tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58712784261540357972024-03-05T05:47:07.874-07:00Endurance Hiking: Tuna Helper's 2012 PCT Speed Record Attempt This is the trail journal from Tuna Helper on his 2012 Hiking Speed Record Attempt along the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) from Mexico to Canada completing 1864 miles in 42.5 days.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08628242465814913016noreply@blogger.comBlogger56125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871278426154035797.post-67682814140156523782013-01-10T17:00:00.000-07:002013-01-10T17:00:01.203-07:00What Did Your Feet Look Like?<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><u>The Feet.</u></span></div>
As anyone could imagine, hiking 1864 miles in 43 days has to take a toll on your body, let alone your feet that take the impact of each and every step along the way. I lost count of my blisters at around 25, had a toe nail infection begin about 2/3's of the way through that lasted until I was off trail, and the balls of my feet were constantly sore. That said, my body did a remarkable job at trying to protect my feet. It was amazing to see the thick calluses that formed. It took 2 months of relatively non-use for my feet to shed all the calluses and get back to normal. 2-3 weeks after getting off trail, this is what my feet looked like...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Even my hands had burly calluses from trekking pole use...</span></td></tr>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08628242465814913016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871278426154035797.post-43133392459255060882013-01-10T16:00:00.001-07:002013-01-10T16:00:02.060-07:00September 29, 2012 - Off Trail<br />
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July 7, 2012.</h3>
<b><span style="color: #e06666;">Day: Off Trail Daily Miles: 0 Total Miles: 1864 Hours Hiking: 0 </span></b><br />
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<b>September 29</b></div>
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I have just finished transcribing,
nearly word for word, all of my audio journals from my 2012 speed
record attempt and I must say I’m relieved that time consuming task
is complete. Having lived it, recorded it and then had to listen to
and write every word of it down has left me with the feeling that I
never want to hear this again. Yet, at the same time, I have had the
strange experience of being inspired by myself, which is odd, because
I know I have done these things, yet at the current time could not
repeat them without a great deal of training. Usually in life, we
know what we can and can’t do on a daily basis, but when you get
into the realm of something as ridiculous as hiking 40+ miles a day
for 42 days…well, it seems nearly impossible except for the fact
that I have done it. Even with the first-hand knowledge of how little
fun it was and then having it be retold again to me through the
transcription, I’ve had thoughts of trying it again. I am happy
with what I was able to accomplish, however there is a certain
feeling of incompleteness that might one day drive me to attempt it
again. That’s definitely a big bag of mixed feelings. For now, I
think there are many more other things to do in the world than try
and set a record I’m confident that I can do. For now, the money
will stay out of where my mouth is, because to attempt it again (and
knowing who I am and that I will probably try and up the ante) it is
a huge commitment, and sacrifice in sanity and day-to-day happiness.
Overall, it went well. I know where improvements need to be made and
what to do differently if I should be so crazy as to try again. It’ll
be just as hard, maybe even harder because I know what to expect now.
Sometimes ignorance is blissful, because you don’t know if around
the bend you have to climb a saddle or drop into a valley. My main
hope in transcribing this is that others will read it and gain some
insight of experience that they will never have. If I can muster up a
little inspiration in others, it’ll be worth far more than any
records I managed to set.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Silver Pass Panorama looking at Lake of the Lone Indian.</td></tr>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08628242465814913016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871278426154035797.post-56079311955722460232013-01-10T16:00:00.000-07:002016-01-17T14:50:57.940-07:00July 13, 2012 - Off Trail<br />
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July 13, 2012.</h3>
<b><span style="color: #e06666;">Day: Off Trail Daily Miles: 0 Total Miles: 1864 Hours Hiking: 0 </span></b><br />
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<span style="color: lime;">Listen to the audio journal above or</span> <a href="https://docs.google.com/open?id=0By2m6B0qS-XOVDVmZFZZV0ZDbWc" target="_blank">Download July 13th Audio File Here</a><br />
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<b>July 13 – Off Trail</b></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Feet up with the view of Diamond Lake on my last day on trail,</td></tr>
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July 13th, I'm back in California. I'm
driving down to San Francisco. I spent about 13 hours yesterday
driving. This is just an update on how I've been feeling and such. I
don't know, last night I started thinking about stuff and I really...my mind, just feels numb. Physically my body hurts a bit. I
don't have a whole lot of energy. I've been eating more or less
without thinking. If there is food available, I just throw it into my
mouth unconsciously. I'm like 'why did I just eat half of the bag of
chips when I only thought about having a handful or two.."
*laughs* Stuff like that. My knees hurt, my right knee especially,
but it was actually hurting me on trail, so that no
surprise...there's something going on with that. I'm a little
hesitant to take big steps even with my own weight, because I know
it's going to hurt. Maybe 1 in 50 steps it will hurt, so my body is
weary of them. I did 10 push ups the other day, which I was quite
surprised that I could still do 10!, but I'm actually sore from doing
just 10 push ups. So that's funny. The biggest thing I've noticed is
mentally I....I feel just mentally numb. I know I have been
suppressing...I haven't been thinking about much of ANYTHING for the
last 1.5 months, besides do the miles, get this done. It's been like
the one-track mind. I've been listening to audio books and completely
not using my mind, how about that. So, it feels numb and thinking
about 'my life', what I'm going back to and things...it feels like
I've forgotten all the little details, which isn't bad, it kind of
feels like this clean slate where I just have the feeling where I'm
like ' I should....I can go do anything..I can start anew'. It's kind
of a strange feeling, it feels nice, you know all of these little
details and things, little nagging things you think about are just
gone. So I have this fairly strong urge or feeling to just go in a
completely different direction with my life and I don't have a clue
where that is...I don't know what I want to do at all, I mean I'm
kind of living day to day right now. So like planning stuff...yeah, I
don't want to plan anything at the moment. It's umm, it's really
strange, I didn't expect this. But, at the same time, when you're set
on something for 1.5 months and completely working yourself into the
ground and life goes from living in the corner of suburbia
preparing...trying to think of every single detail that could
possibly go wrong so that you have a smooth hike to all your goal is
for the day is to hike 40-some-odd miles, find water and eat food.
Yeah, things get cut and life changes from highly complex to very
very simple... and I think that's the adjustment I'm trying to make
right now. I don't really remember it taking much or being hard last
time, but last time I had things to do right away, already planned
out - going to the southwest for a week with my girlfriend and
another 4 days off then I was flying to New Zealand to help my friend
do field work. So within 3 weeks of finishing the trail last time in
2009, I was doing stuff. I had no recovery time. And now that I have
recovery time, I've taken this week off, I've got all my panoramas
stitched together and just hanging out and doing nothing, it's really
strange. This hike was definitely more intestthan my 2009 one,
and...umm...I don't know, I just feel numb and dead. *laughs* Like I
don't really have feelings towards any one thing. It's kind of like
'ahh whatever, I could do that, I could do this...I don't know what I
want to do'..But I don't want to do what I was doing...how about
that. That's about as much as I know right now. Which doesn't mean
that I don't want to go back to Colorado..it just means I just want
to try something new and venture off in some other direction, which
I've said like 5 times, but in slightly different ways, so I'm going
to stop talking about it. It's one of those things that I didn't
expect, but feels strange but good that I'm actually feeling it. So
that's how it goes.</div>
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July 13th again. It...I have, these
weird... because I've been so independent and umm... you know
basically by myself with no one to really hike with for the last 1.5
months, I have this another strong urge to just go hang out in the
desert by myself again, to let myself readjust to stuff. That in
itself is unexpected. On trail you do get lonely. I can only assume
that I am wretchedly lonely right now, but it just doesn't come to
the surface. Every time you see a person {on trail} you stop and talk
with them for about 5 minutes. I think it's kind of strange that I'm
like 'all I want to do right now is get away...I don't want to go
into cities, I don't want to deal with people... I just want to go
somewhere and hang out...' The desert, the southwest somewhere, is
where I'd want to do it, besides it being bloody hot right now. But
in another vein, I kind of feel like what the hell am I doing with my
life...jack shit... what's this whole earning money thing and well I
just hiked for 1.5 months to try and break a record and you know I'm
doing my own thing...but where does that get me, what am I doing it
for. I kind of want to like go backpack - just go buy a flight to
India and just hang out and see the world or...I don't know...go to
Africa and volunteer...*laughs* I think I want to do something that's
different. That's definitely... this whole pollen thing, cool.
Work..normal job, doing all this crap, living in suburbia... ehhhh
it's fine, but I don't think I want that right now. We'll see how it
goes. Give me a week or two and things might change when I get back
and settled and kind of readjusted a bit more. But that's how I feel
right now and it aaaaa, yeah, interesting.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Crater Lake Rim sunset, day 42.</td></tr>
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</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08628242465814913016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871278426154035797.post-56763547362505758232013-01-10T15:30:00.000-07:002016-01-17T14:50:41.628-07:00July 7, 2012 - Off Trail.<br />
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July 7, 2012.</h3>
<b><span style="color: #e06666;">Day: Off Trail Daily Miles: 0 Total Miles: 1864 Hours Hiking: 0 </span></b><br />
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<span style="color: lime;">Listen to the audio journal above or</span> <a href="https://docs.google.com/open?id=0By2m6B0qS-XOaHVrUWpRMDFhZE0" target="_blank">Download July 7th Audio File Here</a><br />
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<b>July 7 – Day after Stopping</b></div>
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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.</div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-N2AMY7TUkN8/UIwsal02vlI/AAAAAAAAB8s/qfG62j3WBVo/s1600/PCT+Compilation-574.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="208" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-N2AMY7TUkN8/UIwsal02vlI/AAAAAAAAB8s/qfG62j3WBVo/s1600/PCT+Compilation-574.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mt. Thielsen and the snow covered trail, the day before.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
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</div>
</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08628242465814913016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871278426154035797.post-3537114115354379702013-01-10T15:00:00.000-07:002016-01-17T14:50:08.914-07:00Day 43: July 6, 2012<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<h3>
July 6, 2012.</h3>
<b><span style="color: #e06666;">Day: 43 Daily Miles: 16.75 Total Miles: 1864 Hours Hiking: 11 7:15am-6:00pm</span></b><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: lime;">Listen to the audio journal above or</span> <a href="https://docs.google.com/open?id=0By2m6B0qS-XOOHJKUnY4eEJPaWc" target="_blank">Download July 6th Audio File Here</a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<b>Day 43</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cQ4Lxuu9zcI/UIwsSBaA79I/AAAAAAAAB8U/aPoRZjmE9yU/s1600/PCT+Compilation-570.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cQ4Lxuu9zcI/UIwsSBaA79I/AAAAAAAAB8U/aPoRZjmE9yU/s1600/PCT+Compilation-570.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The flats before heading up to Mt. Thielsen - no snow!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
July 6, Day 43. Today actually turns
out to be my last day on trail. The snow was basically so bad today
that it took me 8 hours to go 10 miles next to Mt. Thielsen, and
judging by where it {the snow} is now currently at about 6000 ft in
the trees and what the conditions are like...projecting that forward
to the rest of Oregon and Washington as well, making the record is
going to be nearly impossible. If I was planning on...yesterday I was
thinking about if I could make 40's then I can still beat the record
by like 2 days or so. But at this pace, yesterday I only made 35, umm
yeah, it would be impossible basically. So, I just decided to quit. I
mean I was going to give it a few more days to see how far I could
get and see what my timing was - hopefully get to Big Lake Youth
Camp. But, I got to a point a little ways away from the high point
for Oregon/Washington, and there was a trail back down to Diamond
Lake and knowing what I know, and what time of day it was and that I
might not find a good spot to camp, I said screw it {after a couple
phone conversations at the trail junction} and hiked down to Diamond
Lake, where I knew I could get a ride out. I spent the night down at
Diamond Lake, right up off of the road next to the resort in no mans
land. That point being 0570282 E 47804187 N. I stopped/got off trail
at mile 1864, at the Howlick Trail, making the grand total of that
day to be ohh, 16.75 roughly. So not even 17 miles for a majority of
the day. I actually left down to the trail at about 6pm. Anyways,
lets see here. I started off in the morning. It wasn't so bad. I had
gotten out of the snow from the previous day, down from Crater Lake
and was out in the flats - the big volcanic flats area, just lots of
pumice and ash, which makes the soil sparsely treed with lodgepoles -
not every big ones and pretty thin. You come to clusters that are
more dense than others. The mosquitoes were bad regardless of where you were. I slept pretty much right on trail - nice flat</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAqkK0WAYubeWin_hWYxh05Nx-vVgrNjs9m-ZvDCO7LUUAEjkv9Z4_j3F0YtDyOAksMsEGynhlfq6llGPXuFkouSOQqxaflPRb15I2D-D9bDXALllcZRmPhk-_Ut3-DeZ8nKLZbSfysl69/s1600/PCT+Compilation-571.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAqkK0WAYubeWin_hWYxh05Nx-vVgrNjs9m-ZvDCO7LUUAEjkv9Z4_j3F0YtDyOAksMsEGynhlfq6llGPXuFkouSOQqxaflPRb15I2D-D9bDXALllcZRmPhk-_Ut3-DeZ8nKLZbSfysl69/s1600/PCT+Compilation-571.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yup, that's the trail. The icy steep horror.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
ground, almost 5 miles away from highway 138, or where you cross it. The
morning hiking was just fine. There quite a few blow downs across the
trail actually - not very hard to get around, small trees, small
lodgepoles. So I made pretty good time getting to the highway. There
was some water cached at the highway because it is supposed to be a
25 mile dry stretch. Or at least now flowing water, which it turned
out to be the 25 miles and then some. I crossed the highway and
started going up and within about 2 miles or so, the snow patches
began and maybe 0.5-1 mile after the snow patches began, the trail
kind of turns to cross a north face and the snow patches became more
continuous and steeper. They turn into an almost continuous snowfield
on the trail because it's a flat surface, making a great platform for
these huge snow drifts to build and pile up. So I'm crossing these
pointed, mini ridged hills, that are steep, hard snow in the shade,
for pretty much the rest of the day. Once the snow started, it was
95% snow for the next 10 miles. There was very very little dirt or
trail to be had. It was treacherous going for a majority of the day.
