Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Day 25: June 18, 2012


June 18, 2012.

Day: 25    Daily Miles: 49   Total Miles: 1075.5   Hours Hiking: 16.5   6:10am-10:30pm

Listen to the audio journal above or Download June 18th Audio File Here

Day 25
Evening

June 18th, about 5:45pm. Been doing really good today actually. It's been really easy walking. A few minor passes here and there, pole-vaulting of trees and stuff. But on the whole, super easy and awesome. I made 30 miles by just over 4pm, which is pretty frickin' amazing. I should be making 40 somewhere around 7-8pm. Which is only the second time I've made 40 with the light still out. But, I've also come to the conclusion that I might need to get off trail at the halfway mark or sooner. I mean whats the point if I'm getting off at the halfway. The reason being I've really noticed, actually today, how much weight I've actually lost. I don't know how much in numbers, but for right now I've discovered or realized that for the last 1.5-2 weeks, that my ass cheeks have not been touching pretty much ever...Howdy... Basically that's a problem. That's a lot of weight loss. Secondly, I umm.... {Laughs} Funniest thing ever. As I said 'ass cheeks not touching' I passed a guy. {Laughs} Off trail. Ohh that's really funny. {Laughs} I've seen like 2 people all day, and I decided to record this, and the second I said my ass cheeks don't touch anymore, there's a guy..{Laughs} Holy shit, the odds 
Where's that trail?
of that.....Anyways, secondly, my belly-button is basically a volcano. So like, because it's harder tissue, it's hitting my abs and literally raising up like a cone off of my stomach. Which I have never seen or experiences in my whole entire life. I just saw that today. And, so going over my muscles and things, yeah, my arms are gone. I try and flex and it's this feeble attempt at a little bump {Laughs}. Which I expected actually. But the thing I didn't expect is my quads. Before I left and started hiking when I flexed my quad, the skin was taut. I really couldn't pinch anything. And today I tried the same thing and I could pinch a good centimeter of loose skin and even walk without it slipping out from being pinched. So, my body is even eating my legs, which I'm actually using everyday. I mean the only thing that looks good are my calves. I don't know exactly how I appear, but I definitely can feel it, and it makes sense that if I've have been only eating 4-5,000 calories a day, and a lot of other people that are hiking 20-30's are eating that and losing weight. But I'm doing double of what they're doing basically. And if I'm burning double that - If I'm burning 3,500 calories that I'm not taking in, it's basically the equivalent of 1 lbs of fat, I mean the straight calorie conversion. If that's the case, I've probably been loosing a hell of a lot of weight really quickly, and I can see that. And so, that's not worth permanent damage. Sure I have kind been going back and forth, trying to find a reason to get off trail, but the miles have finally gotten easier. This is where it gets good. And I think that its going to be a problem if try and keep going. Now there is a though of me possibly actually getting off trail, I get kinda of sad all of a sudden. The 
thought of even trying for halfway even vanishes. I'm ahead of the record. I did the math today, this morning on yesterdays total, and I was at 43.6 miles a day. And that being said, the current record is only 41.2 miles per day. I forget actually. It's either 42.6 or 43.6. So I am still in the running. I did the actual math and it came out to be that I would finish in 62 days plus a little bit, kind of similar to what I did at the 1000 mile mark. So I know I would kill the record if I just had the calories and didn't have to worry about wrecking my body. I know I'll be able to do 45's to 50's, easy 50's in Oregon everyday pretty much and that would boost my overall. I need to get to Echo Lake and talk this over with somebody else, Scott or Pi, or both probably. Maybe get Scott to try meet up and get a scale to see what I weigh. Because if I've lost 15 lbs, it's all over. I know I weighed 178.6 naked on the morning when I left San Diego. So if I'm down to 160 lbs, that's 20 lbs below my average, my normal. We'll see. I don't know if I've lost that much, but just looking at my body, I just notice it. Like my ribs, the skin on my ribs is tight. I've never noticed that. On my sternum, there's no padding anymore, it's just bone everywhere. So all in all, I'm pushing for a 50 mile day today. {Laughs} Regardless. I'm a little dejected this afternoon because of my discoveries, but I'll just keep going and hopefully make it to Molly's Nipple and maybe even a little further. I could try for Carson Pass, but I think that's a little too far. ....................wind noise................................ I'll have to give Scott a call, because I'll be at Donner Pass in another 2 days, so he could use a little warning, hopefully the sooner I can give it. That's all.
Back onto the Sierra Crest 6 miles before Wolf Creek Pass.

