Hunkering down again

We are at the intersection of the PCT and I-15 at Cajon Pass. Yesterday a cold front moved in, making us reluctant to climb into the San Gabriel mountains. We decided that the best option was to get a room at the hiker friendly Best Western and start the climb tomorrow morning.

It has been a long time since the last journal. The problem has been people. We are surrounded by awesome folks. Nights have been full of campfires and interaction, leaving little time for writing. As I write this I am forgoing more of this camaraderie in our motel room.

I will try and sum up the last chunk of time. We have been traveling with our friends, Racheopod and Gnar, both of which have been mentioned previously. It has been difficult to part ways with them, and it may become more difficult as the shared miles accumulate. We all hike at different paces. Racheopod is up early and hikes fast. Yesterday we didn't even see her until we pulled into the campsite she had selected for us all. Gnar likes to build fires and stay up late. His pace is the fastest and he catches up with Zm and I even though he leaves camp at least an hour after we do.

Our stay at Big Bear was brief. At that point I had only been back on the trail for 20 miles and neither of us were interested in a town stay. Quick in and quick out to get food and fuel.

The next few days were a big trial period for my achilles. I started out super slow. So slow that my legs were sore because I wasn't used to the pace. But over time I was slowly able to build up speed. After sixty miles I was able to reach a functional hiking speed when we were reunited with Racheopod and Gnar at Deep Creek Hot Springs. We hadn't seen them since Big Bear when they zoomed ahead.

Deep Creek is a well known hiker hotspot. There were about 10 hikers there when we showed up in the evening. Needless to say, good times were had. The hot springs are fantastic at night but quite an oven by day. We stayed for about 24 hours, leaving in the early evening after the heat had passed.

As the days have rolled on, my foot has continually improved. I am now able to walk at full speed. The injury hasn't completely gone away but I don't think that my hike is at risk anymore.

I wish I could say more. Maybe a few blurbs...

-- snow in the sierras is intense. We will get there early and might have to sit for a while
-- last night we were sleeping under the stars and had to put up the tent at four in the morning when it starting raining.
-- yesterday we got a ton of free food out of some Spanish speaking locals at a picnic area. People like to give you stuff when they find out what you are doing.
--- we ate at McDonald's today. The only one on the trail. Then a Del Taco. Only fast food and convenience store food here.

That's it. Tomorrow we climb into the San Gabriels. Wrightwood on Tuesday and Aqua Dulce sometime next weekend. I will try to journal more in the days to come.

Somewhat recovered

I am hiking with Zm again. My foot problems are not fully solved but they are back to the level that they were at when I first started noticing. I am hoping a slower pace will keep me on the trail. We are off!

Big Bear City

Hello!  Zm here, finally!!  I found my Goodness on the trail about 100 miles away in 4 days time and things have been wonderful.  Racheopod and I had our own grand adventure through some very diverse terrain.  There were a few moments of heated weather, but predominantly we had more wind and it was too cold to sit in the shade.  Before the trek to Camp Goodness, she and I and Grizzly Jones did a 27+ mile slackpack which was absolutely lovely. Grizzly Jones slept most of that day but got excited with us when we ended up dropping down to a road on accident from a poorly marked trail junction. We stopped to pick up some trash, per usual, when low and behold we found Bananagrams!!!! A little more searching by Racheopod and she'd found the banana bag too!!! Such magic!! I'll tell more of my adventures soon... now it is time to bust back up to the trail! Taking a zero day at some hot springs in two days. Next stop is Wrightwood in 5 days or so. :)

5/19: Beautiful People

Our cabin has been a place of goodness the last few days. My injury has been healing but progress is slow.

Zm is currently slack packing the south San Jacintos with Racheopod. She will return here tonight and head forward tomorrow up the Devil's Slide trail and across Fuller Ridge. I will not be joining her.

Ouch

My plan is to hitch about 80 trail miles ahead and camp on the trail. I will see many loved ones go by.

When Zm arrives I will hike the last ten miles into Big Bear with her. If I am not healed. I will repeat this process. Unless it makes me too unhappy.

That is the tough stuff. The rest has been great. Its all about people. In this journaling I am trying to give personality to people we interact with but it is difficult and there are alot of people.

Today is a day off. The bad weather shifted, and everyone went up the mountain. Quiet = journalling.

