A Few Double Bacon Cheeseburgers, a Pizza, and a Canine Politician

Easter Sunday isn’t the greatest day of the year to get a hitch as a thru-hiker. The group of four of us stood out on the main road in front of the campground for some substantial amount of time. Sometimes a car would actually come down the road and we would stick our thumbs out. The well-dressed older couples in their luxury sedans and SUVs would exchange sideways glances as they passed – trying not to make direct eye contact with “those young hooligans” out on the side of the road, in the middle of the desert, on Easter Sunday. Families, on the other hand, would make direct eye contact, staring suspiciously. We joked at the answers that parents would undoubtedly pass along to their children who asked about us. I have no doubt that some kid in one of those vehicles speeding by learned that if he didn’t eat his vegetables he would end up like us. Needless to say, we didn’t get a ride out of luck. Instead, we called the trail angel that had hauled us from town to the campground the day before. He was more than happy to transport four fresh smelling hikers back to the trail for a bit of cash.

Back under the bridge at Scissors Crossing, we attempted to motivate ourselves to climb up out of the valley. It wasn’t the destination that was intimidating, we were all ready to leave this desert valley behind. It was getting to that destination that seemed somewhat difficult. Ever since we had arrived the day before, we could see it. The trail climbed via switchbacks up the side of the mountain on the other side of the valley before disappearing over the ridge several thousand feet above the valley floor. Also, just for added fun, the mountain is angled in such a way to ensure that the face that the trail climbs never receives any shelter from the sun – not in the morning and not in the evening. Instead, you just have to do it, with full exposure, and get it over with. We hoped that it would at least lead us up into a more hospitable environment, less harsh than the valley floor that insisted on sandblasting us again last night. Ultimately, I decided to just charge the trail full-speed-ahead and made it to the ridge at what was probably the hottest hour of the day, in mid to late afternoon in full sun. At least I was able to get it over with relatively quickly. We camped that night in a broad valley tucked back in the folds of the ridge. There was no shelter from the wind, but luckily there was no wind. Instead, we were serenaded by the yipping of a family of foxes up the ridge above us.

There may not have been any wind that night, but it made up for its leave of absence the next day. Throughout the day, the trail followed the ridge, high above the valley with magnificent views across the valley to the west, and back down into the basin and Scissors Crossing to the southwest. Of course, it became increasingly difficult to enjoy any of those views due to a steady breeze of approximately forty to fifty miles per hour blasting up out of the valley below. At times it was difficult just to walk along the trail.

Around midday, we were treated with a brief respite from the wind as we descended a steep side trail down to a water cache. On a long, dry stretch like this one, water caches are a necessity when natural sources aren’t reliable or just flat out don’t exist. The only problem with caches is that they can be unreliable as well. Stocked by volunteers, many are small and become quickly depleted with dozens of hikers per day, each taking several liters. This particular cache, however, was the mother of all caches. We arrived to find no less that four full-size pallets of gallon jugs tucked under tarps to protect from the hot sun. There had to have been several thousand gallons. There were even funnels to help us pour from the jugs into our bottles, and a cage for empty jugs. How they got that many pallets of water down a rough forestry road to that trail junction, I’ll never know, but I do know I speak for every hiker who has ever passed through that section when I say “thank you” to whoever stocks that cache.

Leaving the water cache refreshed, I felt like I’d been walking for a thousand miles. I felt like I knew exactly what I was doing. I felt like I belonged out there in the trail. At that moment, I stumbled across the 100 mile mark and was promptly yanked back into reality. Yes, 100 miles is a big milestone, but it only really means I have 2550 more miles to walk. I documented my crossing and continued on. Approaching the trailhead at Montezuma Valley Road, I smelled food grilling. Nothing makes a tired hiker move quicker than the smell of food. Reaching the parking lot, I found the rest of the crew gathered around as Wildcat (PCT Class of 2020) grilled up some hotdogs. After downing several, the others decided to head into Ranchita to Montezuma Valley Market for the night (they had a bunkhouse). I chose to camp by the trailhead and watched as Wildcat packed six hikers into her small pickup truck that she also lives out of. I was looking forward to a quiet night camped by the trail and never dreamed of the kinds of stories I would hear from those who headed in to the market. Part of me wishes I had been there. Most of me is content to hear the stories recalled over and over again.

