancaster. It
would be fairly easy for a Trail Angel from Lancaster to support a cache at
Cottonwood Bridge. One time I was at Hikertown there was a young woman who
was heading out carrying 9 liters of water which is just crazy weight. The
bridge would be a good place for a cache. Anybody out there interested?

On the negative side, the windmill companies were in a race with an
expiring tax break and they cut a lot of corners, according to Trail Angel
Kerry who dropped us off at the bridge. We could see this almost
immediately. the inch thick, bullet proof PCT signs were taken down and
laid on the ground so the service roads could be widened or the equipment
to raise the new windmills. It would be nice if they could put them back up.

Golden Oaks Springs

There was a recent fire near Golden Oaks Spring. No, it didn't burn but it
didn't escape abuse either. Apparently the firefighting crews decided that
they needed better access to the spring so they took their tree macerating
machine and ripped out three large trees by the roots and tossed them into
the camp site. This opens the camp site up to winds where before it was
completely protected. Apparently they camped there since there is now a
very large fire ring (big enough for 20 to 30 people). Adding insult to
injury, someone, perhaps the firefighters but perhaps someone else, burned
the fiberglass PCT signs in the fire ring, leaving behind the fiberglass
waste. What a mess. I have no idea how you could safely remove it.

Leaving Golden Oaks Spring, you will see more destruction. More new
windmills on the ridge a short distance past Golden Oaks needed new power
poles. They were put in and the excess concrete was poured over the ridge -
landing right on the PCT trail. Not impassible but insulting and
unnecessary. Just past that you will find more trees ripped out of the
ground in an apparent attempt to protect the windmills above from the
impending fire. The trees were thrown directly on the PCT trail and it is a
challenge to figure a way around them. What a mess. I realize that in time
of a rapidly moving fire, there is little time to plan, but the fire is
over and there has been no attempt to clean up the mess.

A little further on you will come upon a fire break that was bulldozed over
the PCT. Here an attempt was to make it clear where the trail goes through.
You will also see that here the fire break did in fact work. One side of
the fire break is burned and the other side is not. It did in fact stop the
fire. So of course, there was good work done here by the fire fighters.
Now, can we get the mess cleaned up a little?

iPhone/Smart phone

I found out the hard way that my iPhone doesn't like the cold. When it gets
cold enough, it just shuts itself off. Then the phone has to be warmed up
and restarted, which takes a little time. I didn't realize this at first; I
thought my phone just died on me. Took a while to figure that out and move
the phone to my shirt pocket instead of the pouch on my backpack.

I also learned the hard way that if you use GMail, those messages aren't
really on your phone. You will see the subject line for your messages but
when you try to look at them, you will get a message that the server is not
available if there is no service. So don't send yourself emails with
important messages thinking that you can refer back to them on the trail.

Guthook had an update to his Southern Cal app just before I left for my
trip. It has some very nice improvements. Loved them. But most of my trip
was on the Sierra Guthook app. I had to live with the limitations of the
first version of that. Don't blame Guthook since I'm sure he wasn't
expecting anyone to get that far this year. Still love the app and look
forward to the update to the Sierra app.

I wasn't that impressed with the Halfmile app when I used the first release
last year. Part of the problem was I didn't understand how it should be
used. I earned a great respect for the usefulness of the second version. It
was very helpful on several occasions.  Another great product.

I also used the PCTHYOH app. This little powerhouse has a lot of misc
information and allows you to cache information for when you don't have
cell service. It's like an encyclopedia of the PCT!

TrailHacker

"When my feet hurt, I can't think straight."
Abraham Lincoln