These big snow piles are steep, they melt out in weird ways, meaning
that you usually have to walk this thin ridge, a little knife edge,
across them, otherwise you have to kick steps and walk across the
face, where if you fall, you're going to slide down 5-10 ft into a
tree because it's so steep. I plodded along for a while, having to
break out the GPS to figure out exactly where the trail was. The
difference between fighting snow in the trees versus, say above tree
line up in the Sierras is that in the trees you don't know where
you're going. Whereas in the Sierras, you have a general since of the
trail is heading towards that saddle, or down this valley, so you
can more or less stick to the valley and make your own trail, and you
pop out and can find the trail real easy. Where, in the trees, you
could be trying to contour along at one elevation and the trail goes
way up, then all of a sudden you realize when you hit a ridge that
the trail is somewhere, where you are not. So you have to kind of
keep close to it. It took probably a couple hours to get over to the
Mt. Thielsen summit trail along a nice ridge, which if you were to try and avoid the snow, it</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5HnPjh9gB4g/UIwsdqBBYuI/AAAAAAAAB80/OSrWXZX3BY4/s1600/PCT+Compilation-575.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5HnPjh9gB4g/UIwsdqBBYuI/AAAAAAAAB80/OSrWXZX3BY4/s1600/PCT+Compilation-575.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Reprieve from the snow, Diamond Lake in the background.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
would be real easy to take this trail as a
bypass for about the first 5 miles or so of nasty snow. It seems to
follow up a southward facing ridge, so the snow should more or less
be melted out and you won't have to deal with the treacherous trail
up until that point. The backside of the ridge where you get a nice
view of Mt. Thielsen, is a complete snowfield. That area was actually
pretty nice because it is fairly open, the trees were gone. I worked
my way down into a couple of big open snow fields, soft snow, so I
didn't have to worry about footing as much, so that made it real
easy... and then you get back into the trees where it looks like an
avalanche has come off Thielsen and bowed a bunch of trees over.
There is a big pile of dead ones at the bottom. There was some
activity within the last couple years, maybe even this year. A lot of
the trees were pretty messed up (laying at low angles} which made it
a little hard going to go through the border of the forest. Then,
back into the forest, conditions didn't really change much. They did
change from tall snow drifts at the beginning, eventually to these
big giant snowfields on fairly steep slopes, where there was no
abundance of snow on the trail, there was just a slope of snow you
had to walk across and try and figure out where the trail was. The
bad part about that is, it's hard snow, so you have to kick each
step, and you have to worry about consecutive steps. And if you were
to slip and fall, you might have 20 ft before there was a tree in
your way, however around each tree is this void-space, the snow has
been melting out around the trees faster. Usually there is 2-3 ft
radius around the trees that has melted out to a 3-4 ft depth. So, if
you were to fall, you would slide, then enter this 3ft pit and then
hit the tree, so it's just bad news all around if you were to slip
and fall. I managed to get up and over the next ridge, had to climb down a 4 ft cornice and then shoe</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSXkgTHws8yrzENKRR85TQv_DVHZOLb0snPKGOCPQdSA3jPFXqB-Pd0nrEQMgPfk12yv8OCU2ThWaxD-u0peBFVhXufGSbvNBD_Guw76J7tQfVvjIH_SMnkiqNfUpE44hUnJuqN9wmWFDl/s1600/PCT+Compilation-578.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSXkgTHws8yrzENKRR85TQv_DVHZOLb0snPKGOCPQdSA3jPFXqB-Pd0nrEQMgPfk12yv8OCU2ThWaxD-u0peBFVhXufGSbvNBD_Guw76J7tQfVvjIH_SMnkiqNfUpE44hUnJuqN9wmWFDl/s1600/PCT+Compilation-578.JPG" height="239" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mt. Thielsen at the summit trail junction.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
ski/glisade or otherwise slide down
about 150-200 yards to get down to where the trail was. I took a
little short cut just because the trail takes you on a couple
switchbacks and stuff, where I just cut them. I finally get to
Thielsen Creek and umm, it's supposed to be my first flowing water
from the last 25 miles and it is actually completely covered in snow.
There is no flowing water to be seen, I can't hear any flowing water.
The snow is probably 3-4 ft thick over the top of it. You can see
where the creek should be, but there is no water. I had a little bit
of water because I had been stuffing my water bottles with snow, but
I needed a bit more water to facilitate the melting. I went for
another half hour and finally found a stretch of trail where the
trail itself being a little trough, the snow bank above it was
melting and filling the trough flowing down the trail. So at the
lower end snow bank, I dug out a spot for my water bottle and
proceeded to fill up my water bottle as much as possible with the
water that was slowly trickling down the trail from the melting snow
bank. I managed to get both of them pretty full, but with quite a bit
of debris...that was interesting and delicious, but at least I now
had a source of water that I could drink quickly and use to melt
other snow with. I literally got water directly off the trail...drank
water directly off the trail. I kept going, the snow stayed the
same....the continuous steep, hard, sloped - the trail winding it's
way through the trees. From then until more or less where I stopped,
it was really a constant battle of having to second guess everyone of
your steps, because of the consequences of not having a good foothold
were pretty dramatic. Not that it would kill you, but the end result
if you didn't stop in time before you hit a tree could lead to some
serious complications, just in the way that your legs might fall into
the hold and or get spread around the tree...it just was not good. I
finally got about a 100 yard section of clean trail at one little
ridge that was facing to the south, but then come around the corner
there's this near vertical 10ft slanted...I mean it's a really steep
slope with no footholds. The hardest part actually is that there are
no other footsteps to follow, so I had to</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SGxqgVfU1Ws/UIwstCL_U8I/AAAAAAAAB9c/FWwiToE5kWo/s1600/PCT+Compilation-580.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SGxqgVfU1Ws/UIwstCL_U8I/AAAAAAAAB9c/FWwiToE5kWo/s1600/PCT+Compilation-580.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Snow crossing from the ridge with the Mt. Thielsen summit trail. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
literally blaze the trail
more or less. There are a few faint ones here or there from Swami or
Insane Dwayne. But they were very few and far in-between and not
reliable. That part it took me another 10 minutes to get up and
around it, I had to cut steps...I found that my trekking pole if you
stab it a bunch of times in one area, you can break out a little
foothold and make it better by kicking it. So I finally made it
across that. It's super steep...I took photos, to try and explain it,
but it's a lot steeper when you're standing on the side of this
mountain and looking down to where the snow would take you when you
fall, and knowing that your foot is only maybe 1/3 planted in this
snow because it's so hard and you can't get a full foot kicked into
the wall, so you're just making these tiny half steps - quarter steps
into the snow and walking on those. Thank god I had trekking poles,
otherwise I would have been...yeah...even slower. At the same token,
if I had had crampons, I would have felt much safer and probably
could have gone at a somewhat reasonable pace, just because you don't
have to worry about every step you're taking...your foot is in,
you're set and you can make the next step and not have to worry about
it. So that's a consideration for future attempts, or other people.
