Day 3: April 15th

We got up extra early this morning after an actual good night of sleep and set out for Mt. Laguna, which is a 5000ft. elevation gain day! We were so happy to meet about four more hikers later that morning that had camped just about 200 yards from where we had camped, sadly they didn't "woo-hoo"... The hikers we met were Unbreakable and No Trace, Chuck Norris and Tigger and Sketch and Rambo and one other woman who flew by us without talking wearing a Scottish scarf, we call her the Flying Scottswoman in our heads...all on their way to Mt. Laguna. Some of the hikers had taken a break and we pressed on, having learned early that when you have a burst of energy to use it to the fullest. We had been walking by ourselves for about twenty minutes and we were getting close to Cibbets Flat Campground when I looked across a gully and saw another group of hikers all wearing black. It was so interesting to me that they were all wearing dark colors that I looked closer thinking that it was possibly a group of monks or something on a pilgrimage (I was tired, and it was just after Easter okay?). As I looked closer I quickly whipped my head around to hiss "ILLEGALS!" to Alex, my darling husband responded, "You see a bald eagle?!" After some rapid pointing Alex saw what I saw and snapped some pictures.

You can see that they all quickly dropped to the ground to hide. It was very sad, or not depending on your stance, that less than half an hour later we saw a big group of ATV's zooming by on a near road possibly to find these people.

Later in the day as we got closer to Mt. Laguna it got colder and colder and snow flakes actally began to fall. When we were about a mile away and frost was covering all of the trees we decided that we would stay the night at the motel that is in Mt. Laguna.

As we neared the mile got longer and longer and my knees really started to hurt, being the caring husband that he is Alex offered to carry my pack for me to give my knees a break. Who would have known his "trail name" would come from that, more on that later though.

We made it to the "lodge" just in time before they closed we were told from the owner that the weather was "bringing you people in like rats". Luckily we were able to get a room, some snacks, and ran to the bath to wash off some of our filth and warm ourselves in front of the heater. I fell asleep with a wide smile on my face, nachos in my belly and Lost on the twelve inch television. Bliss.