I awoke to dampness covering the inside of my tent – in the middle of the desert. Apparently I had camped in the single humid valley within 500 miles. Luckily, I’ve had plenty of practice dealing with tent condensation in Tennessee, so I just rolled over and went back to sleep. That’ll solve it. Once I finally got moving, I passed through some old growth oak groves along a creek (what a rarity!) before emerging into the most beautiful meadow I have ever seen. Not just a single meadow, but a series of open grasslands lined the rolling landscape punctuated by a few rocky ridges and valleys. After so long in the sandy, prickly desert, it was a shock to the senses. Wildflowers lined the trail and thrived in large plots along the hillside. Grasses, although no taller than a couple inches, were green and soft, waving gently in the light breeze. Maybe best of all for me, the trail surface was dirt. Pure dirt without rocks or roots or ruts, with a light cushioning of dust on top. I’ll take that any day.

Passing and being passed by an increasing number of day hikers, I knew there must be some sort of interesting place ahead. Day hikers typically don’t congregate in droves for a meadow. Around a small hill, I could finally see it: some sort of rock formation in the distance. No less that eighty people gathered around it. At first, I couldn’t see what was so special about it. It looked like a simple pile of rocks. As I got closer, however, the formation morphed into a perfect statue of an eagle with his wings spread wide – Eagle rock. Many people were climbing up on the sixty foot wingspan for photos, but I was content to just snap a picture with no one else in the frame. As I headed down the hill, a kind lady asked if I was a thru hiker and offered some snacks. I kindly declined. I had no less that fifteen pounds of food on my back as it was. As the afternoon went on, I eventually left the meadows around Warner Springs (a tiny community of not much more than a school, a fire station and a gas station). From there, the trail began following another small creek (two in one day? This is madness!) with ample shade and campsites.

From talking to others throughout the day, I had come to the conclusion that the rest of the crew that had detoured to Montezuma Valley was behind me, so I set up camp and waited. Sure enough they showed up in about an hour with many hours worth of stories from the eccentric establishment at which they had stayed. I won’t go too far in depth since I wasn’t there, but just picture being transported to the trailhead in the back of a Uhaul box truck, highly unstable bunk beds, a shower rigged into a portapotty shell, and a local townie who just sort of hangs around the bunkhouse 24/7 with a Folger’s coffee can full of weed. That should give you a general idea of their experience there. Someone commented that at least it was cheap. That fine establishment will live on in legend along the trail all the way to Canada.

The following morning was cold. Not the chilly kind of cold that you can ward off with a jacket and some light activity, but a heavy, damp, dense cold that just sort of sticks to you and won’t let go. The kind of cold that makes packing up very uncomfortable on the fingers. As I was leaving camp, Mozzle, who I had met the first night on the trail, told me he was headed back to Warner Springs to get off the trail. I had always known that a large percentage of people eventually quit for some reason or another, but it still hit me like a punch to the gut. He was the first person that I knew personally to exit the trail. He was also one of the more experienced among us, having hiked the AT a couple years ago. I knew he had his reasons, and as far as I could tell he wasn’t quitting for good yet. I hope he eventually finds his way back out on the trail. All I could do was wish him luck and turn and walk away, down that long path north.

As soon as I climbed high enough to be in direct sunlight, it must have immediately warmed up by at least thirty degrees. I am constantly amazed by the speed at which the temperature swings from one extreme to the other out here. I stopped briefly at a spring down a little ways from the ridge, but didn’t get any water from the trough when I saw all that was floating in it. I could’ve gotten a few extra calories from that water. Continuing on, I finally arrived at Mike’s Place. A famous oasis for hikers, it is best described as a modest, rural, residential compound with hippy undertones. Mike (who also happens to own Montezuma Valley Market) apparently wasn’t home, but a quiet, long haired man going by the name of Spirit was “watching the place for him.” The environment may have been strange, but there was a tank of water and a good group of hikers sitting around in the shade so i knew it was an ok place. At some point somebody found a guitar somewhere and several people demonstrated their musical talents (or lack thereof). After a good break, we continued on up the hill toward the ridge, and, upon reaching the ridge, were gifted with magnificent views of San Jacinto in the distance, snow covered and rugged. We had no idea what we were getting into.

