This morning I packed up nice and early and was walking by 5:30 AM. It was pretty cold last night so I started the day in my Montbell wind layers. The trail was really beautiful and I was just walking along soft dirt and pine for most of the morning. Over the first hour or two I passed by a handful of hikers who were still at camp or in their tents.
Last night when I got into camp, my hip was bothering me a little bit. That’s been going on for a few weeks honestly. The funny thing is, the hip tightness is causing some pain in my knee. It’s generally in the exact area where you would expect pain in your IT band. But having had IT band issues in the past, I can tell that that’s not what it is. The normal stretching and PT exercises that I do haven’t really helped at all. It just feels like the hip issue is almost too deep to stretch. If that makes sense.
The trail was absolutely pristine this morning.
So last night, I decided to throw up a Hail Mary and KT tape the back of my thigh and my hip and butt cheek. This morning it finally felt like I was starting to work the sensation out of the depths of my hip. What has been a deeper sensation was now more of a superficial IT band sensation. Which I can work with!
For much of the morning I walked along a narrow ridge with tall rocks such as these alongside me.
So over the course of the morning, I did all of the tricks that I had to help with IT band tightness. Such as fixing my gait while I walk, squeezing through my butt cheeks more, and things like that. There are also a couple different stretches that I’m able to do while I’m standing with my pack on. So I stopped once every 30 minutes to an hour and very quickly did those stretches.
Lovely pink flowers growing alongside the trail.
By around 9:30 AM my knee felt completely better and I was way less tight. Which was so cool because I’ve been feeling this deeper tightness in my hip literally for weeks. I would have to go back in my blogs to determine exactly how long ago it started. But I believe it was maybe somewhere back in Pennsylvania on the Appalachian Trail. It just felt good to have the sensation change a bit. Now it’s something that I know and recognize it seems a bit more manageable. KT tape is a really magical thing that I don’t completely understand.
The trail went up and over a few different bridges over the course of the day.
Around the same time, I started passing a bunch more hikers. Over the course of the first few hours of the day I had passed at least 25–30 hikers. Which felt crazy because the last couple days have been pretty quiet. I won’t see a ton of people over the course of the day. Then I’ll hit pockets of 6 to 12 hikers at a time. The trail began weaving across this creek around this time, and I got stuck in a bit of a traffic jam of hikers trying to keep their feet dry on a rock hop. But then I got up ahead and passed the big group pretty quickly.
After passing about 30 to 35 people for the day, it quieted down a bit. I would still see more hikers over the course of the day, but significantly fewer in comparison. At one point when I was walking, I passed two hikers going southbound. I asked them what they were doing and the two guys had actually just finished the Arizona trail. They had a little bit more time left in the states and just wanted to get some more hiking in before they went home.
I swear, this year must be a super bloom. There are so many flowers out in the desert!
I also walked by a guy and a girl by a water crossing. The girl recognized me off of some form of social media. Her name was Batina and his name was Guido. I believe around this time it was just before noon, and I had gone around 20 miles for the day already. I crossed over a bridge which marks a junction for a small town just off trail. I think you have to walk into the town though, and I’ve never gone there before.
Today I’m hoping to do about 40 miles, so this marked the halfway point for the day. But I was feeling amazing so I was hopeful that it would be a nice early day. From there I continued on for another hour or so. Then I wound up crossing over the PCT 300 mile marker. It’s pretty crazy to think that I am more than 300 miles into this trail by day 9. By the end of the day, I’ll be nearly 320 miles into the trail by the end of day 9.
Crossing over the 300 mile marker on the PCT!
Just after passing the 300 mile marker, I came upon another hiker. He recognized me immediately and was super excited to meet me. His name was Rusty and he was so ridiculously nice! He says he’s been following along on the videos for the last few weeks. We took a picture together, and I chatted with him for a bit. Then we walked near each other for a little bit and talked some more before I continued along. He was super nice and said didn’t want to mess with my pace or “hold me back“. Which wasn’t the case, but I appreciated the sentiment. After talking with him, I just kept it moving, heading in the direction of Deep Creek Hot Springs.
Making my way over to Deep Creek Hot Springs.
Deep Creek is one of my favorite locations on the PCT and I’ve been so excited to go by it. Yesterday the temperatures would’ve been absolutely perfect to get into the spring. It was a bit overcast all day and wasn’t too hot. But by the afternoon today, it was scorching hot. Just before I got to the springs I stopped off to fill up on water. Deep creek is infamously a little bit gross. It’s a very popular day hiker location and there’s lots of trash, literal human feces, and things like that. I figured it would be a safer to get water before I arrived there.
A rusted out trail sign.
When I got to the hot spring around 3 PM, part of me really wanted to stop and maybe swim in the river. But at that point, I figured if I was going there just to go for a swim, then there would probably be a much cleaner water source to swim in at another time. I also still had about 12 miles to go for the day so I would be getting to camp right around 7 PM. I just decided to push on and didn’t even wind up going over to the Hot Springs. There were at least 10–15 hikers over there when I walked by. Part of me was a little bit jealous. But it was also way too hot to get into a hot tub in the middle of the day.
There pretty little purple flowers were dancing in the wind.
