Our third day on the Pacific Crest Trail. We left the desert ecosystem and climbed to pine groves at 6100 feet elevation.
Start location: Lake Morena County Park
End Location: Burnt Rancheria campground
Miles hiked: 21
We woke early today and were walking by 7:30am. Early departures are rare for us. Many people left Lake Morena around the same time; the trail was crowded.
We stopped at an ill-used car campground, Boulder Oak, saround 10am for a snack. It was memorable because it has horse corrals.
Erica eating lunch at Boulder Campground
The trail crosses an old routing of i-8 right next to a bus stop. That a bus stop exists on the trail amused us.
We passed lots more desert flower scenery in the morning.
Pink flowers along the Pacific Crest Trail
Yellow flowers
The plant “paintbrush” is red
After crossing i-8 we spent most of the day climbing.
The desert ecosystem (flowers, yucca) gave way to dense, tough, green shrubbery.
Eventually, that gave way to pine groves.
We ate lunch at mile 32, Fred Canyon. We met up with class-of-2014 AT hikers Popeye, Sass, and Karate kid there. Good to see familiar faces!
We watered and snacked at Long Canyon Creek 37.8. We continued on to Burnt Rancheria campground, making our day about 22 miles.
We ate macaroni and cheese for dinner. And now we sleep an exhausted sleep.
Beautiful pictures! (why does it say ‘April 23’ at the top? no big deal)
It has the wrong date at the top because, like our AT blog, that is the time at which we unloaded the post to the internet. The WordPress app for Android doesn’t support anything smarter.