Crampons - have a supply ready and don't be afraid to carry them
because if you get to a point like this, they are going to save you a
bunch of time. Anyways, the slope finally kind of leveled out a
little. I hiked up to a big scree slope/boulder slope and walked
across the boulders instead of having to punch through the snow. Then
I cut down and over to the trail. Where I finally hit the trail, I
check the map, did the math and figured out that I only did 10 miles
in 8 hours and I was at a trail that lead me back to somewhere where
I could escape relatively easily and get picked up</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WGo_gx8WQoI/UIws6JliH3I/AAAAAAAAB-U/cZJpQxPtFXg/s1600/PCT+Compilation-584.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WGo_gx8WQoI/UIws6JliH3I/AAAAAAAAB-U/cZJpQxPtFXg/s1600/PCT+Compilation-584.JPG" height="320" width="238" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Below Mt. Thielsen at Thielsen creek.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
easily.... versus
if I kept going I'd have another 10-15 miles above 6,000 ft, which
would probably mean more snow, which would mean going slow, and then
I would drop down and finally be out. To negate the extra amount of
extra work I would have to do, I said screw it all, this has taken me
the last 2 days to basically go 52 miles. So that should have been
1.25 days. So it was slowly wearing me down and taking my time, and I
feel like I...the snow was the final nail in the coffin, whereas if
the trail was clear or there were just little snow banks, it would
have been totally fine, I would have kept going, kept pushing. But,
knowing that it was going to be that way for a while longer, and
slowly whittling down my lead that I have gotten, that was too much
really. The lead I've gotten is not something I wanted to whittle
down just to break the record, but something I wanted to continue and
pull through the entire time. If I'm already 4 days ahead with only
800 miles to go, I want to finish by being 4 days ahead, not being
like 'well I was 4 days ahead, and then it was reduced to 1...I still
broke the record by 1 day but if conditions were better I would have
really been able to really kill it'. It's kind of one of those quit
while your ahead. I knew that the snow was going to be a big damper,
it just takes that much more out of you. It's a full body workout
versus just your legs, because you have to balance, use your arms,
you have to mentally think about each step and worry and....for all
it's worth, it wasn't worth it, therefore I called it. I hiked down
the Howlick trail, which was pretty snow free actually. It was
amazing to drop down just a little elevation and to see how it
changes. The trail looks to be a snow magnet, because when you get a
little lower, it turned into not so bad. Once the slopes you are on
lessen in their grade, travel becomes much easier, but that's not
where the PCT is. It likes to stick to</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Yhi1ryi1AqU/UIwtF2bhYzI/AAAAAAAAB-s/o4MJOWXUmW0/s1600/PCT+Compilation-589.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Yhi1ryi1AqU/UIwtF2bhYzI/AAAAAAAAB-s/o4MJOWXUmW0/s1600/PCT+Compilation-589.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Choose you're own icy adventure trail..</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
the crest, the high points and
that's where it becomes hard. So, I hiked on down, the mosquitoes
were thick...I finally crossed Thielsen Creek as it was flowing...it
was flowing pretty damn well. I filled up my water again - it was
some great water, kept going and finally exited the trail about a
half mile away from the Diamond Lake Resort at the horse campground
area. I walked down to the resort, went into their laundry area,
charged my phone. By this time it was about 8:30pm. I did a few
things on my email and online and such and then just walked out of
the resort. I found a little place about 50 yards from the highway,
nestled behind this big giant pine tree with nice duff and spent the
night there. I even tired to sleep in a little bit.</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-prLnXldCUz0/UIws8QtW_uI/AAAAAAAAB-c/lPfmNyXclf8/s1600/PCT+Compilation-587.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-prLnXldCUz0/UIws8QtW_uI/AAAAAAAAB-c/lPfmNyXclf8/s1600/PCT+Compilation-587.JPG" height="190" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mt Thielsen at Thielsen. This was supposed to be the first water source in 30 miles..,it's all under snow!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08628242465814913016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871278426154035797.post-25796868962040287432013-01-10T13:00:00.000-07:002016-01-17T14:49:53.691-07:00Day 42: July 5, 2012<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<h3>
July 5, 2012.</h3>
<b><span style="color: #e06666;">Day: 42 Daily Miles: 35 Total Miles: 1847.25 Hours Hiking: 16.5 7:00am-11:30pm</span></b><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
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<audio controls>
<source src="https://2b8242c465a4be2f1b7473525c5e7f244507be40.googledrive.com/host/0By2m6B0qS-XOYnpZM29oZ3hVNzQ/7-5%20Day%2042-%202x%20Entries%20-%20Evening.mp3" type="audio/mpeg">
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: lime;">Listen to the audio journal above or</span> <a href="https://docs.google.com/open?id=0By2m6B0qS-XObTZWUFhwSHlLWmM" target="_blank">Download July 5th Audio File Here</a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<b>Day 42</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<u>Evening</u><br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>EVENING</b></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2kEuS2QhXOM/UIwrUnevCfI/AAAAAAAAB5U/qgPYOb_dkdM/s1600/PCT+Compilation-549.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2kEuS2QhXOM/UIwrUnevCfI/AAAAAAAAB5U/qgPYOb_dkdM/s1600/PCT+Compilation-549.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Through a burned area about 15 miles before Crater Lake.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
July 5th. I sit here on the rim of
Crater Lake, looking down as a slowly setting sun behind me casting
shadows across the lake onto Wizard Island. It's about 7pm, it's a
really picturesque day. Big puffy clouds in the background. Beautiful
and clear all the way across the lake. The golden light streaming
across the grass next to me, the dead tree on the point next to me as
well. Wizard Island overlook is off to my left, to the north and the
hiker PCT on the rim trail is the absolute epitome of hard. It is so
choked with snow and unmarked and hidden and steep and erratic that
it....well the whole day has been covered in snow, and I have
definitely hit way more..5 times at least, 10 times probably at
least, more snow in the last 20 miles than I have had the whole
entire time along the rest of the trip. It it makes for slower going,
that's for sure, and most of it I have hit in the flats, which I know
that's going to change once I move on a little bit into the
mountains. So, right now is the first time I'm seriously considering
stopping. Before it's a daily struggle, and in the end I always have
the motivation to keep going. And right now, with the prospect of
having Oregon choked with snow, and Washington, because they both had
abundant snow years, and even late snows. I'm here now and I know
that my mileage per day is going to suffer, and at the same time, if
I reduce, say to even just 40 miles a day, I'll still beat the record
but at the same time, that's not really what I'm going for. I feel
like I've done all this work so far...and in the one hand, yeah, it's
wasted if I don't finish, but at the same time, you know, I feel
like, if I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it right.
Finishing about a day and a half early and doing 10x more work for
the record, I'm not sure it means that much to me. I mean I've
already had thoughts of stopping just because I'm unhappy and I'm
over it. And this, just makes things worse. I've sat here for about 25 minutes. I have another, ohh, 6 miles to go along the rim.</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xi4TQ1SejA0/UIwraaadXjI/AAAAAAAAB5k/Q2yAOIlQ55M/s1600/PCT+Compilation-551.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xi4TQ1SejA0/UIwraaadXjI/AAAAAAAAB5k/Q2yAOIlQ55M/s1600/PCT+Compilation-551.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fresh bear prints on the snow.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
I have
no idea if it gets better....it better. I hope it gets better. If it
doesn’t I'm going to road walk, because it is absolutely horrific.
I would much rather be on the equestrian PCT right now - going mostly
flat and hitting snow drifts versus these gigantic walls.... many of
them are corniced...tough snow on this steep slope on a trail that
basically just bobs up and down and is really hard to follow. So,
it's um, yeah... it's kind of one of those points, those pivotal
moments where I want to keep going. I know there is going to be more
snow. I know it's doable, but at the same time is it worth the
effort? Currently, I am at least 4 days ahead of the record and today
I might not even make 30 miles because I resupplied and I have this
horrific trail situation, truly. And I know from here on out it's
just going to be a daily battle to even try and make the miles. If it
was clear, I don't think I would stop, I would definitely finish and
accomplish what I set out to accomplish. I mean I already feel like
I've accomplished what I personally wanted - doing really well up
until this point, testing what my physical and mental endurances are.
And, having done that, I don't think that 20 more days of pounding
through snow is going to prove that anymore to me, besides the fact
that I am a masochist and that *laughs* I actually...I don't
know...that doesn't truly prove anything more to me. Like, the record
in itself, all depends on weather and conditions. I mean if it was
clear, that's why southbound is 'so much better' of a way to do it.
At least for trail conditions, because you leave when the snow is
gone and the Sierras are totally clear. But this is slightly
unexpected. I had warning about it, but it is much worse than it had
ever seemed to be. A majority of today wasn't that bad. I was only
probably an hour and a half behind, but this trail...I came up from
the equestrian PCT on the hiker PCT and 1.5 miles of it was snow. I
mean there was no trail. I'm glad I have a GPS, or otherwise I
wouldn't have found the trail, and actually I met two people that
were trying to hike up the trail to the rim road - a father and son,
and they were coming back down because they said they had lost the
trail. Well I was like ' I have a GPS' and they asked if they</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2PMKSwU2B6M/UIwrcu-4UpI/AAAAAAAAB5w/7tibXdBTT-A/s1600/PCT+Compilation-552.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2PMKSwU2B6M/UIwrcu-4UpI/AAAAAAAAB5w/7tibXdBTT-A/s1600/PCT+Compilation-552.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Where's the trail...under the snow!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
could
follow and I was like 'sure thing!'. So I lead the way for two other
people to get up, that's how hard the trail is, because there is no
trail. We're probably the 3rd 4th and 5th people to do it this year,
and it's completely covered. At many points today, I hit the same
thing. You're in trees and you go about 20 ft from the last place you
saw the trail...and it's all snow and you don't know which way it
goes. You have an idea, but the snow just stretches on and on, and
you can't tell. The trees are pretty equally spaced, there are no
marks, so it's very frustrating...and you know...it's... it's the
extra push to say 'why am I actually doing this?' I mean if it's just
a trail to follow and hike all day long that's doable. This is a
whole different ballgame entirely. So I feel like I've going to push
on and if it stays similar, then I'm going to quit, just because I
really feel there is no point to push on and really beat myself up
and go through the hoops just to barely scrape by with the record. I
mean after all, the record was the goal in which to judge myself with
and thus far I've bested the record by a good deal. Granted, it's not
the full record, but allowing for trail conditions, it would be
nearly impossible I think to actually do it completely at this point
in time due to the conditions. So, it just comes to a balance.....
and there are sooo many mosquitoes up here, I don't understand this.
There's no standing water besides the lake and the lake is like 500
ft below me and yet there is a cloud of mosquitoes constantly
following me. That adds to it too, just the general nuisance. I
haven't had it this bad since the Tuolumne area. I can see Mt.
Thielsen barely, just sticking up over the ridge through a little
saddle off to my left, to the north. Tomorrow, if everything goes as
planned, I'd hit the highest point in Oregon and Washington. If</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-G8692c03HAI/UIwrj4SqSnI/AAAAAAAAB6I/_lmC5S0xa1I/s1600/PCT+Compilation-554.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-G8692c03HAI/UIwrj4SqSnI/AAAAAAAAB6I/_lmC5S0xa1I/s1600/PCT+Compilation-554.JPG" height="235" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Crater lake in all it's glory. Still so much snow.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
that's not covered in snow, I don't what is... So it's.... I looked
at the map, and there is a good section down around 5,500 ft, but
even then, I know from last night that there were snow patches, not
nearly as difficult, but when you go up on Mt Adams, I believe is
next, so you go up Thielsen, up Adams to the sisters, which all of
those are at 6000 ft, which I was at all day today and was in tons of
snow. And if you're in the trees...being Oregon, they are dense
trees... and so the snow can't melt out, unless it's really clear.
Even on the east or west slopes, I had bunches and bunches of snow
that wasn't melted. So, it's going to be extremely tough and the
overall result will be less than I want...and if that's not reason to
quit.. It's not particularly a great reason to quit, just because
things get tough and you quit but when you're going for a speed
record, if you can't make what you're going for, why keep putting the
effort into it? If I was doing this as a normal thru-hike I could
take days off, I could go slow. Even if I go slower now, I have to
rearrange my whole food scheduling, because right now I think I have
it set for a 46-47 mile a day pace. So if I only make 40's everyday,
I'm going to be short at least half a day when I get down and around
to my next resupplies, and that's a problem, especially when you get
to places like Big Lake Youth Camp, which is my next resupply,
there's no store, and it's too late to have extra stuff sent. So I'm
stranded, especially since I can't hitch to anywhere. So it's a bunch
of logistical things that also add in. That's my thought. I gotta get
going to see if I can get the hell off of this rim walk before it
gets dark, or at least find a really really awesome campsite and make
my day short, a really short day. That way, if I do get off trail, at
least I'll have one good beautiful morning, something really
spectacular to remember and end my trip by. It's been a good ride, so
we'll see how it turns out. I gotta get hiking.
Alright....damn.........</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QWZbfBwxo8E/UIwr2at-1pI/AAAAAAAAB6s/4lzS2qY4Oqk/s1600/PCT+Compilation-560.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QWZbfBwxo8E/UIwr2at-1pI/AAAAAAAAB6s/4lzS2qY4Oqk/s1600/PCT+Compilation-560.JPG" height="176" width="640" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
July 5, Day 42. I went only 35 miles to
trail mile 1846.25 around somewhere about 5 miles away from Highway
138, I believe that's the highway number that goes to Diamond Lake,
after the junction with the equestrian and hiker PCT routes off the
Crater Lake Highway. Somewhere in the flats, in the lodgepoles and
giant mosquito town. That point was 0573881 E 4764520 N. Ummm,
shiiiittt.... yesterday... Not a great day, as you can tell by the
miles. It started out OK. I mean it started out with snow drifts,
which I expected...but slowly as I moved towards Crater Lake...I had
18 miles or so to get to the turnoff for Annie Springs...the
individual snow drifts started turning into larger and large snow
patches, until when I was about 4 miles out, they were starting to
become on solid large patch among the trees. Which. you know, if,
say, you're in the high Sierra, and there's no trees around, it's not
so big a deal, because you know generally that you need to head
uphill or downhill or you get a bearing form you map and you head
towards a certain direction. But when you're in the trees and little
hills, you might find a little section of trail, you'll follow it,
then you'll walk about 20 ft onto the snow and then the trail could
go any-which-way. So I really had to try and follow my GPS, which
just meant winding around a bit and it just slowed my progress down.
