Day 8
May 28, 2000

Amy Has a Serious Talk With Herself: Trail jct. To Lost Valley Spring to Tule Spring

Amy basks in the cool morning
air while enjoying a view of
Palomar Observatory and Lake
Henshaw. Oh, is that rock
blocking your view? Sorry...

Scott takes refuge in the shade
of the water tank at Chihuahua
Valley Truck Trail.

Looking down from Bucksnort
Mt. at Anza and beyond to the
San Jacintos.

We were on the trail early, determined to beat the heat. The heat becomes unpleasant after 8 a.m. in the lower elevations and around 9 in slightly higher elevations. We have had some nice breezes which have helped. In the morning, we hiked along ridgelines and in somewhat forested environs. The interesting thing about this landscape is that mixed in with all the pines are cactus and it continues to catch me by surprise when I see them mixed among the forest foliage.

We then came to a spot where some people have a water tank that they allow hikers to make use of. This is very generous, because it changes the trail from a 20-mile waterless stretch to two 10-mile stretches. The only problem is that the water is quite rusty. Although after filtering it, it retains none the rust color, all of that great rust taste remains. Yum! (Due to the mouth puckering effects that this water possesses, Scott likes to refer to it as his private reserve dry white.) However, as water is so scarce, we are grateful.

That afternoon, we dropped back down to the desert where my feet cooked up some new blisters and reheated some of the old ones. I limped into camp and lay on the ground cloth dirty and exhausted. As I lay in this pitiful state, many tiny ants crawled on me and bit me. They were especially fascinated with my toes and blisters and several attempted to crawl right inside some of the open blisters. Then, my rash from the synthetic socks flared up and presently mosquitoes gathered round to complete my evening.

We couldn't put the tent up because the area wasn't wide enough nor could we escape from the ants, so I just crawled in my bag, put my mosquito net on and lay there waiting for the ants to find me. Tears of frustration and fatigue seeped out of my eyes and ran into my mosquito netting. I told myself fiercely as I lay there that I am determined not to quit this trail over these types of frustrations. Only a debilitating injury will force me off.

The only thing that consoled me was knowing that tomorrow we would reach Anza, our next stop, where I knew things would be better.

(Scott says that I shouldn't allow small things to irritate me-bugs crawling into my flesh is only a minor bother-what am I thinking? (He'll get his...)

Back Outta here Next