PCT mm 333.8 – Swimming finally!

What looks like a large dam is actually for flood control Yeah, it floods here. Seriously.

6-09-2016

I got up early and was on trail by 5 am because I had about 18 miles to go to the picnic area with water, shade, and swimming.  I passed the other crew I was with yesterday at about 5:20 and they were all still sleeping.  Late risers 😉

The rest of the canyon was pretty uneventful.  There was old rock work dated from 1927 along most of it and it was still in decent shape except for the graffiti.  Apparently deep creek has a history of flash flooding because they built an entire flood control dam to control it.  The spillway itself was at least 50 ft high.  That also explains the enormously high bridges that had built across the river over the previous 15 or so miles.

The morning started out cool, but got hot pretty quickly.  Every day the forecast says the max temp will be only 87 but then at the end of the day they report that it got to 100.

I took an early lunch break around 10 when I found some good shade trees and made a peanut butter, honey, and chili cheese Frito wrap.  I’m already sick of peanut butter and honey, but the fritos add that extra oomph that make it palatable.

There must be a large quantity of water somewhere around here.

I got to the first picnic area which had pit toilets and shaded picnic tables but no water.  It was very tempting to stop there since it was already one, but the lake water was greenish and I wanted a better spot two miles further, so I pushed on.  I got to the main picnic area about two and hit the toilets first.  Flushing toilets and running water, ahhhhh.  It’s the simple things.

Water at last! And lots of it.

I set up under the main pavilion which was vacant and tanked up on water and prepared to cook some soup when in rolled Robin.  He had the same idea as me… Go for the good picnic area.  We are some lunch, rested a bit, then went swimming for about 5 minutes.

The water had lots of plant life in it so it was not super pleasant, but boy did it feel good.

We dried, dressed, and both headed out around 5.  We were only 13 miles from I-15 which has a McDonalds and we both want to hit it for lunch.  I only ventured out 5 miles and camped and Robin went about 8.  He will probably dilly dally a bit before heading out tomorrow, and I will too, since I don’t want to get there before they serve lunch.  I’m not a fan of McD breakfast.  8 miles away and I can already smell the big Mac.

My typical camp setup in the desert – tent body to keep critters out but let the breeze in. Kitchen off to the side and laundromat everywhere.