I believe the 18 miles too me about an extra 1.5-2 hours to complete.</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vNzTnLJGQSE/UIwr27xJmrI/AAAAAAAAB64/_SL-3zwaHxs/s1600/PCT+Compilation-561.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vNzTnLJGQSE/UIwr27xJmrI/AAAAAAAAB64/_SL-3zwaHxs/s1600/PCT+Compilation-561.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Helllooo Crater Lake!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
So, at the end of the day, it's almost 6 miles that I lost really
quickly. Then I did a resupply at Mazama Village store. And that went
pretty quick. I bought some cookies, some chips, soda, and other
little odds and ends. Then I went over to the restaurant to find out
that they have gotten rid of the all-you-can-eat buffet and not it's
just an all-you-can-eat salad bar... :( plus restaurant. I had to
wait on like a reservation list to get a seat and was like ' really?
it's not even busy!' Then, it took forever to get food served, but
that was OK because all the while I was busying myself with packing
my resupply, so it wasn't soo bad. I just got a cheeseburger with
onion rings. So that was alright, it wasn't the best. I headed back
out with a heavy pack. I think I have more or less 4 days plus extra
food in my pack. Because from the store it's up to the rim, it's a
dry stretch, so I had to carry a lot of water, but I didn't carry it
until I got to the turn off. Hiking to the hiker PCT turnoff wasn't
so bad, just larger snow drifts. I filled up my water at the bottom
at one of the creeks, because once you get on top, there is no
running water for 25 miles until you get to Thielsen Creek, way over
on Mt. Thielsen. So I headed up, patchy snow, patchy snow. Then I met
a father and son, who were coming down the trail and they were like
'hey, do you know how to get to the top? Basically we lost the trail
- it got super snowy and we couldn't figure it out and we'd like to
go up instead of backtrack'. I said I had my GPS and that we'll
figure it out, so they tagged along. We got a little further and low
and behold, it turns into complete snow, no trail to be found. We
proceeded for 1-1.5 miles uphill steeply through snow until the
Crater Lake Highway rim road. So that was the first taste of not fun.
Then, after that, you hit the little village up there and there's
sidewalk and tourists everywhere taking pictures. I followed the
sidewalk....the trail is NOT marked at ALL. It's really ambiguous. So
you kind of just walk along and then there's this trail that kind of
follows right next to the rim from viewpoint to viewpoint. So that's the trail and I take it and it</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Hf7TdDScjUE/UIwr6ddSZ_I/AAAAAAAAB7E/cIsCA_vQ09c/s1600/PCT+Compilation-562.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Hf7TdDScjUE/UIwr6ddSZ_I/AAAAAAAAB7E/cIsCA_vQ09c/s1600/PCT+Compilation-562.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Route finding...I'm more or less on trail.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
turns out to be this steep, terrible
trail with no marking and these cliff like snow drifts set right on
the edge of the Crater Lake rim. So that was painful and terrible,
having to climb up and over, around and on super steep snow. That
lasted for a good probably mile or so before you get over towards
Wizard Island Lookout, and then I guess it's the old road that the
trail kind of takes over. But the old road being flat has been
totally covered with snow. So it goes from steep snow drifts to one
big giant continuous snowfield on an angle for sure, not flat by any
means for pretty much the rest of the way...all the way until the
trail junction. So I spent probably about a good 90% of the time
while up on the rim on snow. The snowfield weren't the worst, but at
the same time, not being on normal walking trail tread I was probably
going only 2mph and slipping and having to expend a lot more energy
to walk across this snow, then I would have had to have if I had take
the equestrian, which would have just been snow patches and or
possibly dirt trail. So that took me a lot longer. Because of all the
snow, I sat down and had to really think {the previous recording} -
if this continues I'm stopping because I've done the math and I can
beat the record even with lower miles, but it's not beating the
record how I want to beat the record {not beating it with my full
potential}. Before this day, I was up at least 4 days on the current
record, and even if I hit 40 mile days for the remainder, I'd beat
the record by a day and a half, which is a lot, but at the same time,
it's not what I could do, and that really bums me out. So, that's if I can do 40's.</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xG4hyKH5jgo/UIwsBK1RzEI/AAAAAAAAB7k/sytPQT-WQjY/s1600/PCT+Compilation-566.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xG4hyKH5jgo/UIwsBK1RzEI/AAAAAAAAB7k/sytPQT-WQjY/s1600/PCT+Compilation-566.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mt. Thielsen - be there tomorrow.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
We'll see how the snow goes...a 40 in snow is still a
really long day, especially when you have to battle it all day. So it
gets dark. The sunset was really nice being up high, you get to see
all the shades of orange and the mountain ranges stretching off to
the west, silhouetted in purple. It was windy. I was just about 2-2.5
miles away from the trail junction and the tracks I had been
following disappeared. Where the hell the trail went because very
ambiguous, thank god I have a GPS. So I started to forge new trail in
the twilight, in the dusk. The moon hadn't come up yet, so I was out
there with my flashlight...and finally, I mean the snow still didn't
let up until I did get to the trail junction, and then there was
patches, and then once you finally get down a little lower, low
enough, most of it disappeared.... I've actually just gotten back
into it this morning here, about 3-4 miles from Highway 138.... For a
good while there it disappeared entirely. I camped on trail. I
stopped right around 11:30pm. I was trying to make up a few more
miles. It was a pretty shitty day to say the least. When I don't get
my miles that really hurts and then on top of that is the notion that
there's all this snow, and there is going to be more snow and that it
will be doable, and yet it will be that much more work on top of all
the extra work I've already done and have to do still. So, normally,
a normal thru-hike this wouldn't be a problem, you'd just take days
off, cool. I can't, this sucks. We'll see how it goes. I figured I've
got 3 days worth of food, so I'll see where that gets me, and if I
feel like I don't want to do this anymore I'll quit. I mean there's
really nothing else to it. It's either I keep going or I quit. So,
we'll see how it goes and I'll see what I decide, but either way,
I've got to keep moving today.</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aaqiTmN6yCg/UIwr9vTDvrI/AAAAAAAAB7U/KZ8w2sG1wFw/s1600/PCT+Compilation-564.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aaqiTmN6yCg/UIwr9vTDvrI/AAAAAAAAB7U/KZ8w2sG1wFw/s1600/PCT+Compilation-564.JPG" height="160" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Snow crossing at sunset on the Crater Lake Rim. It's about to get cold!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08628242465814913016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871278426154035797.post-79798497128585467832013-01-10T12:00:00.000-07:002016-01-17T14:49:32.802-07:00Day 41: July 4, 2012<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<h3>
July 4, 2012.</h3>
<b><span style="color: #e06666;">Day: 41 Daily Miles: 46 Total Miles: 1812.25 Hours Hiking: 16 8:05am-11:50pm</span></b><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
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<span style="color: lime;">Listen to the audio journal above or</span> <a href="https://docs.google.com/open?id=0By2m6B0qS-XOYXJCazN2enBtMFU" target="_blank">Download July 4th Audio File Here</a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<b>Day 41</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rB3L9fa5TB0/UIwrE_gg9MI/AAAAAAAAB4U/vn1OSS3ZQP8/s1600/PCT+Compilation-543.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rB3L9fa5TB0/UIwrE_gg9MI/AAAAAAAAB4U/vn1OSS3ZQP8/s1600/PCT+Compilation-543.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mt. McLoughlin and the cinder coated trail.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5871278426154035797" name="OLE_LINK2"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5871278426154035797" name="OLE_LINK1"></a> July 4, Day 41. Independence Day, yee haa... I made it 46 miles even
last night ending at mileage 1812.25. I stopped at the junction for
the Ranger Spring Trail about 20 miles away from the road in Crater
Lake National Park, so I'll be there tomorrow. Anyways, it was an
interesting day...actually I have a waypoint for my campsite... I
stopped at 0567880 E 4726203 N. Yesterday was an interesting day.
Basically, because I stayed up so late hiking the night before...or I
don't know..but for some reason I slept in. I didn't get up and leave
until about 8am. I was 4 miles short of where I really wanted to be
which was the shelter, but you know, things don't always go as
planned. I was slow to the get-go and was kind of dragging actually.
I've noticed that sometimes when I sleep in more than my normal, that
I can have a hard time in the morning. I made it to the shelter,
which was an easy stroll through the woods, flat, and then I came to
the cinders, or well the lava flows off Mt. McLoughlin that they've
really done a nice job with the trail, by making a level way through
the big bouldery fields of the lava. They've covered the trail with
dirt or with cinders to make a nice flat path. The trail is really
neat, really stark contrast with the dark grey-blue of the lava and
the red or brown dirt. It makes for nice photos. So a little ways
into that, I was just not feeling the energy. I had no go-power. I
stopped, had some sugar, some food...with the sugar, I figured my
lack of energy might be my blood sugar, and it seemed to be. I was
having a similar feeling as when I had giardia. I was a little
worried but it was definitely a blood sugar thing, once I kicked the
blood sugar up, I had energy again. So I decided to start listening
to a Science Friday podcast and like 5 minutes into that I look up a little</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-47HPWDpKZ9A/UIwrFqu948I/AAAAAAAAB4c/Yvz3Ev38n_k/s1600/PCT+Compilation-544.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-47HPWDpKZ9A/UIwrFqu948I/AAAAAAAAB4c/Yvz3Ev38n_k/s1600/PCT+Compilation-544.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of the only views from the side of Mt. McLoughlin.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
hill ahead of me and see someone coming. I do my obligatory
shut off the music and pull out an earbud so I could talk to them or
hear them...and when the person gets close to me, I realize it's my
brother! *laughs* Which, was a complete and utter surprise, because
I'm still a good 6 miles away from any road or anything. But the way
it goes is that the day before I had talked to my parents and had
told them roughly where I was thinking about heading for the
night...they like to follow along, they had the map out and were like
'ohh where are you at??' And, I guess my brother was driving back
down to California from Washington and he had talked to my parents
and they were like 'oh, he's....Ryan will be..' they just did the
math of if I was at such and such a place, that he'll be crossing
highway 140 at roughly XX time. And so, he drove and parked at the
crossing at night...spent the night at the trail head and in the
morning about 9am or something like that, he just started hiking
backwards to meet me. If I had known, I probably would have had a
little bit more energy, but I started late, I was short of my
estimated destination, so he had to walk a hell of a lot further than
I think he ever anticipated, but he was all about it, not a big deal
{gave him a taste of what I've been doing for the last 40 days!}. So
I had a good 1.5 hour chat with him all the way back until Highway
140, where he had a little bit of food. It was cool. It was really
one of those unexpected things that make your day better. There was a
little trail magic a little ways in, so I had a soda and I actually
saved it for later. He left, shoot probably..I don't know...I
probably spent an extra hour with him, so I was even more behind. But
sometimes it just doesn't matter. I then stated up the Mt. Mcloughlin
trail and it's a fairly slow climb up and around the mountain through
the trees. A good like 17 miles of just tree walking, it's pretty
boring because you don't have any views except for at one point you
see a lake. Then, finally, you get up to the long ridge that leads to
Devils Peak, and once there, you get some views because you're up high. However, </div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-e_5YKtULdaM/UIwrLKHmaoI/AAAAAAAAB48/4IaV6Ihl-VI/s1600/PCT+Compilation-546.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-e_5YKtULdaM/UIwrLKHmaoI/AAAAAAAAB48/4IaV6Ihl-VI/s1600/PCT+Compilation-546.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A not so fun snow field crossing.</td></tr>
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
the snow had started before that in patches. Up until
about mile 1803, I had crossed about 50 snow patches {I was
counting!}, which weren't difficult at all and didn't really slow you
down, but they were across the trail and you couldn't avoid them.
