Being open to “trail experiences”

I decided when I was going to do this hike that I would make myself open for adventures and experiences and not just stay in my own little solitary hiker bubble. While I’m generally hiking by myself on a daily basis, there are many situations when camped or at trail towns to have interesting interactions with the other hikers or trail angels. So the theme of this post is how interesting trail experiences always come knocking at your door on these sorts of adventures and you really have to be prepared to be open to experiencing them.

But first a few highlights from days four through six. Day four was another scorcher of a day made worse by the fact that I was down one smartwater bottle due to the treachery of the baby rattlesnake and bees. Luckily my tendency for nocturnal laziness saved me and I remembered I had the added capacity of an old Gatorade bottle that had originally been intended for middle-of-the-night relief. I don’t like getting out of the tent when nature calls, but having been on the dehydration bubble the previous three days, I had not yet needed it. So I was actually only down half a liter of capacity.

The hiking on day four was fabulous and I was better able to maintain hydration. I was up at 5000-6000 feet in the pine trees of the Angeles National Forest. I spent the afternoon with my tent setup under a stand of pines and rested in the shade.

I saw Backfire and Princess come through as I was resting and they told me they had seen their first black bear of the hike. I had hiked through that same spot two hours earlier and never saw a bear. I told them about how I had run into three mountain bikers who told me that there were two bison living in a meadow several miles back along with a longhorn steer who apparently thought he was a bison too. However I never actually saw the happy threesome.

While resting in the shade I worked on some blister care. Luckily I haven’t gotten bad blisters so far, but I do have a few minor ones on my right foot. So I used a needle and thread to open them up and drain them. The thread helps to absorb the blister fluid and I coat the thread with Neosporin for antibiotic protection. Then with the thread still protruding, I wrap the blister in Leukotape and walk with it. That helps to push out the fluid.

On the evening of the 30th, I rejoined civilization after hiking my first day over 20 miles. I found myself on the west side of the Antelope Valley near a small town called Neenach. In what seems like the middle of nowhere, but just adjacent to the trail, is a hiker hostel/rest stop called Hiker Town. I didn’t know much about it, and it looked quite weird and eccentric to say the least, but getting back to being open to “experiences” on the trail, I decided to stop there.

Let me begin by saying that the stay at Hiker Town was quite the experience. The place looks like a run down old west movie set and there are tumbleweeds everywhere. The wind was constantly howling. There was a sign on the gate explaining the rules and I was blown away to see that everything there was free. I was greeted by a nice lady named Martha who was the caretaker and she gave me the dollar tour; she showed me where the hiker kitchen, shower, clothes washing area and cabins were. Then she said to find her after my shower and she wood set me up with some tamales.

So I moved my stuff into the Jessica Rabbit room and then took a much needed shower. Martha hooked me up with some amazing tamales and a Corona and I ate on the outdoor table they had setup in the front yard. It was about that time that an older gentleman came out of the house and sat down at the table and said he was awfully hungry and asked me if I had any extra food. I figured this guy was messing with me, but I played along telling him that Martha had brought out the tamales, but he was welcome to some of my portion if he wanted.

After a bit of that back and forth, he finally introduced himself as Richard and said that he owned Hiker Town. He was starting to tell me the story of how this little hiker rest stop along the trail came to be when a frazzled hiker drove up in van driven by a trail angel. The hiker said that he had hiked out of there three days before and when he got to Tehachapi, he realized his wallet and PCT permit were missing. He thought he might have left them at Hiker Town accidentally. It turns out the hiker had $1900 in cash (all his money for the whole journey) in the wallet. He never did find it. Richard and I offered some cash to the hiker but he wouldn’t take it. What an awful way to bring a PCT hike to an end!

Richard invited me into his house there on the property, gave me a coffee and proceeded to tell me all sorts of wild stories about his past until around midnight. Richard was 80 and had been a crew chief in the Marines, briefly attended USC, and then went into business leasing upscale cars to the movie studios. He had been a movie and TV producer. While at his production office in LA, he had been in a real life shootout when a mobster tried to shake him down for protection money in the late 70s. He had worked for Disney’s EPCOT center and finally had shifted into a petroleum additive products business.

He had purchased the property that Hiker Town sits on as well as a bunch more nearby land speculating in the early 2000s when at the time there had been plans to build a huge master community called Centennial just west of his place. But most of that fell through during the financial crisis. He had no previous knowledge about the PCT and the thru-hikers who hike it, until one day when some “hobos” showed up to his property looking for water before doing the hot aqueduct section of the trail. He learned that these folks were not actually hobos and he loved learning their stories (and telling his own) so he started forming Hiker Town into what it is today to host these hikers each season.

The following day, Richard made me breakfast and we chatted some more and he asked me to check out his printer and see if I could fix it. It turned out all of his cartridges were dry and he asked me if I wanted to go into town with him to get more. I had nothing else going on so I said yes. But before we could go to Staples, we stopped at a local citizen’s home who was being visited by animal control because of complaints about how he was maintaining a horse and a mule. It was quite interesting seeing the “Boss Hog” of Neenach assisting with the animal control officer.

From there, he drove his truck like it was a sports car a couple miles down the road to a gas station that he owned and showed me his office. He had all sorts of photos on the wall of him and various movie stars and politicians. He seemed to be quite connected in Southern California.

We went to Staples and I picked out the cartridges he needed and then we popped into a sporting goods store so I could get a couple supplies. Then it was back to Hiker Town. As we were pulling up to his place, he casually mentioned that he had been pushed by a disgruntled citizen after a recent town council meeting. So now he had a restraining order for the man and he said, “Hey, you’re an uninterested party – how about you serve the restraining order?” I have to admit part of me kind of wanted to do it and I was about to continue saying “yes” on this journey, but I asked to read the documents before making a decision. The documents were going to need address and contact info and I was going to be on the trail and “uncontactable” for a while. I didn’t want to possibly be bothered with legal questions while on the trail. He called the local sheriff for advice and in the end I got out of it because it was ten minutes before LA county curfew would start at 6 pm. That could have been quite a crazy story if I had served a restraining order in the middle of my hike… but I think it was better for all involved that I didn’t.

The experience at Hiker Town is a perfect example of meeting people on the trail and being open to trail experiences- whatever flavor they might be. I’m sure there will be plenty more interesting trail experiences along the way, especially if I make myself open to them.

Trail Facts:

• Trail miles walked – 63
• Current PCT mileage marker – 517
• Current Audiobook – Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose
• Current Podcast – Against the Rules Season 2 by Michael Lewis
• Additional PCT Thru-Hikers I’ve met – Smokey
• Additional wildlife seen – black-tailed jackrabbit, western gray squirrel, two quite amorous lizards