[pct-l] Hauser Canyon / Creek

[yuppatt at sbcglobal.net (JOHN F PATTERSON)]

I started north from the border last year on May 5 at 5:20 AM. I had the usual adrenalin rush that probably all through hikers experience their first day out on a long, long trip . My aim was the Canadian border . I started thanks to Bob Reiss running me out to the trail head at that very early hour . He also brought a couple , Brian and Caryl - I think Caryl spells it this way - and they started right behind me . That day , by my count , nine of us in all started north . Caryl said to me before we left San Diego , :" Do you have six liters of water ? " Basically I brushed off the question . I had maybe three liters and some more in a bottle - pint - I bought just before leaving S D . I thought, I knew best . Perhaps 12, 13, or 14 miles out I was down to about a quart . Kat , Frank and Christine came along as I was taking a break tucked in under the chaparral - the girls were hiking with colorful parasols tucked into their packs in back which shaded them . They were generous with me
 and gave me at least two more quarts . I hiked on . When I got to Hauser about two thirty or three I was again low . I was down to less than a quart . Clearly I needed to have listened to Caryl ( and Bob who had also asked me before we left SD if I had enough water . . . ) and , by the way , all the literature / experienced hands had said the same . Sitting there in the dry grass adjacent to the empty creek I had a kind of epiphany, as they say . ( I needed to . . . ) I lectured myself : " Well , big shot , look here where you have gotten yourself . You were alerted every which way that you needed to carry sufficient water . " I " ate " my deed . Soooo , I had to regroup right there on my very first day . The sun was on the exposed climb out of the canyon and I could see Christine and Mike , I thought, making their way up hill slowly . " Dummy ! " But that wouldn ' t get it done . I gathered myself together and as best I could now considered my options . Maybe someone would come
 along and I could get enough water from them to make it at least up these switchbacks or . .  I can rest and in the evening when it is cooler I can head out if no one comes who can share water with me . Those seemed the best choices . I waited and the same Frank and Kat and Christine came along and were - very fortunately for me - still well provided with water and , I thought , extremely generous with me in sharing . I was embarrassed but, too , I did learn the water lesson. I learned it right right there my first day and thanks to those three it wasn ' t as painful as it certainly well could have been . But also I learned a lesson of the trail . I think of it - that lesson and the way I learned it as benefits of - from my hike /adventure. Right there in Hauser Canyon I matured . . . a little -  even at age 65 . Isn ' t this representative - serves to express ,  some of the reasons we go out ? Rafter Jack