Here we were, parked in the middle of nowhere and running low’ish on water. our trusty trail application, Guthook, told us that there was a water cache up ahead.

We located the water cache and replenished our supplies. Who fills up the water caches? I have no idea. A volunteer, from somewhere local, made the commitment to put water out for the hikers. No payment expected.

It’s crazy, this generosity of strangers. They know nothing about this band of thru-hikers except that we will need water.
I like to think of myself as a generous person, but, usually there’s something in it for me. Some sort of expression of gratitude as payment, an acknowledgement of a gift. Something…

At a different water cache we again found the same kindness of strangers.

When we left this water cache we bumped into a trail magic location w/in a mile. A complete stranger had lugged his cooler up to the trail. He was giving away water, soda, beer and chips. No donations accepted. I asked why he was giving this away and he replied that someone had done it for him, so he was replaying a debt that could never be repaid.

Please don’t misunderstand, there aren’t water caches around every corner. We drank (after filtering) from a horse water trough one day and we’re SO happy that it was available to us. There are many dry stretches with no water. We’re lugging a lot of water with us each day and paying keen attention to the PCT water reports.

It’s just the unexpected kindness of strangers that has me scratching my head a bit.