Take the Water

This morning we woke up to an extraterrestrial landscape. Fog was flowing like a massive inverted river from the small valley behind us over into the the valley we were descending into today. It was thick as pea soup, but every few minutes the struggling sun poked through to illuminate the bizarre and beautiful scene around us.

Since we got up so early it was cool for the first half of the day as we picked our way down off Combs Peak Ridge. We passed a couple of folks on the and chatted with them, comparing notes on our windy night at the ridge against their more raucous night at Mike's.

We passed some folks at a water cache (spot where trail angels or PCTA members place jugs of water in between longer natural stretches) and they waved us down so we went over and got a couple liters. *Out here, we loosely use the rule that one liter is good for five miles.* We would quickly find out we should have grabbed more. The cistern we were planning on using was dirt nasty and our second option after that (a seasonal creek) was bone dry. With over 12 miles to go to the cafe and only a liter and a half of water to get me there against the rising temperature, I strapped myself in for a tough afternoon.

After a couple of very hot and very dry hours of climbing down and back out of small canyons with no water we found a surprise sign informing us that there was another water cache ahead (and also that the local "farmers" were growing weed and were not hiker friendly aka don't go knocking on their door asking for water haha).

When we reached that cache we had already learned our most valuable lesson for the day, TAKE THE WATER WHEN YOU CAN. You can always drink it down if it's too heavy, but if you don't have it then you're kind of screwed.

As the sun was starting to set we trudged one final mile on the road down to Paradise Valley Cafe, a wonderful establishment with a name that doesn't even begin to justify how amazing it is. The Route 66 Burger (add avocado, of course) and chocolate shakes made up a sensory food experience like I've never had before, and they were gone terrifyingly fast. I could never say enough about how awesome the people working there are either. They were friendly, attentive, filled all of our water bottles, refused a bunch of tips, and later bought all of us a round of beers. After our much-needed display of gluttony we set up camp right on the patio and got to know the half dozen or so fellow adventurers who were making Paradise Valley Cafe home for the night.