We may have been headed toward the big mountain, but the desert wasn’t done with us just yet. The following day brought climbs and descents through the hot, dry, prickly desert. Through narrow canyons and along rocky ridges I walked, constantly wishing for just a little shade, enough to sit down and rest in. There was none. It constantly amazes me how rare natural water sources are in the desert. By mid afternoon, it had been 36 hours since I had collected water from a natural source and would be at least 24 more hours before I would again. Luckily, we don’t have to carry enough water for days because of people like Mike and Mary. Mary’s place, a lot like Mike’s, provided shade and a 500 gallon tank of water that she fills every few days just for hikers. She even allows camping in here backyard. I, along with over a dozen others, sat around the picnic table, waiting for the hottest part of the day to pass before inevitably and inadvertently departing back out into the furnace, firmly in the middle of the hottest part of the day.

As I sweated my way up the hill, food was on my mind. It was on everybody’s mind. The famous Paradise Valley Cafe was within reach. The moment and the day we had all dreamed of was quickly approaching. A time when we would stuff our stomachs with the (alleged) best burger along the entire length of the PCT. That night, I dreamed of food, good food. The famous PVC as it has become known had some serious expectations to live up to.

I woke up and I knew it was time. Freezing my butt off, I packed up camp and hustled toward the road. I made the four miles in about an hour flat. From there, I just had a mile to walk parallel to the road to reach food. It felt as if this was the real reason I had walked all this way from Mexico. Reaching the restaurant, I met the other guys and we located a table beside a power outlet (very important). It was breakfast time. After being on the trail, looking over a menu is overwhelming. You’re hungry and you want everything. When you’re hiking, you have just enough food to eat (hopefully) and you eat what you have and try to enjoy it. Back in the real world, the choices are endless. I finally settled on scrambled eggs, sausage, biscuits, fried potatoes, and a tall glass of milk. I’m not fond of milk in real life (although I drink it regularly) but for some reason, I always crave it when I come off the trail. At some restaurants, eggs and sausage would mean a couple eggs and a piece or two of sausage. Not at Paradise Valley. As our food arrived, mine was on two plates. One plate was piled high with eggs and potatoes and biscuits. The other plate had a single, half pound patty of sausage, larger than most burger patties. It was a ton of food, but I think I inhaled it in under ten minutes. At that point, there was nothing left to do but continue to sit in comfortable chairs, let our devices charge, and wait for them to begin serving lunch.

Our waitress was obviously used to hikers and let us know as soon as the kitchen flipped over. A double bacon cheeseburger and chocolate milkshake had been on my mind for days by now. It was time to turn that dream into reality. Now, some people may say that all bacon cheeseburgers are created equal, but those people have obviously never eaten a Paradise Valley Cafe bacon cheeseburger. Two half-pound patties, dripping with cheese, piled high with crispy bacon and complete with all the fixings, this thing was massive. We’re talking “I don’t know how to eat this thing” massive. And just because they had mastered the quantity didn’t mean they skimped on the quality. This burger could’ve been served at a five-star restaurant and no one would question it. It was that good. Then again, I was that hungry.

