Ep 1 The Beginning Pacific Crest Trail Vlog 2026

Good morning from day one of week one on the PCT. This morning we woke up at Cleefs Campground and had a really good pancake breakfast, which Papa Bear put together. It was super good. I had coffee, which I haven't had for a couple days, so that was a nice luxury. It's about 9am and I think we're roughly 5 miles in, so we're doing pretty good. It is getting hot though, so we just put on sunscreen and I guess I need to put it on my face too. I can't just trust this hat. But it's going good. We've taken a couple breaks and I guess I could probably be drinking a little more water. But there's a water cache at mile 14 today, so I've got several liters to get me to there and then I'll pack out whatever I need for the night after that. But it's been really beautiful and exposed. We spent a lot of the morning looking at the border wall and looking into Mexico, so that was cool. These are pretty too. He's doing the PCT. Are you going solo? Please do the pushups. I'm pretty sure it's Yucca. That's cool. I'll make sure before I tell the internet. Home sweet home with a little view. I'm having a congrats you made it to Camp Snack, nerds rope. I realize something is probably obviously glaringly missing from this video and that is tagging the terminus this morning. Just to share in case you didn't see it, in my getting to trail video I actually tagged the terminus yesterday as a continuation of my travel and hiked the .5 down to Cleefs campground last night where I stayed. I wanted to just give myself that tiny little bit of a taste on what was technically my first day of trail, but I wanted to primarily give myself rest as I come down from this head cold. That was yesterday. If you want to see me tag the terminus, you can see my getting to trail video. Otherwise, today on what I am in my heart calling day one, I started from Cleefs which is .5 miles down the trail. Just to clear the air. I wiped my face, I wiped my feet. I am hydrating, I am horizontal, and I am reading Dungeon Crawler Carl in the middle of the desert. It's a good day. Good morning from day two on the PCT. Wow. We just left the malt shop at Lake Marina, used the bathroom, charged the phone, successfully only bought electrolytes, and filled up water, met some hikers. Yeah, doing pretty good. That's the campground behind us that we could have stayed at for $7, but we chose not to. And the next little stretch will be on trail tonight, and then tomorrow we should be passing through the Mount Laguna area, so that'll be the next area to resupply and have some amenities. So, back out into the wilderness. Woohoo! Oh lordy. Here, you can lead it. Sure. Oh, great noise. Yeah, this is 21. Please don't snap in the middle. Just stopped at the Boulder Oaks campground for water and another little snack break. So far, all of the water I have gotten on the PCT has been potable, so I have not had to filter once, but I am now headed to, oops, there's the trail leading the road. I'm now headed to Kitchen Creek, where I'll actually have to filter my water. But that is in about four miles. It's like 11 o'clock, so I think I am going to take a long lunch siesta there, maybe soak my feet, and then I'll only be two miles from camp for the night. So, going good. I feel like I could probably do more than that today, and I felt like that yesterday, but that, I think, is a good sign. I still have energy left, but I'm not pushing it to the end of my stamina each day yet. Okay, on to Kitchen Creek. Oh, I just got water, but that's really nice. Big highway. I do love that on the PCT, you can see where we're headed. You can see that line over there. That's where I'm headed. I'll be there next. And now I'm on that section of trail, looking back at where I was. There's Kitchen Creek. I took a little dip. We've been here for like an hour and a half, had lunch, dried my tent, reapplied sunscreen. But I'm out here with Cowgirl, who is actually on YouTube, right? Yes. As Outdoor Ricky. Yes. Outdoor Ricky. And then I've been hiking the last couple days with Crumbs there also. So when I say we, I'm talking about me and Crumbs. So yeah. Okay, we think that we've extended our plan today, too. We got swooned into going an extra two miles, because there's a funky section coming up around Laguna where there's a long section where you can't camp. So we're setting ourselves up to be able to power through it tomorrow, basically. So four more miles today. Okay, we made it to camp. We are like most of the way up the climb to Laguna, but there's still some climbing tomorrow morning. We did 17 and a half today. We extended it by a couple miles because we were feeling spunky, and that was great. I do have a blister on like the back of my heel, which is a funky spot for me. Usually I get them on the side of my toe, but I'm going to put some... My Band-Aid didn't work, so I'm going to put some Luco tape on it. But I'm all set up in my tent, and yeah, going to make dinner. Good morning from day three on the PCT. Today we are headed in and out of Mount Laguna, so we have about seven miles to get there with some climbing this morning. Let's do it. I'm having flashbacks this morning to the AT because we're on day, I forget now, like three, and my knee hurts, and I'm not actually that concerned. I slowed way down because I am like a mile and a half from Laguna, so I don't need to rush, and it's like 8 a.m., but I think I need to... I'm going to act on it kind of immediately. I'm going to see if I can find some KT tape in town to tape my knee and readjust