Day 15 — 250 Miles and Boom Shacka Laca

Miles hiked: 17.5

Mile marker: 265.7

I wake up feeling like I ate 10 fried pancakes last night — I don’t know why, but that is the first thing that comes to mind.

We begin walking in the early morning glow. Dust is kicked up at Rafiki’s feet, the dirt glittering in the light. The sun casts our shadows back behind us, long and stretched out.

The wind blows through the trees, sometimes loud like a symphony or calm like a secret.

This trail has been pleasant so far. Smooth and downhill. Dad and I chat about a book called The Coddling of the American Mind.

We have a lot of water left as we fly through the forest. We’ve now reached 250 miles!

We pass by a couple of hikers. One says, “Hey, you gotta come see this.”

We walk up to the tent and circle around it to see all the commotion (of all two hikers).

A hiker named Mountain Crab — named because his friends say he hikes sideways on the scramble more than he walks forward — has his tent set up.

He had gone on a side quest and left his tent up. It looks like a curious bear got into his tent with a dramatic scratch on the side and a giant tear down the middle. The food was tightly wrapped in a food bag in the tent, but the bear didn’t get that!

Mountain Crab gives me some ramen and a snack bar — thanks, Mountain Crab — since we’ll be out of food tonight. Now I don’t have to eat oatmeal for dinner!

Our trail continues on in a breeze. We run into a lovely woman, Linda, who has lived on the property for 50 years! She has such a sweet smile and demeanor. Not five minutes later and we meet her husband, Tom, a kind gentleman who has done a lot of work on the PCT himself.

We soon reach our tent site. Easy day! Tom passes and we tell him our plan to hitch in tomorrow. He offers us a ride! Thank you, Tom!

Richy, a strong guy who hikes as fast and tough as a storm, passes by us. We had heard there was trail magic, but Richy offers to text me when he gets down there since he’s hitching into Big Bear today.

A few minutes later I get a call from Richy.

“Yo, Katy Perry!” he says (I told him my name is spelled like Katy Perry’s.) “You got to get down here! There’s a whole truck load of food! Hot dogs and sodas and beer and watermelon!”

Dad jumps up gracefully and is on his way. I throw my things into my bag — there are day hikers up here so we don’t want to leave anything in case our stuff gets stolen — and I jump to leave.

“Oh!” I say to Rafiki, “Do you want me to wait for you?”

“No, you’re good,” he says. I run and find Dad waiting for me. I guess I didn’t have to abandon Rafiki after all, which I feel quite bad about. I practically run down the .4 miles to the trail angels.

What a beautiful sight! We walk up to a tent with a grill, tables of food, and lawn chairs. We are offered chilli cheese dogs, watermelons, apples, oranges, biscottis, Oreos, chips, sodas, fizzy waters, beers, gummies, starbursts.

It’s so much food I don’t even know what to do with myself! They offer us hand sanitizer and wipes. I sit down and enjoy the amazing hot dogs, something I’ve been thinking about for the past week!

We enjoy the company with the trail angels, a hiking group from Orange County named Boom Shacka Laca. They do this trail magic event once a year. How amazing is it that the day we run out of meals, that we get this big treat when this group only does it once a year!

We hang out here for a few hours and get to know the trail angels. They do some pretty big section hikes in their free time.

I chat with Peggy and Marika, who speaks French (so cool!) I’ve recently been really interested in how other women who are older than myself live their lives, so it was good to get to know that they work, go to Bible studies, and read when they’re not hiking!

Bob and Tahoe are getting married in five weeks, and Bob is very obviously amazed by his fiancé. It was really sweet to see how much he doted on her.

“What do you like about hiking?” I ask.

“Oh, I love the coffee in the mornings and all of the animals,” Tahoe says.

“I love to see the land and think about how it came to be,” Bob says, reminding me very closely of how Dad thinks about nature as well. Bob has the Californian drawl and sounds just like an older friend from my hometown, Doug.

I have noticed these things on a small scale since hiking the trail. I’m much more aware of the animals. Right before Whitewater creek, the other day, I sat for about ten minutes watching an ant trying to break apart a little peice of tortilla I dropped. I even broke it up for him, since ants can carry three times their body weight (if my memory from grade school serves correctly.)

I feel like my relationship with nature is changing. With the animals. With the land. I have most clearly learned one lesson: step by step. Never has that saying been more clear than on this trip, when I’m struggling to move forward but take the steps anyway. I’ll look behind and think, Hey! I was just over there a few minutes ago! I’m making progress.

Mountain Crab shows up and says, “I guess you don’t need the ramen now.”

“Oh, do you want it back?”

“No, no, you can keep it.”

I’m glad, because it looks like some high quality ramen!

We say goodbye to the awesome trail angels, and I grab a bowl of hotdog chili and add some Fritos. So tasty!

I’m so glad we got to hang out here with all of our free time today. Boom Shacka Laca was a huge blessing. The trail provides!