Syke(!)s: Night One

Night 1/25

I had the opportunity to go on a backpack this month!

My friend Skye had also never been to Sykes Hot Springs in Big Sur and so we went. Both of us have spent a good chunk of our lives living in Santa Cruz, and I have been backpacking in Big Sur twice, so never having been there felt a little strange.

And we hiked in, and then we hiked out the next day. And I never need to go back.

It is a ten mile hike with quite a bit of elevation gain and some trail obstacles. A giant felled tree for one. Falling the wrong way getting over that log would suck. A lot. Before we left we knew it was Spring Break for at least one of the major local universities, but it was the time we had so we went.

i don't think i am exaggerating if i say we saw over 100 people in the two days of hiking. It seemed like something of a pilgrimage for college students. There were folks hiking in all manner of preparedness and dress and gear and lack there of. One girl was carrying a plastic grocery sack and she was wearing a black eyelet romper with fashion boots. The man she was with seemed to be hefting the gear, etc. load for the both of them. Another man I saw hiking was carrying two duffel bags each slung across his chest in a different direction and he was carrying a guitar in his hands. It was kind of stunning. In 29 years of backpacking I had never seen anything like it.

Parts of the trail are steep, very steep. There is poison oak everywhere, there are many stream crossings.

The site of the hot springs itself is trashed. There is trash around, between where we chose to camp and the river was a pile of human shit, thoughtfully covered in toilet paper. And since there is nowhere to poop, it's not all that surprising. Although I assume the perpetrator did the deed under the cover of darkness. There are too many people around to get away with that in the daylight. According to what I read on the internet there is a wilderness toilet one should use. However, although I looked for it, I never found the sign. The signs for the toilets were obvious at the other campsites we passed. When we asked around we were told it was gross, and smelled. But nobody could describe very well where it was actually located. The hot springs are better described as a tepid trickle that has been dammed by previous visitor's. We hiked in on a Monday. It was getting more crowded as we were hiking out.

But, that was my first night out!! 24 more to go. For what it's worth, I slept remarkably well.

And, it was not without its moment of tranquility. Really. For all those people there it was somewhat quiet. Furthermore, there were a ton of dogs and still it seemed pretty quiet.

My daughter is asking if we can get to our/her blog now. Today is going to be our first post and we decided on the name: The Xochitl Mommy Blog.