Once you hit 1803, you're on the ridge where the Divide Trail splits
off and the PCT takes a westward turn, so you have to cross the north
face/the back side of a mountain. Basically, there's where it starts
getting 'fun'. That's where I started losing count on how many snow
drifts I had crossed because it got serious. That crossing wasn't soo
bad, as a couple people had been across it before me, so there were
footprints and the snow was soft on account of me being there at the
end of the day, around 8pm. So nothing too bad at all, but when I got
up and over to... Well prior to this I had had the soda, so I was
feeling good. I knew I needed to get over Devils Peak before it was
totally dark, because if I had to wait until the morning, it would
probably be very icy or at least have time to harden up. So that was
a big thing, since I knew there was going to be a large snowfield...
Following the ridge it turned from these snow patches to some more
snow patches to a snow field then you're up on another ridge that was
minimal snow here and there. Thankfully, we went around the west side
of one of the little peaks you go by, and that was a little more
difficult, as there were tall snow drifts on trails on an uphill, so
you had to climb up the big face and then kind of flat walk to the
trail. But, the hard part was when you come to a little saddle and
switchbacked to the east side, where there was a cornice and a HUGE
snowfield, with not what I would consider serious consequences if you
fell, but a steep down for about 100-150 feet....so you didn't want
to fall. The trail poked out in only a couple places along this big
face, but thankfully the snow was really slushy for having been on an
east face and had had the whole day to warm up. Kicking steps was just a matter of stepping</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0uvTIEE-4Pg/UIwrKsZaaWI/AAAAAAAAB40/cuOyTU4I3fA/s1600/PCT+Compilation-547.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0uvTIEE-4Pg/UIwrKsZaaWI/AAAAAAAAB40/cuOyTU4I3fA/s1600/PCT+Compilation-547.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
down hard and making a big hole - not quite
postholing, so it was pretty nice. That being said, it wasn't that
difficult, but it did slow me down. Once I got back into the trees,
the drifts started up intermittently again all the way until about
the last 1/4 mile before Devils Peak which wasn't snow covered. At
the point where the switchback turns and starts heading down, there's
this most amazing tiny little cowboy campsite on this point next to a
tree that overlooks all of the ridge that you have just come up. I
actually met Billy Goat there in 2009, he was hunkered down for the
night, when I met him there in the evening.... When I came around
that little corner and looked down, it was just a solid steep snow
field, which I was expecting, that's why I was pushing so hard. I had
arrived there a little ahead of what I had estimated, right around
9:40pm or so. So it was dark, but the more or less full moon was up,
so it wasn't super dark. I had already taken my flashlight out and
was holding it in my teeth just so I could see better {while
navigating the snow patches with my trekking poles}. You know, the
only way down from this point is to just go down. There really was
no...easy way down. It looked like other people had glisaded...I
walked down to a little less steep portion and turned my feet
sideways and started sliding down with my feet perpendicular to the
down direction and trailed my trekking pole behind me, to kind of
arrest myself a little bit. About 1/4 of the way down it turned icy
and I couldn't really stop or check my speed so I had to dig my
fingers and knee into the snow and skidded to about half way down the
slope where it changed slope again and was a little less steep and
got back slushy. So, I stood back up and shoe skied the rest of the
way down. In all it cut, well it didn't really cut, but i bypassed
the switchbacks which equated to about 1/2 a mile worth of trail, yet
it still took a good long ways to get out of the snow. The first
little bit was done. I had to walk through some trees and I was still
on the side of a really steep bowl, I found another snow slope, skied
down that, walked over and down some more, skied down that. If I
hadn't had the GPS, I would have been totally lost. There was just
snow covering everything, you</div>
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were in the trees and you would not be
able to find the trail in the dark. That was fun. Actually it was
some of the.... It's the only fun I can remember having so far on
this trail. It was one of those...a little bit of an adrenaline rush
and something totally different from what I have done so far, and
kind of adventurous. So, once I plodded down through the snow and had
to track down the trail, I proceeded to have to hop up and over all
the rest of the snow banks. I mean there was snow all the way down to
the 5000 foot elevations just hanging out in the trees, so that means
the rest of Oregon is going to have a ton as well. The little
adrenaline kept me going. I just kept plodding on. I didn't feel
super tired when I finally hit camp at about 11:40pm, but when you
sit down you're like " OHHH I'm so glad I'm sitting down!' I
made dinner, took care of most of my things, but didn't do my foot
maintenance. I left that for the morning and went to sleep somewhere
after 12am. So it was a late night, but I got the miles done and
basically having woken up late and having an extra hour of off I feel
like I did OK, especially considering all of the snow.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
In addition to July 4, I forgot that I
had actually postholed and kind of hyper extended my right knee. It's
the knee that I've felt little twinges of pain in for a good little
while now. When I sit cross-legged at night, I can't really move that
leg on it's own without feeling this sharp lighting bolt pain shoot
down out of my knee. So usually I just pick it up and move it to a
position where I can move it again more easily. It's just made it
hurt more. So, I'm going to have to keep an eye on that. You know, I
don't really want to do any permanent damage, more-so than I already
have I guess. I've got to get 20 miles or so to Crater Lake and get a
resupply. I'm pretty sure I'll eat at the buffet, then have a fun
climb and then get a beautiful view, then I get to drop down. So, it
should be a pretty good day once I get to Crater Lake. Currently I'm
walking though this big burn area that I don't remember. It's kind of
sad. I've still got about 15 miles to go...so away a ways, a ways.</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9OYTkLcqn38/UIwrI6hG3ZI/AAAAAAAAB4s/_HHmieogJn4/s1600/PCT+Compilation-545.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9OYTkLcqn38/UIwrI6hG3ZI/AAAAAAAAB4s/_HHmieogJn4/s1600/PCT+Compilation-545.JPG" height="138" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sunset from around mile 1800.</td></tr>
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</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08628242465814913016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871278426154035797.post-61941266034255769652013-01-10T11:00:00.000-07:002016-01-17T14:49:06.108-07:00Day 40: July 3, 2012.<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<h3>
July 3, 2012.</h3>
<b><span style="color: #e06666;">Day: 40 Daily Miles: 46.5 Total Miles: 1766.25 Hours Hiking: 16 7:00am-11:00pm</span></b><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: lime;">Listen to the audio journal above or</span> <a href="https://docs.google.com/open?id=0By2m6B0qS-XObmJDSEJmYVBJOVU" target="_blank">Download July 3rd Audio File Here</a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<b>Day 40</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitc7qx-zhbY8jFsz-Iz7B7Yfx4D1NUmQ9We8990EBi6Cek-C1QU74DQEq4EkIIc2AvAjzH-HXJb1Li0ZoQ25hJIA9BDgaS8cM7uA_0buihkEEQ9rmRPMcnF8R0-yop8y-gd4OnmSNu3uUR/s1600/PCT+Compilation-539.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitc7qx-zhbY8jFsz-Iz7B7Yfx4D1NUmQ9We8990EBi6Cek-C1QU74DQEq4EkIIc2AvAjzH-HXJb1Li0ZoQ25hJIA9BDgaS8cM7uA_0buihkEEQ9rmRPMcnF8R0-yop8y-gd4OnmSNu3uUR/s1600/PCT+Compilation-539.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mt. Shasta from near Pilot knob.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
July 3, Day 40. I made 46.5 miles
today, ending at 1766.25 miles, at more or less a forested slope,
stuck out in the middle of the trees, approximately 4 miles or so
away from the Brown Mountain shelter where I stayed in 2009. The
point I stopped at is 0558968 E 4679963 N. So, yesterday was a
mentally tough day for me. Ya know, I did the miles, I actually had
gotten to 45 miles or so and had to start looking for a campsite by
about 10:30, but it took me until 11pm to finally settle down in a
spot. Basically in the morning, Mouse and I got up and hiked down to
I-5, where he took the Callahan's cutoff down to the restaurant/store
to hitch into Ashland. We arrived there at about 8am. After having
someone to talk to for above a day and a half, it was one of those
things where I could use him as a sounding board to figure things out
for myself...such as, I've found that my motivation for what I'm
doing right now, for hiking fast is gone. Once I crossed into Oregon,
that goal of completing California has vanished. Yeah, OK, so I could
choose another goal, say Oregon, but that isn't as big of a goal, or
as strong of a goal as California, just because California is such a
big state, and for Oregon, you're like "well 8-9 days and I'll
be across it". I don't know. At this point, I feel like I've
accomplished the goal that I set out to do, which was to see if
I...the challenge to see what I am capable of and if I can beat the
record, which I set the new California record and basically sure, I
haven't finished the whole trail, but I am ahead by like 4 days, and
that too me is like, 'you've done it, that's proof enough for me, yes
you can do it'. 20 more days worth isn't going to tell me much more
than what I've already done. So it's been hard. I've been questions myself</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6BJVj4M6kPY/UIwqu3Tx9aI/AAAAAAAAB3o/qPqeUyM4SPs/s1600/PCT+Compilation-538.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6BJVj4M6kPY/UIwqu3Tx9aI/AAAAAAAAB3o/qPqeUyM4SPs/s1600/PCT+Compilation-538.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pilot Knob, after the I-5 corssing.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
'why am I doing this?' Putting myself though the paces of at
least 45 miles every single day...is tiring, to say the least...and
just mentally fatiguing and... of course I know all of the
facts...it's just one of those things that I'm not that happy. This
isn't fun...go figure right? If it was fun, more people would be
doing it. The other thing was that I-5 was right there, so it's like
I'm in Oregon, my companion is leaving and you know I have an easy
out. I think that's the worst thing about all of this, is that I know
I can leave trail pretty much at anytime. And knowing that in itself
is a hard thing, because you can feel like "ohh well I don't
feel like doing this anymore...bye". It's not like you're stuck
and can't escape. You can escape pretty much everywhere. So that
temptation is always very close. I don't know...it was just one of
those days that I remember it being in 2009 the first day that I
really stated feeling sick with giardia, but at the time not knowing
that I did have giardia. It was one of those days where I was hiking
along and then all of a sudden, I was like ' I have to stop, I have
no energy, I'm tired, what's wrong?' So, a culmination of things. I
talked to my parents and my roommate, and they are doing the normal
supportive things - 'do what you want, but you'll probably kick
yourself later if you don't do it', which I know, but it's just,
being have people to back me up and being able to talk this out is a
good thing. So, annnnyyywwayyyys. That persisted throughout the whole
day, and kind of tainted it. Even though it was easy miles for the
most part, I was going to try for 50 miles to get to the shelter
because it's just a shelters and I don't have to worry about anything
else, it's there and there's water, just perfect stuff. After I left
I-5, I did the climb up towards Pilots Knob. It was nice and warm. I
met a couple of section hikers and chatted with them for a quick
second. I passed this youth group of about 15-20 kids doing trail
maintenance. It looks like they had been doing it for a good little
while. About 7 or 10 miles of trail had been cleaned up pretty well.