Zm hasn't been as interested in journalling as I have been. I imagine that many of you long for her voice. She is having the time of her life right now... surrounded by beautiful earth and people that love her. She is on a 30 mile slackpack through some intense scenery as we speak. Her body is in top shape. She has a 1000+ miles of experience. Her decisions are wise. Two days ago her and Racheopod turned around and backtracked out of a vicious spring storm. I was so relieved to see them in Idyllwild the morning after we had parted.

The bad weather brought friends. Charley 'Babyface') and Gene whom has lost 40 lbs of combined body+packweight in the last few weeks.

Gnar who is Boone who isn't Bundo graced our presence. He has recited half of 'The Lorax' to us, leaving the other half for future meeting.

Chrystal walked out of the storm yesterday. She is inexperienced but has shown adaptability and determination. She has switched out her hammock with a tent and dried her sopping wet sleeping bag. Already on the trail, I don't see her hike running short anytime soon.

Women create community on the trail. There aren't enough female hikers.

OK nap time. Need some rest before the people return.

5/17 Split and Reformation. Health and Hurt.

We are in Idyllwild. I have Achilles tendonitis. Zm is completely healthy. The weather is foul, but we are warm, safe, and in good company.

The last chunk of trail was excellent, even though my Achilles was always present. It hasn't been painful, just persistent. I would like to avoid things getting worse and am immobile for the time being.

We have been hiking with Racheopod, who is in love with a farmer in France. She is a trail veteran, having completed the AT and the Florida Trail. Attached to her pack is one Grizzly Jones, a 8oz stuffed bear of great import.

The weather has been cold and windy since Warner Springs. At times we were joined by two separate hikers from Iowa. Sticks carries two found sticks of wood as hiking poles. Joshua has an 8 lb base weight and a silver umbrella. Zm and Racheopod bestowed the name Silvertree upon him. Perhaps it will stick.

5/12 day six morning

The travelling has been spectacular. The storm that blew through has moderated to clear skies and mild temperatures for our first desert crossing. We have also developed a crew of folks to hike with. Gene is an older fellow from San Antonio with a heavy pack. Bundo was on the trail last year and has returned with a lightened load. Mondo is an animated nightclub bartender from Hollywood. Racheopod is a delightful Floridian that loves bugs. We have all been travelling at roughly the same pace, around 20 miles a day. The mileage has been the biggest difference from the last hike. Because of our earlier start date, we are able to take it easy in and not bump up to 25 mile days until a few weeks from now.

The terrain has turned from chaparral to desert as we dropped to the dreaded Scissors Crossing and huddled underneath the highway bridge to shelter from the noon sun. All six of us were there, until Mondo left, triggering the rest to follow suit.

We left the last, planning a few hours of night hiking under the waxing gibbous on a well engineered trail. Around ten we stopped and camped in a soft sandy wash a few miles short of the third gate water cache. It is now morning and I am writing this next to a sleeping Zm who is about to be woken up.

Thus far, our hike has been fantastic and virtually complaint free. Our bodies are happy, well fed, stinky and dirty. Tomorrow morning we will arrive at Warner springs and take a day off. Hopefully we will have cell service!

5/9 Day 3... cold!

We are currently huddled inside our tent at mile 49. It is cold and windy but we are warm and safe.

The start of the trail was fantastic. A beautiful Laura sent us off amidst a few other hikers starting on the same day. The flowers were in full bloom and Zm encountered her first rattlesnake. Other creatures seen were giant black bees, many little lizards, butterflies, ravens, some non rattle snakes, and various other strange bugs. We hiked about 19 miles in low 80's sun. So far the first day has been our longest.

Yesterday, we wound our way up into the Lagunas amidst changing weather. We passed many swallow nests built below a bridge and spooked a small skunk who was sitting on the trail! We each looked one another over and then he was on his way without event. Just before a nice climb, a trail angel appeared at the road crossing bearing Gatorade and super yummy cookies. He was there with his mom, a cute little grey-hair who had been his trail mailer back in 1982 when he thru-hiked under the name, Cowman. Our miles came to around 13 as we decided to camp low to stay as warm as possible. It was nice and refreshing to sleep next to a water source and we could hear the frogs talking all night long.

The next morning saw cold and rain. We climbed up another 1800 feet to mount Laguna and the land turned to an ice wonderland. The trees were coated with ice and the intense wind was blowing the ice off in crystal showers.

We ran into a fair amount of hikers waiting for the post office to open. One of them was a Portlander named Crystal.

After our resupply we hiked into the blowing wind and cold. As we were following the desert divide, the clouds stopped right at the edge and we were able to get excellent views of the desert thousands of feet below us.