When I passed by the Hot Springs, the trail began climbing for a mile or so. Then you just kind of ride along a narrow ridge for the next few miles. It was ridiculously hot and exposed. Around this time, I started noticing a weird sensation behind the back of my right knee. When I touched it I finally realized that I was breaking out in some kind of hives. It was hundreds of those teeny tiny hives that I had gotten before when I was down in Florida in January. Back then I was never able to figure out what was going on. It just seems like some kind of dermatitis combined with the photo sensitivity reaction. My best bet would be that some oils of one of the plants that brushed up against me today caused the skin irritation when introduced to the extreme direct sunlight.
The trail followed along Deep Creek before finally dropping down to the hot springs.
Over the next hour or so it just got worse and worse. And as time went on, a similar reaction happened on the back of my left thigh. As the day progressed, it would just get more and more swollen and uncomfortable. Previously when it happened, sunblock actually made it worse. So I definitely didn’t want to try anything like that. Fortunately, last time I wound up getting a topical which completely healed the area after a few doses. Especially in conjunction with Benadryl. But I don’t want to put a sticky salve on my skin when I’m still hiking for the day. So I’ll just have to wait and deal with it once I get to camp for the night.
Crossing over one final bridge once I was a few miles past from the hot springs.
After walking along the ridge for a while, I eventually dropped down and began making my way out towards a road. I actually got some service and was able to book a room for myself at Cajon pass for tomorrow night. I was hesitant about booking it yesterday and banking on being able to do 40 miles today. Especially because my hip has been bothering me. But today I was feeling amazing and only had another 7–8 miles to go to hit 40 miles for the day.
This ridge continued for miles before the trail dropped down toward a dam.
Not long after that, the trail crossed over a creek and there were a couple narrow logs you had to walk across to keep your feet dry. I only had one trekking pole out which made the log crossing way more difficult. I was kind of just hopping on 1 foot trying to balance between these super narrow and wiggly logs. The water beneath me was actually pretty deep too, so I had to bend over to touch my trekking pole to the ground beneath the surface. But I managed to get across unscathed.
Gansito are so dang good.
Then the trail took me into the woods for a little while before eventually bringing me back out to a really exposed section of trail. I passed another hiker named Tex around this time. She thought I was someone else and I confused her a bit. We chatted briefly before I continued on after that, trying to get to camp as quickly as possible. With every mile that went by I just kept getting more and more hives behind my legs and across the top of my legs.
How the hives looked after a couple of hours.
By this point, the hives were so swollen that it hurt to bend my knee too much. Uphill trail was definitely much more comfortable than flat and downhill for some reason. I just didn’t like that I had to baby my leg a bit to walk. Changing your gait and things like that can be detrimental in the long term. But I knew I didn’t have long to go and this was kind of just a freak situation.
Closer to the end of the day I wound up running into two other hikers named Christian and Dreamer. Dreamer actually recognize me from some form of social media. Both guys were super nice and I chatted with them for a bit. Dreamer is going to be staying in Cajon Pass tomorrow too, so I’ll probably see him again there. He wound up stopping earlier and setting up camp for the night. Then I walked with Christian for the last 2 miles of the day to my hopefully empty tent site.
Christian up ahead of me along the trail.
With how many hikers there are on the trail recently it’s definitely a gamble to bank on a tent site that only fits one to two tents. With how bad the hives were feeling, I was really hoping I didn’t have to push further past there. I had seen comments about more tent sites less than half a mile down the trail. But for the last 1-2 miles of the day I was super uncomfortable because of the hives. And 40.7 miles was going to be plenty for me for the day.
Putting salve on made the hives look a lot worse, but feel so much better. I can’t believe how quickly something like this can form.
When I got to the tent site, I found it was empty! You actually couldn’t see it from the trail. So if you weren’t checking the map to look for the tenting icon, most people probably wouldn’t have noticed it at all. It was a perfect flat spot right on the side of a ridge. It was also facing the direction of the sunset. So not only did I get to finally stop for the day, but this is going to be one of the most beautiful tent spots that I’ve ever camped in this year.
Ouch. Why does this happen to me?
By the time that I got there, I was feeling a little bit funky. I wouldn’t say that I had the chills, but my body was definitely doing some crazy stuff in reaction to all of the hives. My neck felt sore and I just felt pretty weird. I also knew I was hungry and probably a little bit dehydrated. The hives had just become the central focus of the remainder of my day. So I probably hadn’t eaten or drank enough to finish off the day.
Huge thank you to Christian Paul for this incredible shot of me yesterday, just before arriving at camp. The contrast is stunning to say the least.
Before setting up my tent, I took a couple of Benadryl. Then I got my camp situated for the night and I made a mountain house meal for dinner. I also ate some snacks while I waited for that to rehydrate. And when I finally got into my tent, I used the topical lotion that I had treated the allergic reaction with previously. I felt better to some extent almost immediately.
On the bright side, my tent site was gorgeous.
I was really tired from the Benadryl and feeling a little bit delirious, but still managed to get a bit of writing and video work done in the evening. And tomorrow I only have 22 miles to get to Cajon pass. That’s the portion of trail with the iconic McDonald’s just .2 miles off the trail. I’m going to spend the night at the Inn in town so I can catch up on writing and video work. And the timing couldn’t be better as well after having this major allergic reaction today. I also did 40 miles today and 40 miles yesterday, so it’ll be nice to do a shorter day. Tomorrow’s going to be day 10 of the PCT and it’s looking like I’ve averaged about 34–35 miles a day since I got on trail.
After staying up for a little while and getting some writing and video work done, I eventually couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore. Then I finally rolled over and headed to bed. Hopefully tomorrow the hives are mostly gone and don’t bother me over the course of the morning and afternoon.
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