Agua Caliente and the PCT

Saturday found me on a portion of the Pacific Crest Trail with some of my regular hiking buddies…

The weather was pretty much perfect, in the low 70s with a cool breeze…we’ll be dreaming of that in a month or so.

The plan was to hike on the Pacific Crest Trail for about 4 or 5 miles, and then to follow the stream up as far as we could.

The hike starts out in a pretty valley with lots of oaks and wildflowers…we even briefly saw a deer hiding in the brush.

We crossed the stream multiple times…there was enough water for it to be pretty and make noise, but not so much that crossings were difficult.

I’m writing these words without being able to see the photos…probably not the best plan, but I’m sitting in the Minneapolis airport waiting for our flight…I preloaded the pictures into the post, but the preview function is being funky, so I have no idea which picture is which. Annoying.

This was a fast hike with not a lot of elevation gain.

We saw some PCT through-hikers, including two women in their 60s.

We also saw a bunch of Boy Scouts who were doing training hikes, with one group camping out.

After walking through the valley for a bit, we started to climb a bit.

You can see the valley for miles as you climb into the hills.

I finally gave up on writing this until WordPress updated the app last night, so now I’m writing in the Syracuse Airport. We were about 11 people, a good size for this type of hike.

There were lots of wildflowers among the chapparal.

Lots of Yucca about to get serious about blooming.

The mountains we were hiking towards…

More mountains…

And a look back at the valley…

Ah ha! There’s the stream…must be Spring in California…there’s water.

And more wildflowers…

This tree was persistently growing out of that rock.

There were plenty of oaks everywhere…

In oasis-like environments where you could imagine setting up a campsite for a while…

Or perhaps, like the Native Americans, grinding some acorns into flour in a mortero.

At about the 5-mile mark, we went off the PCT to follow the stream. This required some minor bushwhacking, which might have been an issue if what we had seen by the stream had been poison oak. We didn’t think it was, and it’s been a few days since I got slapped in the face by one of the questionable plants, and I am still rash-free, so I think we did OK.

We kept seeing more flowers…

And some significantly large manzanitas with their gorgeous red bark…

More flowers…

And more manzanita…

At this point, we divided into two groups, one that went further up the stream and one that went back to a beach area. Unfortunately, one of my group (the continuing bushwhackers) put her hand on a plant with tiny needles that got stuck and caused some swelling. Luckily, old people (like me) travel with a wide variety of drugs and equipment. Here she is being operated on with my tweezers, and later she got ibuprofen and Benadryl for the swelling. We recommended medicating with wine and a soak when she got home.

We stopped here for lunch, perched on rocks around the stream…

Enjoying it rushing around us…

Sitting in the sun or shade, it was restful to listen to the water rushing by…

I know the picture below is one of the frogs who joined us for lunch.

More beautiful stream…

There’s where the Boy Scouts camped out…

And here we are heading back…

There were many varieties of cactus…

And no, I don’t think it was cactus that injured her…there were nettles too, and these were super fine and caused swelling.

The wildflowers were plentiful down in the valley.

The meadow with the grasses rustling in the wind…it was amazing watching each plant shift position in unison with the others as the wind blew through.

Another flower-strewn meadow…

The official PCT trail sign…

And a big old dead tree.

We did probably 11 miles…this trail isn’t difficult. It is an out-and-back trail, so you will have to hike back however far out you go…I don’t find that to be a hardship because I think it looks different as the light changes during the day. This would be easy to do with kids, especially with the water crossings, although summer may reduce water flow and heat will make it more difficult.