Finally, after over four hours, we paid our tab and vacated our table, only to move to the shade tree out front for another couple hours. I must say that PVC has, by far, the most generous, accepting attitude toward hikers that I have experienced on trail so far. We’re filthy, we stink, we stay for hours, and yet they never made us feel like anything less than first class customers. If everyday on trail had a Paradise Valley Cafe, I don’t think anyone would ever quit, at the same time, we would all weight 500 pounds by the time we got to Canada. Even after gorging ourselves for hours, we somehow thought it was a good idea to get eight more miles in, up the big mountain, up the foothills of San Jacinto. Somehow, my body must’ve converted those 10,000 calories into rocket fuel, because I made the eight mile climb in just over two hours. From there, we descended down off the trail to camp by Live Oak Spring, under the most massive, ancient oak tree I have ever seen. Tomorrow, we would enter into the high elevations of the mountain and tackle the treacherous snow chutes of Apache Peak and beyond.

We got moving early the next morning. Before first light early. The moon was still casting silver shadows through the branches of the ancient oak as we filed, one at a time, out of camp and back up the the trail. Climbing went slowly at first. Who am I kidding, climbing went slowly all day. The trail would switchback repeatedly, making for a gap in the ridge, only to pass through, descend steeply and abruptly and do the exact same thing again. Eventually, however, the trail gave up on switchbacks and became content to chase a single ridge line all the way up to each peak and then drop sharply off the other side. If it hadn’t been for the view down into the desert around Palm Springs to the right, and the higher, forested slopes around Idyllwild the the left, the climb would have been incredibly monotonous. Even with the views, the immediate area was often ugly. Multiple severe fires over the last decade have left the landscape permanently scarred.

Finally reaching the north-facing, sheltered snow chutes of Apache Peak, we donned our micro-spikes. Last year, the PCT community and the entire thru hiking community was rocked when Trevor “Microsoft” Laher, fell to his death on this very slope. We paused briefly at a memorial plaque placed on a tree near where he fell. Our group consists of four guys in our early to mid twenties. He was basically one of us. Out of every tragedy, however, comes lessons for the rest of us. If it hadn’t have been for Trevor, we would have known very little about how treacherous the snow on San Jacinto really is. I probably wouldn’t have brought micro-spikes, but Trevor’s story taught us all what this mountain is capable of. We passed without issue, and I was definitely thankful that I had my spikes.

Continuing up the ridge, we passed through many more snow chutes, several much more substantial than Apache. The difference was that the slope was shallower on these. A fall would still be bad, but would likely be survivable here. A few miles further, we came to a well-known rockslide that occurred over the winter. This was the sketchiest ten feet of trail all day (and of the entire hike up to this point). To pass it, you have to scramble off the edge of the cliff and shimmy around the large rock that blocks the entire trail. There is a frayed rope to give you a handhold if you need it. I would rather hold onto loose rock than put my life on that old rope. Making it around safely, we eventually made it to camp – a windy ridge line point that jutted out into the sky at over 9,000 feet. We were all out of water, but luckily, there was a large snowbank over the ridge. I think we all underestimated the amount of fuel, time and effort that it takes to melt snow into any appreciable quantity of water. We did what we could, though, and no one went thirsty.

We were past Apache. We were nearly at the maximum elevation that the trail reaches while circling around the high peak of San Jacinto. We thought we were basically done with the snow. We thought wrong. My plan was to make it a couple miles to a spring first thing in the morning and cook breakfast there where I would have water. Well, a quick couple miles quickly turned into a several hour long expedition. Around the corner from camp, the trail switched to the north side of the ridge, went under the snow, and stayed there. Lots of snow. Several feet of snow. We had no choice but to push on. Relying on footprints to show the way through the alpine forest, we finally heard running water. Task one was now complete. Task number two: actually finding a way to get to the water. We quickly located the creek from the spring (we had been walking on it for some time under the snow and ice), but it took us a little longer to locate a hole (that I can only assume was excavated by other hikers before us) down though the snow and ice and toward the tumbling, clear, liquid water. I about froze my hands off filtering it, but it was worth it. Eventually, everybody else finished collecting water and moved on. I, on the other hand, took my time cooking a large pot of oatmeal and was enjoying myself there in the snowy forest.