my expected miles. It's... I really just think it's probably in the generalized term of overuse injury, but the same thing happened on the AT, and I was able to heal in motion with like an adjusted plan. So that's what I'm going to do again. I am a little sad because that means I might lose some of the people around me that I like, but I'm out here for the long haul, not just like a fun short wind. So I'm going to make some adjustments, and we'll be okay. So with my amended plan today, I'm only going like six more miles to a campground where PCT hikers can share like a walk-up site, so I'm kind of like fielding and trying to get people to join me to split the $35 fee. But it's currently 1120, so I have all the time in the world to make six miles. We're just hanging out at Mount Laguna Camp Store, which is this building here. The camp store is down further, and then right here is the post office. I'm just hanging out with a couple friends who are waiting until noon to get their boxes from the post office because I have so much time to kill. But yeah, the camp store here, or general store, has plenty of resupply, so I'm learning that I started the PCT with way more food than I needed to be carrying because at both Lake Marina and here, I didn't need to buy squat, which is kind of nice to have already had the food in my pack, but I guess I didn't have to be carrying it, but oh well. Nice to not be buying resupply again yet. Back on trail. I am feeling really good. It was a nice little stop at Laguna. Nice to rest my knee for a little bit. I also had service, so I got to update my family on the fact that I'm alive. And yeah, I found, they didn't have KT tape at the store, but I got this very light compression knee wrap. So that's on. I don't know how much that's going to do, but probably better than nothing. And I took an ibuprofen just to help with the afternoon hike, but yeah, I'm headed six miles to the Laguna campground. This pine cone is the size of my head. Okay, so I came from a very forested Mount Laguna area, and then the trees went away and the shrubs were like head high and I was walking through like a tunnel and now the shrubs are like knee high. I'm headed that way and look at this view that just showed up. Also you can see exactly where I'm going. You see the trail over there? Here we go. So the desert's been super green so far, but that is because we're following a very specific range. And just to the east is a very arid side to the desert. We're really on the edge of it. A bandaid didn't work, so we duct taped my heel and that's working. It's good, yeah. Good morning from day four on the PCT. I am leaving Laguna campground right now where we had a good shared site with seven of us three hikers and we had a really good night. It was really fun. It's the first time we've had a group of that size for camp and dinner was really fun, lots of laughs, getting to know people that I've been seeing a little better and meeting people for the first time, so yeah, it was lovely. The next couple days is our stretch to Julian, which is our first major town stop. Today I think we're aiming for like 16. I'm feeling my knee this morning, but not worse, just kind of the same. So I'm just going to take it easy. Yesterday I did 13 on it and it felt okay, especially at the end for whatever reason. It hurt less than it had all day. This morning I was brushing my teeth in my tent and I dribbled all over my sleeping bag and I wiped it up, hastily wiped it up with the sleeves of this black shirt you see I'm wearing and so I have toothpaste stain just all over this shirt now. So that's my joy so far at sunrise. So I had made a bet with myself on the first day that I was going to see a snake on my first day and I fully believed that was going to be true and I lost the bet with myself and so on day two I was like, okay that was a fluke, I'm doubling down and I doubled down on the same bet for day two and I didn't see a snake and I'm really kind of disappointed because I love snakes. I was going to like extend the bet to be like, okay just sometime within the first week but I think I'm going to try a new tactic and reverse psychology nature. So I don't think I'm going to see a snake, I don't think they're out here, it's not going to happen, we'll see if that works. Kind of scary. I've met so many great people, I'm going to pay them way more than I deserve. It would be an online program. Just a bidet, I have a bidet. Quick shade break with a very melted bar, getting electrolytes, it's hot. Short and stubby. So for like two days now, we have been seeing markers for like a trail race and when we were at that last water source, a trail angel named Ghost came up and told us that there's a trail race, 100k I think, that starts tonight. And he also told us that at the next water source, which is Sunrise Trailhead, what that sign was for, I guess that's also for the race, there's trailers for like an aid station and there's a chance we could grab some trail magic. So we're all very hopeful, we got less than a mile to go. We'll see if they have any giveaways. We made it. This is a whole thing. With campers. They have a bottle there? Oh wow. Alright, we made it to camp. Today ended up being 16 miles. The last bit of the day, since that trail magic was a bit of a slog, there was one other water source, I think just one, and it was right before we came down this really steep descent down to camp. But it was just hot today. It's the hottest day that we've had on trail. It was only in the, I think it's the low 80s or maybe