May 27th 2009 - Mission Creek to Arrastre Trail Camp

Once again we were up before dawn. We knew we had a tough day ahead of us - lots of climbing. We also knew that we were headed back up into the mountains. The pine trees were calling our name and we couldn't wait!

Although steep, we managed the climbs without much trouble (except for a little huffing and puffing due to elevation). The pine trees smelled amazing in the late morning sun. With the higher elevation and trees for shade the temps were mild - making hiking much more comfortable.

Late morning we came across Coon Creek Cabin - a large log cabin with a picnic table inside. We took a long break (~2 hours) even breaking out our sleeping pads for a little nap. While napping, we had a visitor arrive - I-beam (aka Jim). I-Beam turned out to be an active PCTA member working on section hiking the entire PCT. Today he was just out for a dayhike. He had the coolest old school, bright orange external pack. He dared to tempt us hungry hikers while eating his homemade sandwich and drinking a cold Coke. Tom and I both later admitted to drooling over the sandwich and pop. I-Beam was so nice to offer us some ice cold water. I quickly accepted the cold water and proceeded to make some delicious Gatorade. It was nice to have cold Gatorade for once!

We ended up hiking with I-Beam for a couple of miles. He was such a great guy - filling us in on the PCT-l list gossip and upcoming trail work.

Before we knew it I-Beam went off down the road back to his car and we continued on the PCT. We saw our first bears on the trail, however they were in cages. Right alongside the PCT, there is private property which holds retired Hollywood animals - 2 grizzly bears, a lion, a tiger. We only saw the grizzlys and they were unfortunately sleeping. Still weird to see these cages right alongside the trail though.

Passed 2 water caches which were much appreciated due to the fact that we had mis-calculated our Aqua Mira and had just run out! :( The 2nd cache included a lazyboy chair and a cooler with oranges and bananas. Yum! Fresh fruit on the trail really hits the spot.

We rolled into Arrastre Camp for dinner. 2 other thru hikers were already there - Colby and Tom who we seemed to randomly run into on the trail the last several days. Had dinner with the guys. Sounds like we are on a similar schedule and hiking similar miles/day so we will probably see a lot of the guys over the next couple of months.

After dinner we continued down the trail. We originally planned on getting another 5 miles in after dinner, but Tom had a couple of strange pains in his foot so we ended up stopping early and setting up camp ~1 mile from Arrastre Camp.