The wind was too intense and caused us to stop early to set up camp to be safe.

Alive and well !

Hello everyone!

I am sitting in Warner Springs,CA where we are spending the night in a lovely cottage-style room with four of our new friends! Unfortunately, we have NO service so far on our smart phone and all prior blog entries are therefore trapped at least for the next week if not more. Booo. So this short message of 'all is well' will have to suffice for now...

Also, I haven't been able to watch the videos that accompany the following article, but it was a sweet surprise to see this in my e-mail: http://www.opb.org/artsandlife/outdoors/article/oregonians-tackle-pacific-crest-trail-thru-hike/

Please e-mail us with how YOU are or write us a letter perhaps... ;-)

Pack Weight

We have put our gear together for the border.

Base weight is the total weight of the gear minus food and water.

Goodness base weight: 12.5 lbs

Zm base weight: 11 lbs

Additionally, we are starting at the border with 8 lbs of water each plus 4 lbs of food. There is a ~20 mile waterless stretch right from the start. The general formula is one quart/liter per 5 miles, and 2 lbs of food per person per day. So I am starting out with 24.5 lbs and Zm has 23. The nice thing about carrying water is that the weight constantly goes down as you hike.

Surprise! On the trail in two days!

Yep you heard it right. We will be on the trail on the morning of Saturday May 7. That is two days from the time that I am writing this message.

We are in Santa Fe staying with my mom. On the way down from Boulder, we stopped at the Great Sand Dunes to fill our shoes with sand.

On Tuesday night we arrived. Our plan was to stay until Friday or Saturday, putting together the last food drops, and then head to Utah for some awesome canyoneering. But Wednesday morning I got an email from Erin with a strong command to move our start date back. Her plan is to take it slow in the snowy Sierras, and duck out for food often. The email hit me hard. I realized that I would rather be on the trail and taking zero days in SoCal than poking around Utah in the car with occasional side hikes. Capitol Reef and the Grand Canyon will be around a long time. The PCT is a living, breathing community that is getting further ahead of us with each passing day. Snow or no snow, its time to hop on.

Zm wasn't even up yet while this was going on. I used my mom as a sounding board and waited for Zm's alarm to go off. Upon waking, she agreed that starting soon was better. First order of business was to get the rest of our gear and supplies in order. We pulled every piece of hiking stuff out of the car and spread it out in the living room. Food was spread out so we could gauge what was missing. Next was leaving a message with Laura in Prescott to see if we could get her to give us a ride on our original start date, the 8th.

Then we hopped in the car and shopped like crazy people. We had three goals:

• Put together 9 days of food. We will start the trail with 2.5 days, and break the rest into 2 drops. This will get us to the first grocery store on the trail in Idyllwild
• Get more food for our supplemental drops. These are three drops that we are sending to big on-trail resupply locations where we will be putting together the next ~25 days of drops. We are sending food that is hard to buy at grocery stores to these places
• Buy the remaining pieces of gear. This was mostly little stuff like lighters, trash compactor bags, batteries, and toilet paper.

We hit the Vitamin Cottage for bulk bars, Whole Foods for bulk spices for our spice kit, Trader Joe's for bulk nuts, and finally Albertsons for the rest of the 9 days of food.

Upon arriving back at home we started portioning out the food into boxes. First we dealt with the 9 days of food, set that aside, then tackled the supplemental resupplies. While this was happening, Laura called back and told us that the 8th was no longer possible, but that the 7th was possible. A quick look at the calendar revealed our schedule. We had the rest of Wednesday into Thursday to finish our remaining tasks. Friday morning we will leave here around 4am and get to Prescott around noon. Scoop up Laura and get to the trailhead in the late evening on Friday after about 16 hours of driving. The next morning (Saturday) we begin and Laura takes our car back to Prescott.

Today we still have much to do. Boxes still need to be taken to the post office. We need to finish our final gear configuration. Blogs and emails need to be written. Phone calls must be made, and we need to clean up the huge mess we have made in my mom's place. We also need to make sure we get to bed at a reasonable time to be out the door by 4 tomorrow.

Some other news: our Peek gave up the ghost for the second time. All of the sudden the screen doesn't work anymore. We will be taking my Android phone on the trail instead... along with the solar charger that Rick gave us. While it is heavier, and the plan is more expensive, it will give us phone and full internet wherever we have signal. Thanks Rick!

We have lots to do today, so I will be wrapping up this post. Next posting should be from the trail! WooHoo!