5.31.22 || PCT Day 17: 298.5 - 330.2 miles

tldr; first 30-mile day, passed Silverwood Lake, relistening to Serial, 🙄 kicked out of campsite 

We planned to do about 29 miles to get close to Cajon Pass for a half day. Descended most of the day, leaving Deep Creek and the pine trees to go back to the desert 🥲

Around 10 miles in we passed a natural hot spring — would’ve gone in if it wasn’t sooo hot. But it was a little sad too, trash and toilet power everywhere, graffiti. Apparently, it’s a popular spot for people from the LA area because you can get to it from a side trail.  Met a really nice hiker,  “trash can” who we leapfrogged with throughout the day. 

Hit a creek to fill up before our last 15 miles and came across more trail magic from Jen and her dog Basil ✨ forgot how amazing caprisuns are. Met “grassman” and “skinny (love)” and we all started the long hot descent to Silverwood Lake. 

Started relistening to the Serial podcast because I forgot to download new episodes last time I had service. Oddly I never get tired of it. :) Got super tired around 7pm and ate a few huge spoonfuls of peanut butter for morale. Golden hour around the lake was incredible. 

We learned that you couldn’t actually camp within the state park so we pushed on another 2 miles and set up camp in a field that seemed to be outside the boundary. But at 10pm, state park police showed up and kicked us out.. so we hiked another mile and found a dispersed camping spot. Unintentionally, our first 30 miler :)