like 80 degrees, so I know the desert has more to offer. But for us, it's the hottest that we've had to experience so far out here. Of course it feels hotter than that. I'm currently, I got my tent all set up and I just like threw everything out of my pack and got it in here and I'm hiding on the half that the sun doesn't hit. If you can see. Just like sequestered on the side. I'm going to let myself cool off and drink some water and then maybe I'll set up the inside of my tent. Okay, it is now almost 7. We did the dinner thing, cleaned up from the dinner thing, and we're all back in our tents now, so it's a little windy but not bad. I just did some video editing and made my list of things that I need to do and things I want to remember to buy in town tomorrow, so I'm really looking forward to our first town stay and I'm really glad it is not as hot as it was earlier. The desert be deserting. Okay, see you in the morning. But I'm probably not going to like post that immediately. Good morning from I think it's day five on the PTT. I am walking with that view the last of the sunrise this morning. Um, yesterday really kicked my tuchus just in terms of heat. I mean, I feel very lucky that we haven't had the like really gnarly desert heat yet, so it's just a reminder that the desert can do that and I have a lot of desert left to walk through. So, being mindful of that, but I did sleep pretty good. I, both myself and my friend Crumbs, at like 4am heard a rattlesnake outside at camp. Neither of us could see it, but it was definitely out there. I'm glad I didn't cowboy camp, which I almost did. Yeah. Other than that, I slept okay. I had kind of bad dreams. But, um, this morning so far I've already seen my first jackrabbit. I think. I don't really know the difference between a jackrabbit and a hare, but it was one of those two. And, um, wow. Amazing. This morning we have a mostly downhill 13-mile hike to Scissors Crossing where we will get a hitch over to the Stagecoach Trails RV park. Me and three girls have split a cabin there and we're going to have our first, um, indoor stay with shower and laundry and all the stuff. So, I am, well, I've been hiking slow trying to wake up, but it's going to be a real quick 13 miles in the first half of the day to get into town to do town stuff. Let's do it. It is about 7am now and the sun just started hitting me, um, and starting to feel warm, so I'll probably delay or soon, but just wanted to say that that's why I got up so early. I'm up at like 5am so far every day in the desert because I was able to check off 4 miles this morning before the desert sun hit and that feels like a little mini win. This plant is yucca, which is very cool, has a very tall flower, uh, but it's very pokey and this morning there have been a bunch of times where it's crossing the trail like this and I'm just getting all cut up this morning. Ow. I wonder if it is aloe. Internet, tell us. Two types of cactuses right next to trail. They're getting closer. Finally saw the first snake. It's hiding now in that bush, but, uh, not a rattler. We don't think it was really fast, but brown for sure. So, if you know what that might be, let me know. Otherwise, we're on a really flat section over to Scissors Crossing. Just two more miles till town. Okay, at Scissors Crossing we got our first hitch. It was this really sweet woman in a big like 16 passenger van with just her and her son. Um, and they gave us a hitch because they were going exactly the direction we were headed. So we are now at the Stagecoach Trails RV and they let us check in early to our cabin, so we're gonna make our way there. But we got snacks, um, at the camp store before heading that way. So, we're gonna go get checked in now. Ladies, burn the struggle in. Here's our little four cot cabin. Very fancy. I got all my stuff spread everywhere. Stuff charging. Laundry pile started. I also showered and I'm wearing all of my rain gear because it's the only thing that's clean. But I feel human. Okay, we did the dinner thing. We went and got our free ice cream, which was amazing. I got butter pecan and they said it was one scoop and it was a very large one scoop. So I'm very grateful for that. It was very good. But, uh, I'm, it is 7 o'clock and I'm not going to be non-horizontal for the rest of the time. So, I'm in bed, uh, and that's about it. I'm gonna read and not set an alarm for the morning. Tomorrow we will go check out Julian. It is. Okay, my eyes were a little bit bigger than my stomach, so I got this pizza, which I now have to put into bags and pack out. That was kind of the plan. I was planning to pack this out for dinner, um, but this is a little more than I expected. Maybe I'll give some away. Okay, we're in our last, like, tiny little bit in Julian. We've had a really good stay. Um, we did all the tour things and we're narrowing out today. So we've got, like, a little less than an hour before our shuttle is taking us back to trail. But at the moment, um, Crumbs and I are just on, like, a hiker box hunt. So, we just went to the Julian Lodge, where we didn't stay, but they had a hiker box. And I found KT Tape and taped up my knee. And I found these little, like, dried persimmon packs that were individually packaged. So, it felt sanitary. Um, and now we're on our way to find one more. And then we'll head back to trail. Okay, we are back to Scissors Crossing. We're back to the PCT. We had a great stay in Julian. And we are headed out for the next stretch, which will connect us over to Idylwyld. So, I will see you for that in episode two.