Campo to Mount Laguna
Three days from the border to Mount Laguna, starting with a twenty-mile day I don’t recommend and a can of cold beans.
By Jeffrey “Atlas” Combs · walked Apr 30–May 2, 2021 · published · updated
Day one I walked twenty miles, from the monument at Campo to Lake Morena. I wouldn’t recommend starting with twenty miles. I posted from the monument that morning, “S$@t. Just. Got. Real.” By Lake Morena I had earned the hashtag I stuck on it: #dontbedumblikemeandstartwith20miles.
About ten miles in I took a long break at a pond with a few other hikers, just to get out of the sun. The desert heat was already bad. That same afternoon a rescue helicopter came straight to us and asked if we had hit our SOS. Someone near us had, less than ten miles from the border. I think it was a head injury.
Food out of Campo was funny. I had more of a plan to get food on the way than I actually carried out. I had some bars and my Huel meals to start, and the night before, I bought a can of beans at the small store in Campo and basically ate them cold at camp, maybe with bread.
Part of the reason I pushed all the way into Lake Morena was to get some goodies and cold drinks. That can really motivate you to push a few more miles.
Quoted lines are from my 2021 logs, verbatim.
The next morning the stove came out on a picnic table next to the oatmeal packets. I never really cold soaked on this hike. I usually cooked, and quickly. Day two was a saner 13 miles to Cibbets Flat.
Day three climbed into the pines at Mount Laguna. On the way up, a paper plate on a fence post offered PCT hikers a free sandwich, chips and soda. At the Pine House Cafe I ate a burger the receipt prints as “Vegan Burger.” At the start I was trying to eat as much prepared food as I could, partly because I wasn’t comfortable with trail eating yet. I hadn’t really learned anything.
The food, then and now
My plan from home was Huel meals plus a Harmony House kit, with the beans and lentils mixed together with the vegetables. In 2021 it was bars, Huel, a can of cold beans from Campo, a Lake Morena store run and the vegan burger at Pine House. If you’re going now, hikers on FarOut report that the veggie burger at Oak Shores Malt Shop in Lake Morena is vegan without the cheese and mayo (2024), and Pine House was serving a Beyond Burger in March and April 2026. Pine House lists limited cafe hours on its site and closed for stretches in May 2026, so check before counting on a meal. The Campo store is basic shelf food. Carry the first stretch from home.
