[pct-l] PCT friends/addresses

[Birgitte Jensen <bjensen4@juno.com>]

Hi everybody! I'd like to shamelessly steal an idea from Mrs Radney and
propose a thread of PCT vignettes/special places. The '99 thruhikers are
soon to start their journey and (on top of all the logistical advice and
stats) it might be nice to send them off with the "addresses" of old
geographic friends they might want to look up along the way and say "Hi!"
to for us.  I know _I_'d enjoy reading other people's perspectives of
places I've visited - or maybe even overlooked in one of those periods of
trail-hypnosis - how about you? Folks are always e-mailing me to ask
about "stuff to see" in one section or another, and this might be a good
way of compiling a poor man's PCT Baedeker...

No Rules (shudder) except the PCT - or stone's throw from - location, and
I'm not trying to start a creative writing contest, either. Not a
competition for Most Spectacular View or Hardest Terrain, unless of
course that's your thing (a friend's husband often proclaims he is "The
MOST uncompetitive person in the world!!!" <LOL>) Personally, I'd prefer
no "I Spat In The Eye Of Death"-stuff; the idea is to share our
appreciation of the PCT, not scare anybody away from it! <VBG> Dayhikes
with pets, car camps, bike trips,mule rides, endurance treks, snowshoe
backpacks (when you only could _hope_ you were on the trail) all sound
good to me. Shouldn't matter whether you were there 50 years ago
(actually, that would be fascinating!) when parts of the trail were in
different locations from today, or yesterday (so what's the snowpack?<
just kidding>).

Maybe because I spent the past few days shivering in the So Sierra, my
mind keeps going back to the Desert Divide part of the PCT in So CA - in
particular a camp at Apache Springs. That section is really neat; if you
timing is lucky, you hike (S - N) from hot desert terrain along a "knife
ridge" up into snow and the alpine San Jacinto Wilderness. To the right,
far below, is the Mojave Desert and to the left is ranchland, pine woods,
even a lake. Apache Springs lies alongside a tiny bench at the bottom of
a steep, loose dirt track in the brush flanking the Trail; the campsite
is Scout textbook-flat and there's a ratty-looking fire ring usually
stuffed with detritus from tin can campers. The whole setup cries out for
a roaring fire weenie-roast, but the dry brush prohibits it.

 So precipitous is the dropoff,  there's a clear view of the desert all
the way to Arizona and the sunset was magnificent, thanks to LA smog <g>.
When I camped at Apache, there was a light breeze drifting up from the
hot desert floor thousands (?) of feet below and I could lie in my
sleeping bag and see not only the stars of a clear desert night, but the
twinkling lights of Palm Springs and headlamps of semitrailers moving
along Highway #10. (Don't know how campers manage when there's a strong
wind hitting the bench, and an earthquake would probably be _very_
exciting, gulp.)

There's not much water in those parts, so when the light lowers and
you've settled  into quiet, deer and the other critters move down to the
spring to drink. They watched me warily, but I viewed them with absolute
joy! The water is clear and tasty (I filtered, remembering the wildlife),
but I got the worst case of chiggers in my life from crouching jaybird
nekkid in the surrounding grass. Only about 5 miles from a road, but 
Apache Spring  feels as remote as some places days away from a TH.       
bj

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