Day 21:

Date: April 22, 2015

Progress: 22.4 miles - tentsite at mi 347.1 to Highway 2 at mi 369.5

Hit my 3 week mark today! I got up early because I knew I had a tough day ahead of hiking ahead of me. My pack was heavy from my food resupply yesterday and from the 6.5 liters of water I started with (there were no water sources on all of my hike today). I had just under 5000 feet of elevation to gain, and 22 miles to cover. And for the first time on the trip we were supposed to get some real weather. 

The "marine layer" of clouds rolled in as soon as I woke up, and it was overcast and cold all day. As I climbed the switchbacks, those clouds eventually surrounded me. At times I was even looking up at blue skies and looking down at the clouds below me. 

At around noon and after about 14 miles of hiking, I'd finally entered the dark and threatening clouds that had loomed in the distance all day. There were a couple minutes where I thought it might be raining, but then I realized that it was actually hail that was coming down. With no way to stay warm in a hail other than to generate my own body heat, I just picked up my pace and kept walking. It was quite cold and it was hailing quite hard. 

I hurried through the last miles of the day and made it to the Highway 2 crossing at about 2:45, where a very nice lady named Megan and her three kids picked me up and brought me into Wrightwood. The town is small and amazingly hiker friendly, with many trail angels around offering places to stay and restaurants and motels offering PCT hiker discounts. 

I am splitting a motel with two other hikers tonight. I took a glorious shower and ate a glorious meal of questionable Chinese food. Tomorrow I'm going to take my first zero mile day, which will be great.