Day 1 (Pete)


Day 1: First day. Night rather. I have my head lamp on in order to write this. We’re camped in a small, ten by ten, clearing twenty yards from the trail. The sand is accommodating. We are hidden by a thicket of virtually impenetrable brush called “Chemise.”

A mere hour after farewells at the border, we had the displeasure of walking through such dense and biting plant cover for about a mile. Our first wrong turn. A topographic map and compass did help to effectively relocate the trail. It gave us a great deal of confidence to see it cutting up the hillside, right where the line on the paper said it would be. The country here is surprisingly nice. We passed all five hikers that signed the border trail register yesterday. I guess we hike at a good clip. I already lost something. My writing paper & pen. Dyl let me borrow his pen. I found a Cheerios box at the Lake Morena campground where we had our dinner. Cut it up and writing on cardboard for now. The horizon is ever reaching north. Leaving Siri, my girlfriend, back at the border was the only thing that could have made this a sad day. The idea to do this walk was proposed perhaps three or four years ago. Making it from that day to this day was quite a journey in and of itself. Twenty some illegal immigrants were arrested today in Hauser Canyon. Didn’t see a one off ’em. Must now turn off the head lamp so as not to alert the night time drug smugglers.


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