So, I went through them and chatted with them a little </div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-L0SrmFcdEkM/UIwquqlz-JI/AAAAAAAAB3k/yXbaU5whUIY/s1600/PCT+Compilation-537.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-L0SrmFcdEkM/UIwquqlz-JI/AAAAAAAAB3k/yXbaU5whUIY/s1600/PCT+Compilation-537.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
bit, because
they were all teenagers it looked like. I thanked them and told them
what a good job they were doing and kept moving on. I just proceeded
on that ridge, headed over towards Hyatt Lake. I found out that they
had moved the trail in 2011 and they added pretty much another mile
to the fucking trail...so, I had that fun surprise, because halfmile
maps aren't updated for that yet. There's a note, but the map isn't
updated. That lead to a slow down and a mental....it was something I
wasn't expecting, so it made me angry, plus the trail tread SUCKED.
They had moved the trail, but it looks like they haven't done any
work to make the trail into a proper PCT trail. It was whatever
little trail that was there before. And then some moronic horseman,
rode their horse through the whole area of new trail while it was
like supper muddy, so that these huge {deep} horse footprints were
covering the trail. So you have this nice flat trail normally but
these big huge holes and divots in it, so of course you have to walk
across them. It just wasn't good. At least my feet felt good
yesterday. The big toe is still infected. The heels...the left heel
started hurting again, so I probably need to re-pop a blister in
there...it's probably reforming. The right heel seems good, so at
least that little escapade is seemingly healing itself. Otherwise,
they {the feet} aren't doing too shabby. The cracks in my feet hurt
occasionally, depending on the day, but all the rest of them are
good. I passed Hyatt Lake, it's fairly flat in there. They had just
actually added a...there was some water off trail in a campground by
about 1/10th of a mile, and I get to the turnoff for it and they've actually just this year dug a trench, put a pipe down and put</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A few miles before Hyatt Lake.</td></tr>
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
a
spigot and a drinking fountain in, about 20 feet off the trail. So
that was a good surprise. I got my water there and kept on trucking.
It was pretty flat through the evening. Even the "uphill"
towards the later evening to get up on top of this little mountain
wasn't really and up. I mean it was an uphill for sure, but it wasn't
steep. Which was nice. When looking at the topo lines, it looks like
it is going to be steep, but not at all. Which, it's Oregon...I
forgot! *Laughs* it's nice and easy. I kept hiking through the night
and finally get really tired before - about a half hour before I
stopped. So right around 9:30-10pm I started hearing all of these big
Booms...boom, boooom boom booms in different cadences and tones off
to the northeast. The only thing I could figure it to be was a
fireworks display going off a day early, because it didn't last for a
whole long time, maybe 20 minutes, and then was over. Today being the
4th, it makes sense that someone might be having a fireworks display.
I didn't cook my dinner. I just ate my top ramen spaghetti dry, then
just decided to go to sleep. I forgot to dry out my bag yesterday, so
it was a little bit damp. I actually slept into about 7:40am today,
just because yesterday I felt tired and I knew that It was
contributing to my crankiness and unwillingness to go on. This
morning I feel great, so hopefully it will be a good day. I think
today is the part on trail where there is a bunch of cinder trail
through all of the lava fields, so that will be interesting and
pretty and nice. I think by the end of the day I'll start hitting
snow. I'm hoping to make up some time, make 45 still, even though I
got a late start at about 8:05am. And, you know, make a 20 tomorrow
into Crater Lake and get my next resupply and maybe hit the buffet!</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FC_gwncng_A/UIwpp43Zt6I/AAAAAAAAB00/8RJGn1L9oRM/s1600/PCT+Compilation-517.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FC_gwncng_A/UIwpp43Zt6I/AAAAAAAAB00/8RJGn1L9oRM/s1600/PCT+Compilation-517.JPG" height="130" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Day 37 Panorama. Just hours before the rain started, 10 miles passed the Etna road.</td></tr>
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</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08628242465814913016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871278426154035797.post-70500836765798348702013-01-10T10:00:00.000-07:002016-01-17T14:48:40.855-07:00Day 39: July 2, 2012 - New California Record!<br />
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<h3>
July 2, 2012.</h3>
<b><span style="color: #e06666;">Day: 39 Daily Miles: 45.5 Total Miles: 1719.75 Hours Hiking: 16.5 6:55am-11:15pm</span></b><br />
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<span style="color: lime;">Listen to the audio journal above or</span> <a href="https://docs.google.com/open?id=0By2m6B0qS-XOWEtaSTFpbTd5U1E" target="_blank">Download July 2nd Audio File Here</a><br />
<br />
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<b>Day 39</b></div>
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<br />
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<b>OREGON/CALIFORNIA BORDER TIME RECORD</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
July 2nd, 4:05pm on the nose, no
seconds, I crossed into Oregon, at the Oregon/California border on
the trail {Pacific Crest Trail} that's marked. This makes 38 days, 10
hours even for my trek from Mexico, all the way through California to
the Oregon/California border. I started on May 25 at 6:05am, that's
the math. I actually had to run to make that time, and I tried to
record it on my camera via video, but I guess I didn't hit record the
first time, so the actual video I have is about 1:23 off, or
something like that, when I realized that I wasn't actually
recording. That's a big relief for me to get across the border and
into Oregon.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqVwhE0c0DfuxIsV0YGIh_PIFJYKJHQE0iOqxWgVo7b6eQeAclBprOho1Epjk6LZ10mP8T-r0R53MrFxOzVt6dmTqE7rFN_YFRswN3IPxtEx6Q93uFo5a0oSguaLmQMT3U5nI563h-s50m/s1600/PCT+Compilation-534.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqVwhE0c0DfuxIsV0YGIh_PIFJYKJHQE0iOqxWgVo7b6eQeAclBprOho1Epjk6LZ10mP8T-r0R53MrFxOzVt6dmTqE7rFN_YFRswN3IPxtEx6Q93uFo5a0oSguaLmQMT3U5nI563h-s50m/s1600/PCT+Compilation-534.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Success! A new entire California record. 38 days 10 hours.</td></tr>
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July 2, Day 39. I started off at Bee
camp, and made it all the way until the ridge dropping down to I-5,
about, I believe 6-8 miles above I-5, just about a half mile after
the first big paved road crossing. We were at mile 1719.75, for a
total of 45.75 miles that day. We stopped at about 11:15pm at a flat
spot before a dirt road, at coordinates 0525515 E 4657805 N.
Yesterday wasn't the best of days, but it wasn't by any stretch a bad
day. We...lets see, starting off in the morning, we pretty much had a
downhill to a saddle where, my dad knowing out schedule and where the
trail is, had driven up there and camped and was hoping to cook us
breakfast, which he did, so that took as an hour of more trail magic
and hanging out. So that put us behind. We started at about 6:50, and
now were were an hour behind. We started the day off kind of late,
then it just seemed to be a day of constant up. Whether or not I'm
forgetting all of the downhills which I don't believe there were a
whole lot of, it really never seemed to go down. Even the downhills
seemed to have ups in them. Anyways, we were all full and sluggish
and tired from the night before, staying up late and hiking a big big
climb, which really can take it out of you. So, we both weren't
feeling top notch, Mouse and I that is. So we, just chugged along.
There is a climb right out of that saddle that is long and it puts
you on this ridge that never really goes down, but steadily go
up..up, up, up, up... and work your way towards the east. We still
had views of Mt. Shasta and we hit a few snow patches in the shade,
nothing too bad. Come about 3pm, we were at mile 22 on a 2 mile
downhill stretch. We had lunch in this somewhat open knoll/plain area
which I had remembered about from my previous hike. It had a great
view of Mt. Shasta. Then, you drop down pass a couple springs, which
are the only water source since a few streams way back where we
stated. There were a bunch of cows around, so I'm a little paranoid
because it's one of the places I think I may have contracted giardia
from in 2009, because I didn't treat my water from one spring in this
area. So I passed the springs, got some water, and then we were only
a couple miles away from the border...so seeing what time it was, it
was likes 3:30pm with 2 miles to go, I said 'alright, lets see</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Morning ridge traversing on top of the Seiad Valley climb.</td></tr>
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if I
can make it by 4pm'. So I started to move out, I passed Mouse and
started jogging, literally in the parts where I could and hiking as
fast as I could...and I just barely made it. My goal was to try and
make it within the 9 hour mark for the day, even if it was 9 hour 59
minutes and 59 seconds..which I did barely miss. It's on of those
things I'm OK with because it actually turn out spectacularly well to
be an even 38 days and 10 hours. Basically I have my GPS out, which
I'm using for the time {since it gets the time from satellites}..so
I'm looking at the GPS and I'm close by but a the same time I'm 30
feet away and I've got like 13 seconds until 4:05pm, which 4:05pm,
when you do the math from when I stated, I started at 6:o5am, so it's
an even hour figure. And 4 and 6, when you do the math, it's 10
hours, because it's two hours behind 6pm, which is a 12 hour
difference. So, seeing the time, I just sprint with my camera out,
trying to record the time and the border marker and everything and I
guess I didn't hit the actual record button. It was on and ready, but
it didn't record. So here I am literally running the last 30 feet up
to the marker and I'm talking to it before a minute before it shuts
off, because it's not actually being used...and I was like "Ohh
no!" So, I have to turn it back on and hit record and start
recording again at about 1:30 later. But I made it there. My feet
were actually starting to hurt a lot. I have...actually once I got
all of my pictures taken and things recorded and all that kind of
nonsense, I sat down and had to do some foot maintenance, which took
about 15 minutes, but I finally found two blisters underneath and
around my previously large callus blisters...or I've had two
blisters, two big long blisters right on the outside edges of my
heel, under my heel callus from way back, I'm not quite sure how long
ago, but there were two new blisters that had cropped up. On the left
foot, it was above the old blister callus, kind of in it/behind it
and the right foot was below the old callus blister and behind it. I
had to sit there...you know I've been feeling it for 4-5 days now,
it's been kind of sore, but not to any point of needing an attention.
Whereas today, they were starting to turn on fire. I popped</div>
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them,
they started feeling, but once I stated walking on them, it was like
walking on fire. For the first mile and a half I was probably going
like 1.5-2 MPH, just because it hurt. i was just trying to focus, to
clear my mind, don't think about it. And so, I kept trekking. Once
you hit the border, you have to go uphill for a little while to get
to the top of a ridge where you drop down. The entire time my foot
just hurt. At the top we hit a big snow cornice/snow bank and had to
do a big detour on lose rock. That hurt. Finally I was like screw
this, so I stopped and I had some caffeine and some ibuprofen and
after that they felt alright *laughs*. So that was great. It was
getting late in the evening and we knew we were going to have to hike
late to make some miles, because Mouse is going into town and he
wanted to make it in early so he could make it out early. So, we knew
we were going to hike late, so we had to hike more briskly, so we
could try and make it earlier. We got over the pass and went down to
Sheep Camp Spring, which was awesome, really nice water coming out of
the pipe. Kept on heading down, down, down, down...up and around this
little ridge, which I had remembered as being harder than it actually
was, it was just longer than I had remembered. Then down again, then
up this loonnngg climb to the ridge line that connects you over to
Mt. Ashland. By this time, it is a full moon out, I think, maybe it's
the 3rd, but we hit the ridge line and slowly, slowly traversed down
and over to Mt. Ashland itself. There was no trail magic, which I had
been hoping for. There had been some in 2009 at the top of one of the
these little ridges. O'well it must be too early or they aren't doing
it anymore. By this time it's dark and we're just trucking along.
It's windy and cold and we just want to get out of the open space
into the trees and down in elevation and everything will be better. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-s0_LWW-Cikg/UIwqkePkErI/AAAAAAAAB3M/BhyauCMdxFA/s1600/PCT+Compilation-536.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-s0_LWW-Cikg/UIwqkePkErI/AAAAAAAAB3M/BhyauCMdxFA/s1600/PCT+Compilation-536.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oregon sunset, climbing Mt. Ashland.</td></tr>
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Which we eventually did. To my chagrin there were hidden ups within
these downhills. It's like 'take me down, I don't want to go up!'
