Family commitments and projects at home have conspired to keep us off the trails since our backpack trip in Sequoia, but we finally got a long weekend in Wrightwood with not many plans in it. Jane’s mom, Barbara, joined us for the weekend, and we wanted to do a short walk that would introduce her to the pretty forest. The segment of the PCT west of the Grassy Hollow visitor center is so nice, having walked here many times both by ourselves and with the kids/grandkids, so we headed up on a very warm Sunday afternoon to make yet another visit. The PCT on Blue Ridge has already seen the full complement of thru-hikers this year, plus countless day hikers like us, and the trail seemed dustier than usual – of course, it’s been weeks since the area saw any rain, and the trailside flora appeared a bit distressed as well. We had no plan on how far we’d walk – impressed by some large pine cones we had seen in the visitor center, we decided we’d take Barbara out to the tall sugar pine we know stands in a open gully just below the north side of Jackson Flat campground. Unsure of the exact distance, we followed the trail west, past its two junctions with the paved campground road and up the grade toward the west high point of Blue Ridge at Jackson Flat (per the GPS app on Chris’ phone, it turns out to be exactly a mile from the visitor center to the second road junction, and another half mile to the sugar pine). Once over the hump at Jackson Flat, we descended for another hundred yards to the sugar pine on the north side of the trail – all the cones on the ground were rotten and dry, but we could see fresh green cones growing on this and other sugar pines in the area. We felt the heat here as we were out of the normal Blue Ridge breezes down in the gully, so we headed back eastward up the hill to gain the open area east of the campground, then following the trail back to the road. We contemplated walking the road back to the trailhead but instead decided to retrace our steps on the trail, the principal reason being Barbara’s desire to say she had hiked a full three miles on the PCT. Clouds had begun to build overhead, and the shadows they cast made a beautiful impression on the hills to the north and east – we got back to Grassy Hollow without incident, and without seeing any snakes, about which several warnings were posted at the visitor center. A very nice hike, this, even on a warm summer day – plenty of color still left from spring, and the satisfying realization one just hiked 1/883rd of the way from Mexico to Canada.