Day 1 (05.05.18)

Miles 0-15.4. Campo to Hauser Creek
Finally, the day has come, our starting date of the PCT! We get up at 4.45am which is fairly easy with our jetlag. After a quick breakfast about 25 hikers get inside the vans and we drive to the Mexican border. As we drive there we can already see the Southern Terminus monument right next to the border fence. What an epic moment! A journalist is there to ask a couple of questions for a magazine piece and then we get our pictures taken in front of the Southern Terminus. We write a poetic sentence in the trail register and then off we are. It‘s 8am by now, there‘s a light breeze, the sun is shining and the scenery is already breathtaking. Soon it gets much hotter and we pull out our umbrellas. We keep leapfrogging with two Swiss girls, Fiona and Sonja, all day and we are all already suffering from the heat we are not used to (we‘ve just been through a cold Swiss winter after all). We hardly eat any lunch as the heat is really getting to us. We just try to stay hydrated and take it step by step. We are already way up in the mountains, no civilization around us. Finally, by 6pm we arrive at the tentsite where most hikers have already set up their tents. Dario sets up everything because at that stage I am feeling really nauseous and completely exhausted. He eats a dehydrated mountain house meal but I can‘t be bothered with food. 9pm, so-called hiker midnight is approaching fast. I think by 9.05 we are fast asleep under the stars in Hauser Creek. What a hot and intense first day!