When I was finally ready to leave, I turned toward the trail, circled around the next ridge, and promptly lost the trail. It was nowhere. There weren’t even any footprints anymore. Now, saying I was lost would be a bit of an overstatement. I may not have known exactly where I was or where I needed to go, but I knew where I ultimately needed to end up. I could see it – way up, several hundred feet above me – a saddle in the ridge. The tricky part was getting there. So up I went, post-holing here and lightly stepping across more solid snow there. Gradually, the former became the norm. There were occasional patches of less snow or even bare ground, so for a while I tried to work my way toward those. That ultimately became too much of a bushwhacking expedition, so back out into the open drifts I went.

I was almost to the saddle, when the snow beneath me suddenly gave way. The precarious position I found myself in involved the following: Both feet were wedged into a void under a fallen tree under roughly three feet of snow, my pack was pulling me backwards toward the downhill slope that I had so successfully fought my way up, and snow wedged firmly up to my armpits. I was trapped, but after a quick assessment, I knew what I had to do. Leaning backwards down the hill, I hoisted myself as hard as I could. One rolling backflip later, I was free. Now I just had to make up the progress that I had just lost by tumbling down the hill. Up I went again, slowly, carefully avoiding the area around the fallen tree and the hidden pits and voids around it. Finally, I made the ridge. All said and done, it had taken me over an hour to make my way half a mile from the spring to the ridge. After taking in the views of the snow-covered Tahquitz Peak and talking with some day-hikers, I wanted nothing more than to get to my hotel room waiting in Idyllwild. I just had about eight more miles of mostly snow free, downhill trail to get there. That I could handle.

The shower that I took immediately after checking into the hotel was my first shower in eight days. I had nearly forgotten what it felt like to be clean. Once clean (or at least cleaner), my second priority was obviously food. A short couple of hours later, I found myself in line with ten other hungry hikers at the Idyllwild Pizza Company. I ordered a 16” supreme and the lady at the register didn’t even question it. While I love pizza, I don’t consider myself to be a pizza snob. I can be just as happy with a Little Caesars as I would be with some sort of high-price gourmet pie. I must admit, however, that Idyllwild Pizza Company makes what might be the best pizza I have ever tasted. Toppings piled high in massive portions on a substantial crust with just the right amount of crisp, it was a thru hiker’s paradise. I finished my entire pizza on my own. I was the only person at our table of ten hungry hikers that was able to complete such a physical feat. If I could just get a pizza like that at every town along the trail, I’d be the happiest, most motivated thru hiker in history. Actually, I’d probably just give up hiking and skip from town to town just for the food. I’d also go broke.

The Idyllwild Bunkhouse, where I was staying, isn’t your typical motel. Raj, the owner of this fine establishment and sole founder and manager of Raj Hospitality Incorporated, really goes above and beyond for hikers in every way that he can. He drove us to town. He drove us back from town. He hand-delivered individual breakfast baskets to each room every morning. Fruit, oatmeal, juice, and homemade blueberry scones or brownie bites (made by his wife) filled each basket. He even provided a five gallon Home Depot bucket for laundry. He runs a real first-class establishment.

After our resupply chores in town, we settled in for a few more double bacon cheeseburgers at The Red Kettle (delicious) and then called Raj for a ride back to the motel. We had a very important meeting with a very important politician to keep. Soon, the mayor of Idyllwild, Mayor Max II, was chauffeured into the parking lot in his decorated vehicle. He was met by great fanfare from the small collection of thru hikers that we had gotten the news to, more fanfare than you would expect for one dog. As it turns out, Mayor Max, the only canine mayor in the world, is one of the most well-behaved and well-dressed golden retrievers (or politicians for that matter) that you will ever meet. He sat at attention, patiently tolerating selfies and the general annoyances that come with being famous, in exchange for whole apples which he would guard fiercely for the entire five seconds that it took him to inhale them, core and all. As opposed to most politicians, Mayor Max doesn’t claim a political party and loves everyone he meets. He may also be the only politician in the world that will close his mouth on command… for an apple of course. I can’t help but think that if more politicians were like Mayor Max, the world would be hairier, covered in drool, probably running low on apples, but also possibly a better, kinder, more generous place.

#MayorMaxForPresident2024

Learn more at: https://www.mayormax.com/