Super strong winds on Wolf Creek Pass. Note the hair!
June 18th. Day 25. I camped about 1/2 mile back from a ridge line, passed Molly's Nipple, about 1/2 mile before where LINT and I camped in 2009 overlooking more or less Carson Pass. The point is 0242529E 4882497N. I got to mile 1072.5 and it was a 49 mile day. I actually just saw Lake Tahoe for the first time and it makes me pretty happy. I just crossed Carson Pass and hiked up and ohh it's good to see that big lake. It means I'm more or less home. I started off, down by, well....Wolf.. I'm not sure what the pass name is anymore. It said in the book 'Junction at Wolf Creek Pass' but I don't know if it's the proper name {Wolf Creek Lake Pass is the correct name}. But anyways, the pass after Sonora Pass, is where I was hanging out. I got started early, probably about 6:10am and was in the shade for a good while, walking along the canyon bottom, which was nice. I found an arrowhead in the middle of the trail, about 2/3's of it. It is actually a unique one. I don't think I've ever seen or found one like it. It's kind of shaped like - if you think of a crude drawing of a pine tree, without the kind of serrated little ledges, it's more of a triangle, a pointy triangle with the notches at the bottom, more or less being squared in, there are squares at the bottom instead of points like I'm used too. 
Down from Wolf Creek Pass.
That was cool. Yeah, middle of the trail, I just kind of saw the obsidian and said 'ooo what's that?'. I put it off the trail so hopefully no one would step on it and break it or find it. Anyway, I did the climb out of the canyon and go up to the ridge-line and instantly hit a mass of blow downs. Once you hit the ridges, whatever wind storm came through, I mean it just hammered the Sierras and did a good number. So after a bunch of pole-vaulting and such, I made it out of the climb and it turned more into the volcanic terrain. I'm actually surprised I didn't really remember a lot of it from 2009. I was surprised on two occasions actually, and was like 'wow I don't remember this'. It's kind of open meadows, grassy hillsides and just ash with boulders and bombs and stuff in it, lava caps and points and plug mountains and lots of things, lots of columnar jointing and such. So that was real easy walking - ups and downs, but not anything too difficult. You get further on, and I hit - you get more into the lahar, the mudflow kind of stuff and it's a bit rougher on your feet just because it's pretty well cemented and there are just rocks sticking out everywhere. I hauled pretty well through most of the day. I 
came off of Wolf Creek Pass where it was just howling wind, I had to take off my had and I was leaning into the wind. I took a picture with my greasy hair that is totally stuck in one spot normally was completely plasters backwards, I mean it was just shoooo {noise} straight back. It was actually windy most of the day. Blustery. You come to a ridge top and you get pushed around, that's how strong it was, which was nice but could have been a little bit weaker. So after Wolf Creek Pass, I met 2 Forest Service guys that were working on the PCT, checking out where trees are down and doing repairs to trail tread. I gave them the updates from Sonora Pass to where we were and yeah, just kept on truckin'. I did eventually freak out about how much weight I've lost, as the previous little recording states, which I'll briefly summarize. I've lost a lot of weight and I haven't really come to notice it. I mean it's been there but I just didn't notice it until today. Like I checked out my legs and I can grab a centimeter of skin and hold onto it while walking. It means my legs have just disappeared. Same thing with my stomach. There's... I don't think I've ever had this little of fat on 
my stomach. My belly button is sticking out. And I can pull a lot of skill off {stretch loose skin out away from my body}. Plus, the funny one is that my butt cheeks don't touch and they haven't touched for a little while. But I finally realized that they aren't touching. I was like 'wow my butt is loosing fat' but now it's quite apparent. I imagine my face has done it too, but I've had this beard on so you can't tell. I hope I can supplement some more calories into my diet. You know {pack} weight is an issue but so is becoming anorexic from exercise. So we'll see. Anyway, that slowed me down while pondering that, and saying that I might get off trail at the midpoint because I don't want to do any permanent damage to myself. I need to look up long term effects and really make a judgment call based on, maybe someone else's opinion too. But anyways, I kind of got over that. I hit 40 miles by about 7:30pm which is the fastest I've done that. Then I had to trudge, literally trudge through the mosquito infested terrible like 5 or 6 miles before Molly's Nipple. It was just ups and downs next to little 
Molly's Nipple!
lakes and nasty ponds full of mosquitoes which was annoying, especially at the end of a long day where I wanted to make 50 miles. I finally broke out of that and go onto the slopes of the volcanic terrain and stuff, out of the granite. It was dark by then, so I was just truckin' along into the night. I stopped at about 10:30pm at 49 miles because I knew if I had gone another mine I'd be up on the ridge and it was still pretty windy. Ya know, being miserable in the wind versus a 50, well I'd rather be comfy and not at 50. So I did that. I don't know really what else there is to say. It was a great day. It was pretty easy walking. I'll make it to Echo Lake tomorrow and onwards from there! I think I saw 3 people today. It was pretty lonely. But that's OK, I expected that, especially since I'm ahead of the pack.
North of Ebbetts Pass