July 7, 2012.
Day: Off Trail Daily Miles: 0 Total Miles: 1864 Hours Hiking: 0
Listen to the audio journal above or Download July 7th Audio File Here
July 7 – Day after Stopping
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| Mt Thielsen, the day before... |
July 7, I'm officially off trail. I
hiked zero miles today, but I figured I'd give a little recap of what
happened. I woke up behind a big pine tree right next to the Diamond
Lake Resort. I went down to the store and bought laundry detergent,
soap and shampoo, then went and did my laundry in the public laundry
there. It was pretty funny because I was washing ALL of my clothes
{including the ones I was wearing} so I was wrapped up inside my tarp
and there were guys there doing repairs to the other washing
machines. It's just funny because they're in there talking and they
just see me in my tarp and that's all I'm wearing. It was just silly.
There was a woman on the other side of a little partition separating
the resort's laundry area and you know, they're just talking back and
forth like no big deal. So I got my laundry done, I ate a pint of ice
cream on my walk down to the showers...I had a 16oz Bush beer and I
was just enjoying not having to hike. The real feelings of being off
trail really hadn't sunk in yet. It still kind of felt like a zero
day, which I had had none of. It, I guess, felt like a resupply day,
because I still have all of my stuff and I'm still completely on my
own, self sufficient. So I walked down... I had to walk about a mile
to get down to the showers at the campground. I had my big bar of
soap, my shampoo. I get into the stall and I probably spend a half
hour in there. I washed my hat, washed my shoes out because they were
nasty from the previous days snow and walking down the dirt and
stuff...And then managed to wash myself, which was awesome. I was
clean! I had all clean clothes! You feel like a new man really. It's
like a resupply, every time you feel that much better. I got out of
there and walked back to the resort where I found out that my mom was
going to be coming to pick me up pretty soon, so I just hung out on
the big grass area out in front of the resort. It was a Saturday so
it was pretty busy...maybe a Sunday, I don't remember. I just hung
out in the sun relaxing. Not moving was a wonderful thing. I bought a
can of frosting and ate some of that with all my extra cookies that I
had bought at Crater Lake. A couple with two kids sat next to me on
this double picnic table and started talking to me. I explained what
I was doing and blah, ba blah and they got really excited and she
sounded really cool actually. Other than that, my mom showed up and I
get picked up and I finally was talked into going up and seeing their
house in Washington, so we proceeded from Diamond Lake on up to Warm
Beach Washington. That's a good ohh 6.5-7 hour drive. We stopped off
at Big Lake Youth Camp where I picked up my boxes that included a new
pair of shoes and food and all my resupply stuff I would have picked
up in a couple more days had I continued on hiking. That was good
that I got all of my stuff from there. We arrived up in Washington
round about 12am and for the hung out up there and basically didn't
do anything for 4 days. Today is the 12th when I'm actually recording
this, I'm driving home or back to Northern California. I'm going to
stop by Cascade Locks to pick up my other box that was sent ahead
there. I spent the time in Washington organizing my photos, I
stitched together 100 panoramas that I had taken. Organized, deleted
and got everything sorted. I have more work to do on those... I
played computer games and just relaxed. I ate a hell of a lot of
food. I'm actually trying to cut back just a little bit now, because
I don't actually need to put on 20lbs in a week. I'd rather put it on
over a couple weeks and slow my metabolism and bodies reactions down.
My right knee hurts, it's still fairly sore even though I'm not
really using it. It definitely was a problem spot that was overlooked
while hiking. So everything is....my body just needs to readjust. It
hasn't even been a week yet and I'm gaining a little bit of weight
back, that's for sure, but not nearly what I need to. I need to work
on gaining muscle back while my body is still in the mode to build
muscle and use whatever I've got. So I'm headed back down a nice 850
mile drive, somewhere around 12-13 hours. From there we'll see, just
take it day by day. I don't really know what I want to do with my
life right now, so it's good and bad. I kind of feel like its a time
for a new beginnings. This is done and over with and I need some
recovery time, but at the same point I want to start something new
and go from there. We shall see. I'm definitely OK with what all has
happened. Sure, it would have been nice to finished, but I did get an
email from Jack at the PCTA and he was like "yeah, I was
wondering when you were going to hit it, I had known for a couple
weeks now that the snow was bad' So it was just a matter of time and
when you hit it you finally were going to say 'quits'. It wasn't
quite... it was too early for a...to try for a record. I got a
message from Scott Williamson's wife, he is flying up to Washington
on Monday, which would be the 15-16th and is going to hike around in
Washington for a week or two and then he's going to go southbound for
another record attempt. So she said he'll be bummed that he won't be
crossing paths with me. He was hoping to meet up. But otherwise, it's
just how it goes. I'm happy with having the new California and
midpoint records. Anything else would have been bonus. You know 42.5
days or so is plenty of hiking, especially at averaging 44 miles per
day, so that's something to be proud about. Nothing to look down your
nose at. It's just how it goes.
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| Mt. Thielsen and the snow covered trail, the day before. |