But, we steadily plodded on and made it to where we camped out by
about 11:15pm. We were both pretty damn tired. and immediately said
'screw it, that looks like a good spot' and didn't care how flat it
was and set up camp. I went to be at probably 12:05am after cooking
dinner, getting my plans set for tomorrow and all my food ready. It
was a bit chilly and breezy, even where we were at in the trees. We
woke up and we were kind of on the edge of the fog. We're on a ridge,
so down off to the north is Ashland and that whole valley was filled
with fog, and off to the south where Mt. Shasta is...I can actually
see it right now as I walk, is all clear. We were on the ridge, the
separating line between fog and not fog, so we got a bit of moisture
during the night and it kind of kept it pretty cold, but otherwise,
it wasn't too bad. Today it's just a downhill to the I-5 saddle and I
think I'm going to try for a 50 and get to the hut I stayed in last
year. It's almost 50 miles exactly, so if I stay on it, it looks
pretty flat, I should be able to make it.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QL6fxn8S4Sw/UIwqf9aqClI/AAAAAAAAB3E/7-U11H_qoyw/s1600/PCT+Compilation-533.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QL6fxn8S4Sw/UIwqf9aqClI/AAAAAAAAB3E/7-U11H_qoyw/s1600/PCT+Compilation-533.JPG" height="252" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">About 5 miles from the OR border looking back S-SW from where we just came - behind the lefthand ridge.</td></tr>
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</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08628242465814913016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871278426154035797.post-7050490120820741952013-01-10T09:00:00.000-07:002016-01-17T14:48:23.460-07:00Day 38: July 1, 2012<br />
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<h3>
July 1, 2012.</h3>
<b><span style="color: #e06666;">Day: 38 Daily Miles: 44.25 Total Miles: 1674.25 Hours Hiking: 17 6:50am-11:55pm</span></b><br />
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<span style="color: lime;">Listen to the audio journal above or</span> <a href="https://docs.google.com/open?id=0By2m6B0qS-XOUHUzaldFbEN0Rms" target="_blank">Download July 1st Audio File Here</a><br />
<br />
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<b>Day 38</b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WCDdQqjyc6E/UIwqGmWe5lI/AAAAAAAAB2A/G_S3Bkahp80/s1600/PCT+Compilation-524.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WCDdQqjyc6E/UIwqGmWe5lI/AAAAAAAAB2A/G_S3Bkahp80/s1600/PCT+Compilation-524.JPG" height="236" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Marble Mountains. HDR</td></tr>
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
July 1, Day 38. Lets see here. I'm
doing this two days later so it's a little harder to remember. I
started out at the cabin at mile 1630 and made it to the top of the
Seiad Valley Climb at mile 1674. We were at Bee Camp, or a road
crossing. By we I mean myself and Mouse. The days mileage was 44.25
at point 0485112 E 4641799 N. Lets see, the day started off pretty
good and didn't disappoint really. Having been in the cabin made life
a much much better thing for the morning. It was a little hard to get
moving because it was so dark in the cabin. I was the second person
out. I believe I got started around 6:40am. Mouse had actually gotten
up and out at about 5:30am, so he had about an hour lead on me. I get
outside, clear skies, nice and blue, not that cold, the sun is
shining. It's just pretty moist from the rains. I get going and it's
the beautiful part of the Marble Mountains, I mean the night before I
obviously couldn't see much and I was on the ridge, so you get views,
but now, you're stuck inside the actual marble, in the valley. Green
grass everywhere, the trees are pretty and it's just kind of open.
You climb up and out, across a couple streams, a bunch of snow
patches - actually a couple looonngg snowfields and you make your way
over - five miles later to Paradise lake, which was beautiful as ever
- nice and shiny and reflective. Then you do a bit of a climb, hit a
saddle with a great views into valleys, both to the north-northwest
{towards Seiad} and back towards where you came from in the south. You make on little last climb, then you're on this</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw5LwGiShAulUy_3k1ObWJ9asldl1Je1Hne5l8aMp-ncBhW09R8PqS-5F6PL6yJQ8nLxstf_bNqRpfAxL0PQ06xzQjYd7_GNWd8_3s8HXhFcutvfFZ3Jn_AHS52GbvqCXbpJQJYku4hTHb/s1600/PCT+Compilation-522.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw5LwGiShAulUy_3k1ObWJ9asldl1Je1Hne5l8aMp-ncBhW09R8PqS-5F6PL6yJQ8nLxstf_bNqRpfAxL0PQ06xzQjYd7_GNWd8_3s8HXhFcutvfFZ3Jn_AHS52GbvqCXbpJQJYku4hTHb/s1600/PCT+Compilation-522.JPG" height="235" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Climbing up to the ridge saddle in the Marble Mountains.</td></tr>
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ridge that you
follow for a good 6 miles or so, just keeping on the western side of
it. You come from patches of green grass and rolling slopes to trees
and then you finally start cutting down. Once you start cutting down
pretty quick, you just don't stop going down until you hit Grinder
creek. So, in all, it doesn't vary too much. Once you get down low
enough, you pop into more of a fern forest - surrounded by trees with
plants just growing everywhere because it's so moist by the creek.
Once you hit the creek itself though, you kind of flat line, and you
flat line more or less all the way to Seiad Valley, for a good 12
miles or so. You finally just burst out onto a road at a campground
and do a, I think 6-7 mile road walk into Seiad Valley. I caught
Mouse about 6 hours after I left, just at the first bridge over
Grinder Creek. So, we had a good time to chat on the way in, which
was awesome. Once we got to the campground and were walking down the
road for about a mile, low and behold here comes my dad driving up. I
had called my parents from Etna Summit the other day, giving them a
brief update, saying ' yeah I'll be at Seiad Valley, roughly sometime
in the afternoon'. So he was like 'ohh it's only 160 miles, I'll come
visit'. So he gave us some trail magic. We stopped for about 20
minutes and dried off our feet, because in the </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Sau6NWIpzc8/UIwqGoN2baI/AAAAAAAAB18/R856rgyx9Mg/s1600/PCT+Compilation-525.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Sau6NWIpzc8/UIwqGoN2baI/AAAAAAAAB18/R856rgyx9Mg/s1600/PCT+Compilation-525.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The ridge Saddle, now dropping to Seiad.</td></tr>
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morning all the plants
had soaked our shoes and our socks had yet to dry. We finished off
our road walk while my dad went fishing. We got to the RV park, got
my package, got into the store, signed the log, bought a couple
things. Went back to the RV park, did laundry, took a shower. The
typical things. My dad was there and we got some more food and trail
magic and proceeded to leave come about ohh 7pm. We were just going
to push, because we didn't want to have to do that climb in the
morning. So we did, we pushed and talked. Company up a climb is good,
especially a long, steeper one like Seiad. In the evening we had this
great sunset as we got above the trees and could see all of the
surrounding layers of mountains, trailing off in pretty much all directions. The moon was almost full, so that helped out. Eventually
we made it to the top and cruised and cruised and cruised. I mean I
can't really explain much about it, you're just climbing a ridge and
then you're on the side of the mountain. Than at about 11:15pm or so,
we finally got to a place where it kind of levels out and put up camp
for the night. In the morning, I guess we're going to set off
together. He's trying to make it to Ashland pretty quick so I think
it will be good. We'll make the border tomorrow and everything will
be good!<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5GYawReDyoU/UIwqOMNBW_I/AAAAAAAAB2U/wOrlM4UhXyo/s1600/PCT+Compilation-528.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5GYawReDyoU/UIwqOMNBW_I/AAAAAAAAB2U/wOrlM4UhXyo/s1600/PCT+Compilation-528.JPG" height="180" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The start of the long descent to the Klamath River and Seiad Valley.</td></tr>
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</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08628242465814913016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871278426154035797.post-81094918608633666452013-01-10T08:00:00.000-07:002016-01-17T14:48:03.001-07:00Day 37: June 30, 2012<br />
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<h3>
June 30, 2012.</h3>
<b><span style="color: #e06666;">Day: 37 Daily Miles: 47 Total Miles: 1630 Hours Hiking: 17 6:40am-11:25pm</span></b><br />
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<span style="color: lime;">Listen to the audio journal above or</span> <a href="https://docs.google.com/open?id=0By2m6B0qS-XOUmZoQVFtOXpvVjg" target="_blank">Download June 30th Audio File Here</a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<b>Day 37</b></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg63DFdTmteNrLhKwOoyKUaPTNqVj7ErFdRcZcUkQvxH9D8Etye0bqp4S5fAHDCXfLvKfBkd0L734ZEuBo55dErJuIwBMEtzef9zN3xNrztC9Zw-oNJ08UD8Bk8vUBhuXxkdUDL_eFeEHgw/s1600/PCT+Compilation-512.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg63DFdTmteNrLhKwOoyKUaPTNqVj7ErFdRcZcUkQvxH9D8Etye0bqp4S5fAHDCXfLvKfBkd0L734ZEuBo55dErJuIwBMEtzef9zN3xNrztC9Zw-oNJ08UD8Bk8vUBhuXxkdUDL_eFeEHgw/s1600/PCT+Compilation-512.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Through the clouds we hike, on the ridge after Hwy 93.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
June 30, Day 37. Let see... I made it
48 miles to mileage 1630. I actually lucked out beyond belief and got
to camp inside a forest service station, basically it was just a
cabin that trail crews and the like use. Lets see, that point was
0483424 E 4601311 N. So.. the day started off just fine, probably
better than fine actually.... I didn't get wet overnight, a beautiful
thing. It ended extremely better than I could have ever hoped
for...but the three hours prior to the ending were my worst on trail
by FAR. I'll get to that...but lets start where I started, up on that
saddle, literally 100-200 yards from where you drop off the ridge
down into a little valley and pop up to Highway 93, which I believe
will take you into the Scotts Valley I think, which is Etna. It's the
first road of two, the second is actually Etna summit, that will pull
you down to Etna itself pretty quick. Anyways, I left at about
6:40am, and made good quick work of the downhill. The clouds
were.....oh my god this is muddy as shhhiiiii..... the clouds were
around and just starting to build up. They were about....I'm totally
distracted right now, this trail is sooo muddy and wet and terrible
and I'm going downhill, and trying to speak into something with only
one trekking pole....umm lets see, where were my thoughts...Oh,
clouds, yeah. The cloud bottoms were covering peaks and just above
the saddles, so basically they were hovering around 7,000ft. So if
you're hiking high, you're in the clouds, if you're just a little
below them you can see this </div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pDtGYwsjUy0/UIwpk-SJy_I/AAAAAAAAB0k/yEL-6R1IVcI/s1600/PCT+Compilation-514.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pDtGYwsjUy0/UIwpk-SJy_I/AAAAAAAAB0k/yEL-6R1IVcI/s1600/PCT+Compilation-514.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
flat line cutting the tops off of all the
peaks around you. The saddle I slept in, about an hour or two after I
left it was socked in, so I got out of there just in time. Down into
the canyon, then uphill to the road where there were some day hikers
getting ready to go fishing it looked like. Then I proceeded to do
the long uphill climb kind of parallel to, on and off a ridge, until
I finally topped out, all the while counting. That's one of the
easiest ways I can take my mind off of having to do long uphills and
not really stop. You just keep going and don't think about it. But I
counted to 10,000, which basically my correlation is that 2,000 steps
is a mile, well a mile is a little less than 2,000. So, roughly a 5
mile up, which is just looonnngggg as hell. Anyway, I get to the top
and I knew there was going to be snow on the backside, just from my
experience {in 2009} and there was. You get into these trees and
there are just these mounds of snow. Right over the first little
ridge of the lip of the summit, there is a nasty 20 ft snowfield of
slanted terribleness that I had to walk/downclimb around. I got
through that snow patchy area, and the clouds came in on me. As I
crested over into the next valley, the entire valley was full of
clouds. I was in the clouds for a while while descending and
traversing the western side of this mountain. I got sprinkled on a
bit, I was still in the clouds and had a sharp, steep uphill to get
off of the side of the mountain into a little side valley thing. I
got around that and got to the top with this awesome view down
towards the Scott Valley where Highway 93 goes - green fields,
farming, things like that with big puffy clouds stretching out with
blue sky intermixed, sun rays coming through. It was really pretty
and I figured I might have cell service, turned on my phone, I had
service, I kept walking and at mile 1600 I texted Pi, because he had
texted me "Hey what's going on, haven't heard from you in a
while and was just talking about you". So, he got a cool text
and basically I just kept on trucking, which wasn't bad. Little ups
and little downs and I was on the sunnier side. It looked like the
majority of the clouds and such were stopped right at the edge - the mountains I had been climbing on were kind of the border </div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nBPJfAhlmdU/UIwphwZLmhI/AAAAAAAAB0U/e8PrnHFqeb0/s1600/PCT+Compilation-515.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nBPJfAhlmdU/UIwphwZLmhI/AAAAAAAAB0U/e8PrnHFqeb0/s1600/PCT+Compilation-515.JPG" height="320" width="238" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Before the descent to the Etna road.</td></tr>
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
- the taller
mountains before you get lower mountains off to the east, so the
clouds just seemed to pile up on the backside, the west side. So, I
was on the east side which was nice because it's not so cloudy and
not rainy. I traversed up and down, up and down. Hit another section
of snow when I came around up to the last high point before heading
down to the Etna Summit. That took a little while...there's another
50 ft snow patch with a good 10ft headwall that I to go up. I fell
once and slid about 5 feet and stopped before diving into the trees.
