Dirty Details: Backpacking the Trans-Catalina Trail, Avalon to BlackJack (Day 1)

Detailed Trip Report: Day 1
Day 2 here | Day 3 here | Day 4 here

Day 1 [May 10]: San Diego to Avalon to Blackjack Campground

*Hike distances and elevation changes are all educated estimates based on maps and tools such as AllTrails.

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Getting to Avalon, Catalina Island

• Left San Diego County (Encinitas), California at 5AM, arrived at Dana Point Harbor around 5:40AM asked about where we needed to check-in for our ferry and buy parking.  
• Left and got McDonald’s Breakfast.  Usually I just go with the classic Egg McMuffin and coffee but now that I know how good the hash browns are, it’s full breakfast from here on out.  
• Sat in car and waited for 6:30AM check-in time.  Texted with east coast family and uploaded photos while Brandon slept. Checked in, got parking, parked, walked back over, made a bathroom run then boarded.

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• Enjoyed the apx 1.5 hour ferry ride to Avalon. Chatted with a nice retired couple who had some good travel recommendations and a no non-sense approach to limiting their grandkid’s cell phone use. The wife collects them in a basket before dinner.

Avalon to Trans-Catalina Trail “Trailhead”

• Arrived at Avalon, topped off our water supplies, used the bathroom, and started walking.
• Kept Walking and realized it was not immediately apparent where we were walking.  I did not do a lot of, ok, any research on where the trailhead was because I thought it would be intuitive, or that there would be signs everywhere, or that there would be other backpackers to follow. Not so much.
• The two other backpackers that were on the ferry with us had quickly disappeared and locals’ seemed far less familiar with that trail than I would have thought.  We got a few responses along the lines of, “is that the one that runs the island…yeah, I think, it’s that way….”
• The most confident set of directions we got were to go up along the golf course but when we walked in that direction, it didn’t seem like it went through and if it did, it seemed like it would be a short-cut.  
• I didn’t want to “cut” any of the trail and the directions that I had pulled from the Catalina Conservancy back in March, AllTrails, and my phone map all put the trailhead for the TCT at Renton Mine Road.  So, we navigated to the marked trailhead.

• The navigation took us up paved, uphill Wrigley Road then onto a gravely road.  During the walk, I did a little sign of the cross, praying that this would lead us to the trail – in part because I was already feeling the climbing and in part because I had expressed confidence in the phone navigation and was hoping it would at least be Day 2 before Brandon wanted to kill me.

Bonus Miles

• A little more than an hour after we landed in Avalon, we finally made it to Renton Mine Road. No Trans-Catalina sign but it was at least a trail.  

• There were some nice views of Avalon as we started the climb and then some quiet views of the other side of that end of the island.

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• Mostly, it was up and up and up we went for miles along exposed windy, wide, gravely path. We had some periods of light cloud coverage but overall, quite warm. We didn’t see one other hiker or backpacker in this section but did get passed by a few safari-like tour vehicles.

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• We subsequently learned that the golf course route was correct.  Apparently, the route of the Trans-Catalina Trail has changed and we were on the “old” route. Our approach gave us some “bonus” mileage for the day: 2.8 trail miles and 1.5 road miles more than we would have done if we took the direct route.
  Lesson learned!  I should have done more research and/or we could have stopped at the Catalina Conservancy in Avalon to get directions and maybe a better map.

Hit the [Official] Trail 

• We followed the AllTrails Avalon to Blackjack route until we eventually hooked up with the current official TCT.  I’m not sure exactly what mile that was at but eventually we saw a “Trans-Catalina Trail” sign and a few other hikers.
• The demoralizing part was it felt like we had been putting in work for hours (because we had) but we could still see Avalon since our bonus miles wrapped us out in the opposite direction and back again.

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• Brandon told me no hot lunch because of how much mileage we had left to cover and get in before dark.  It was a good call and my Sour Patch Kid and Kind Bar diet kept me satiated.  
  This part of the hike was a welcome respite from our climb-heavy start.  There was still gain and loss, but the uphills were in smaller more manageable chunks.

A Change of Pace

• A few miles later, we finally got off the wide gravely section onto narrower trail.  I was looking forward to getting off the f*&ing gravely road, but quickly realized that the new type of travel was different but not necessarily easier.  It was less even and rocky at points so there was more balancing required around the same time that some fatigue from the morning’s hiking started to sink in.  It was still fun to have a change of pace.
• We encountered our first heard of Bison! Woohoo!  They were far enough away that it wasn’t scary.  
• A random lady from a group that was hanging out drinking, eating, and playing music in a park offered us fig protein balls.  We accepted. 
• We got a little off track, unfortunately, that added a tiny bit more climbing at a time when I really did not want to add any extra steps to the journey.
• Some mist cooled us off for a few minutes.

Slog to the Campsite

• The bison, protein ball, and mist section was pretty fun, but at some point after that things started to turn.  
• I no longer just had tired legs, my freaking hip started to hurt – not ache, hurt.  I tried turning my feet more inward or outward to try to make it go away but the only thing that seemed to work was going uphill which brought with it its own set of issues – I was tired!  Brandon expressed that he was having pains around this point too which at least made me feel like I wasn’t thaaaat weak.
• The last three miles or so had two challenging climbs of about .5 miles total each which included sections with an incline of over 30%!  Really? 

• There was a really pretty look-out in this final stretch that we stopped at and met the first fellow backpackers on the same route as us. We’d end up chatting with them throughout the trip. I was nervous that if I stopped too long or took off my pack, I’d be camping there for the night. Propping it on the table took off all the weight though.

• I pulled out every mental trick in the book to try to push through the end: counting steps and giving myself a break when I hit a certain number, distracting myself by taking photos, looking for heart shaped (ish) cacti, coming up with names for flowers. I named one “just the tip,” because it was white with a colored top and another “tiny stars,” which lead me to sing “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” in my head.  I was losing my sh%t.

A 3-Course Meal: Dinner, Dessert, and a Cocktail

• I arrived at BlackJack Campground to find Brandon lying across a picnic table.  We found our campsite easily – there are only a few at BlackJack Campground.
• We had dehydrated backpacker food.  Caribbean Jerk Rice (so terrible that we didn’t finish it between the two of us) on tortillas, corn and peas (sweet so I liked it), and chocolate mousse (surprisingly delicious).
• A “nightcap,” at what was probably 7PM of straight whiskey for Brandon and whiskey + hot apple cider for me.  I highly recommend that as a backpacker cocktail.
• Brandon quizzed me on math conversions which is downright cruel after such a long day but did learn that X% of Y = Y% of X.  
• Not sure exactly what time we went to bed – maybe 9PM –  but I am sure that I was out quickly! 

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Those with longer timelines can stay the first night on Catalina Island in Avalon, either at Herman Gulch Campground or an Avalon hotel and avoid having to take the ferry over.