Days 1-3

Section 1: Campo to Mt. Laguna, 42 miles, 3 days, 2 nights

Day 1 - 11 Miles

The southern terminus of the Pacific Crest Trail! An exciting sight even if it did feel like cheating to know I was only going a measly 42 miles down the trail. 

If you keep heading that way you'll reach Canada. Eventually. 

First flowers on the trail!

First camp was only 11 miles in, we had started late and didn't make it far. The camp was perfect besides some lingering TP that we burned in a nice little fire pit. 

Day 2 - 17 Miles

The second day we passed a group of geocachers and a bunch of day hikers around Lake Morena.

 Nice views of the rare green going on this spring.  We crossed the 8 after refilling with water at Boulder Oaks Campground and found a nice little campsite above Kitchen Creek Falls.

It was a long day and the sunset right after we had finished setting up camp so we had to cook dinner by head lamp. 

It was the first in field test of my soup creation! Delicious!

Day 3 - 15 Miles

 We reached our target miles for the day at around noon (we planned a very leisurely pace) and decided to continue on to finish the section in three days instead of three and a half.

 The first pines on the PCT!

 The view back down to the border was magical!

 First snow sighting!

First desert view! We ended the section with very tired feet and a large meal at the Pine Lodge in the small community of Mt. Laguna. All in all it was a great gear test and I started to get a better feel for things which gave me lots of ideas for improvement for the next section!