Day 3

By Hedgehog

Magic Man made a late night trip into San Diego to pick BooBoo's mom (Shannon) up from the train station. She is joining the adventure for a week and fulfilled one of her dreams of taking a train from Seattle to San Diego.

After discussing it on Day 2 it was decided that all 4 of us (BooBoo, Hedgehog, Mark, and Cass) were going to slack pack 10 miles on Day 3.

For those who don't know slackpacking is when you arrange to hike to an access point where you'll be picked up and brought back to lodging for the night. The next day you resume hiking from that same access point. Doing this allows you to remove the bulk of the weight from your pack as you don't need any overnight gear. You can take only what food/water/equipment you'll need to accomplish the mileage between you drop off and pick up spots. Slack packing also allows you to move a little faster due to the less weight you're carrying.

The next access point was 10 miles north, so that was our goal. This would keep us doing miles on the PCT but also allow our bodies to recover from 2 long, strenous days.

So after a mid-morning breakfast of oatmeal and coffee we heaed out. The knoeledge that we were doing a short day with a return to a bed & shower made for very nice day. Booboo and I took several breaks to enjoy the scenery a nf the nice weather.  As usual we leapfrogged Mark&Cass a couple of times during the day.We all hike roughly the same pace so when we take a break they pass us and vice versa.
Magic Man meet us about halfway through our day with a shade tent and cold beverages. It is amazing how quickly and how much those become precious. Thanks Magic Man. He then met us at our rendevous point and shuttlef us back to Mt Laguna and the rental cabin.

At the end of the day the 6 of us went to dinner and then tired from hiking (or a late night/early morning arrival) we had another early night.