Total Trail Miles: 126.9

Ascent/Descent: 3541/1595 ft

Start Time: 6:40

End Time: 14:45

Temperature: 17°C (63) 

I started early today with Sophie, Sam, Abigail, Eleanor and Tito (Andrew had to go into warmer springs at 8am to collect his resupply box so got a lie in). They had ordered breakfast to the community centre so had to be there at 6:45 to pick it up. I went along to use the bathroom and wash my pants and socks in the sink whilst they ate . Properly set off just after 7. Back into the English like meadows for the first part, it was super chilly in the morning too. A big boggy patch soon appeared so wet get it was. This was followed by about 6 river crossings. Some were possible to hop over using the rocks but the last 2 continues to wet my feet further. I could feel my untaped left shin starting to hurt so I took a break to tape it up before the real uphill began. It was then up, up, up back into more desert like terrain. The sun started to break through the cloud too and it ended up a nice warm Hiking temperature. I took it fairly sore aware of my shins and had a couple of breaks, one were i got chatting to a friendly Canadian hiker named Chloe who lives in France. I caught glimpse of the snowy San Jacinto mountains again, this time looking much closer than they did before. The views from up top were beautiful and it was nice to feel the warm sun again after a colder day yesterday. The hiker hunger hit me and I wanted to continuously eat. I bumped into Abi again about 16 miles in and we walked the last couple of miles to Mikes Place together as we were ahead. We had heard bits about 'Mikes Place', it used to be a bit of a PCT heaven with pizza's for dinner and cooked breakfasts. Now it's a bit of a surreal junkyard that feels somewhat abandoned but pct hikers can still camp there and there are huge water tanks. When we arrived there were just 3 other men here but it soon started to fill up so we pitched our tents to get a good spot sheltered from the wind. One by one the others started to show up, Sam & Sophie, Eleanor and Andrew. No Tito but he had mentioned about taking it easier today and stopping around 15 miles. Chloe and her hiker family showed up too and there ended up being a big group of us sat around having dinner together. One young looking guy from Northern California amused us all by his super layered back attitude and his lack of a phone. As the sun started to go down it got chilly so we headed to bed around 7.