And then it took another 10 minutes to chisel your feet in, chisel
your feet in. The worst part is, is that I can't really kick very
well with my right foot because the side of my big toenail is
infected still and hurts. So if I kick with it, it sends shocks
through my whole foot. That's not cool, but, what can you do? I
finally made it over that and headed down. I met a couple weekend
hikers who were like "ohh yeah, definitely more snow coming up
in the Marble Mountains, probably about a miles worth." I've
heard that Oregon has a bunch of snow still, so from here on out,
north sides and dense tree sides are going to be socked with snow.
Definitely thinking about needing to make a couple calls and possibly
get some lightweight or mini crampons sent, because snow like this
isn't that bad, but you're always worried about slipping, so you have
to go slow. If you have something that gives you traction, you don't
care about snow because you just walk right across it. So, that would
be extremely helpful if that was to come to pass. I think I'll have
to call Pi and have him do some research and maybe send me some at
Crater Lake. Regardless, I got down to the Etna Summit - clear skies,
no not clear, nice skies, patches of sunlight, big puffy clouds. I
had lunch just over the summit road. That was mile 24 I believe, so
about half way for the day. From there, there was a climb that I
didn't really remember about. You just kind of make your way, snake your way up to this ridge </div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dmK57KP51DI/UIwppJMqyfI/AAAAAAAAB0s/rsE6Vtqlof8/s1600/PCT+Compilation-516.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dmK57KP51DI/UIwppJMqyfI/AAAAAAAAB0s/rsE6Vtqlof8/s1600/PCT+Compilation-516.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">That's the trail...a sign of things to come..</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
and then once you're on top of this ridge,
you just hang out, traverse, for a good ohh, 10 miles or so. You're
just slapped onto the middle part of these mountains and hit saddles
here and there...walk, walk, walk. At this point I'm again on the
west side of the tall mountains and heading towards the west, the
clouds were getting thicker and looked to be more 'angry'. I got
rained on a couple times, enough to put on my rain gear. You try and
dodge it by running to the trees so you don't get so wet etc. I did
remember one climb that we did in 2009, so I was really trying to get
to that before it got dark. I made it there, but at the same time, it
started to rain, like proper rain...and the snow actually started
again...and that's when everything turned to shit...The trail itself
was literally a river 70% of the time. My feet were wet within a good
10 minutes, like soaked. The rain wasn't soo bad, It was drizzly and
down poured in bouts, but manageable. The snow was not so nice,
especially when you are climbing up, up, up to a steep saddle. You
kind of zig-zagged up and down on these rocks, so it was kind of
painful trail tread, especially trying to dodge the water and
everything. Just a culmination of things that weren't fun. There was
a couple camped out just before it started to rain at the first
little lake, and they told me who was ahead and everything......hold
on here, we're going to have to pause here...PAUSED...</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fIBiAfIi6GI/UIwpWhx8RHI/AAAAAAAAB0I/2SalX2Ri4JY/s1600/PCT+Compilation-511.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fIBiAfIi6GI/UIwpWhx8RHI/AAAAAAAAB0I/2SalX2Ri4JY/s1600/PCT+Compilation-511.JPG" height="192" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Climbing to gain the ridge after the Hwy 93 crossing.</td></tr>
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</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
June 30, part 2 Day 37. I talked with
some people, so I had to stop recording. Anyways, so yes...I met a
couple, an older couple, they were actually in their tent because
they said that zippers were broken - totally understandable. It
hadn't started raining yet and I was just dropping into this valley
where the climb was about to start. They gave me an update on who all
was still ahead. Mouse was pretty close they told me. So yeah, it
started out just fine. I remembered it being pretty wet even in 2009,
but this was a whole different ballgame. *laughs* The trail is rock.
They've basically chiseled it into the side of a wall and so they've
got lots of steps and things like that. Then, there are these little
creeks and water flows that are pouring off this granite slab above
you, so all the water that crosses the trail wants to flow down the
trail...the path of least resistance, so the trail is just soaking
wet. That's when the rain starts. Light at first then kind of heavier
and </div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1isotch3XN0/UIwpqIVk5WI/AAAAAAAAB08/hBdXULk-Mo4/s1600/PCT+Compilation-518.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1isotch3XN0/UIwpqIVk5WI/AAAAAAAAB08/hBdXULk-Mo4/s1600/PCT+Compilation-518.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View N, the clouds are building...</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
then misty... it fluctuated. I just keep going, hoping that once
I get to the pass it will get better, just because I'll get into
another little valley with maybe a little different weather 'system'
of it's own. I get to the last cirque/headwall area where it goes up
steeply to the final pass and the snow really begins. For a good
portion, a good 80% of that climb was on snow and it was steep. Not
super long, but in the rain, in the snow, you're wet, it's getting
chilly...it was awful. I finally peaked out about 20 minutes later
and come to find that the other side is even worse... It's raining
harder, there's a strong breeze and my rain system SUCKS something
fierce when it has to deal with wind. It's a dry ducks poncho, which
whoever designed it is a complete moron. It has a long rectangle in
the front and back and the shoulders come down to about your elbow,
but there is no way... they didn't include a way to tie the front and
back together, so if it's windy, they just flap in the wind and you
get fucking soaked. Retarded. So I got a safety pin and pinned off
one side and held the other and just kept going. I mean I was getting
wetter and wetter by the minutes, but, once you're wet, you're wet,
so it's not truly that big a deal... of course there's a hill
how.....By that time, I was at around mile 40, it was probably 8pm I
think and I was just like "well, you're getting wet, you're on a
ridge, there's zero places to camp, and once you're wet you might as
well keep going until you find a good place' So I did. I kept going,
and going and going...wetter, more angry, just not loving life at
all. It sucked. Especially when you drop off the pass, go down then
level out for a bit and then you go up higher than the original pass,
for some godforsaken unknown reason.</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-z1PdFpLFRHo/UIwpzB8h6oI/AAAAAAAAB1E/1cfWOOjOnjQ/s1600/PCT+Compilation-519.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-z1PdFpLFRHo/UIwpzB8h6oI/AAAAAAAAB1E/1cfWOOjOnjQ/s1600/PCT+Compilation-519.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My warm salvation. Such luck!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
I mean I can see all of 50-100
ft because I'm socked in by the clouds and it's raining, but from
what I remember from 2009, we would have been totally fine to go low.
So, I'm stuck on this ridge for a good 7 mile pretty much and a few
really crappy campsites cropped up and disappeared. Plus, there was
zero water because you're on a ridge. It's raining, but you can't get
it. So I needed to get water and I knew that the closest water was
down at this next creek at mile 1630, so I...the trees even, a couple
trees had dry spots, but the rain eventually turned into a mist, but
the trees were filtering the mist and literally making it rain
underneath them, so camping under a tree was totally out, because
you're just be rained dripped on allll night long. So, that being the
case, I was cold. I didn't want to put my jacket on because then my
jacket would get wet and if my jacket was wet then...you know, you
want something to look forward too and I'd rather be freezing cold
for another hour, then get my tarp set up and then be able to put on
something warm and dry once I'm in there. So, I was just in my shirt
and shorts. And, the poncho isn't made for 6'5" people, so the
bottom like 2" of my shorts get wet and start wicking the water
up. Somehow my shirt over my chest is wet, like soaked. I'm sweating,
but I have yet to soak that part of my chest just from that...I'm not
sure how that's getting wet because I have a hood on...that's a
mystery to me. I'm probably 70% wet. I think my back and backpack are
the two driest bits of me. So I just kept pushing. It's 9pm, just
keep going, you'll get miles, it's not going to be any different
camping here or somewhere else. You're going to be just as wet and
have just as much pain in the ass to set up your tarp, so you might
as well put the time in and not have to do it tomorrow, because the
plants are going to be soaking wet and you'll just get wet again. I
kept going. My watch beeps 10pm. Shit, I'm tired, but there's no real
good camps spots. The map says there's a camp site at 1630, ranger
station. You know, if worst comes to worst, well shit. I was like
'ranger station, that means A. I might be able to get into it, B. I
might be able to break into it, C. I might be able to sleep
underneath it, D. there might be a porch, E. there might be an
outhouse to hide out in'....so that was a big push, plus the campsite was right next to it, so screw it, go there. I pushed and I</div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HymTlFiBprw/UIwp1_Mt5TI/AAAAAAAAB1U/uV-B07gSjEE/s1600/PCT+Compilation-520.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HymTlFiBprw/UIwp1_Mt5TI/AAAAAAAAB1U/uV-B07gSjEE/s1600/PCT+Compilation-520.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
did such
a thing. I made it to the ranger station at about 11:15-30 or so, I'm
not totally sure. I smell smoke first before I see it, and then I
look around and see glowing lights literally escaping through the
cracks in the walls. I get up closer, get to the door and I hear
voices...I'm like 'OOHHH HELLL YEAHH". I know on the door and a
head pops out at the bottom of the door because there is someone
sleeping right in front of the door and I kind of start chatting with
them, 'Hey, how's it going, what's going on in here...I was just
checking in because I heard voices and saw the lights'. Basically, I
talked my way in. The place was PACKED. There were probably a good 12
or 13 people in there - a trail crew and 4 thru-hikers, but they made
room. The head guy I'm pretty sure was like 'ohh yeah we can totally
make room, we'll find a spot', so I got in. I must have looked like
the saddest, wettest puppy ever. There was definitely some pity
working for me. I get in, strip off my shoes and pack and start
chatting. Over half the people are sleeping or trying to sleep, so I
try and be quiet. I chat with a couple of the guys for a little bit,
get my food going. They go to sleep, and I'm pretty sure the main
guy, is who I was sleeping next to. We chatted while my food cooked
and then we finally turned off the lamp. I remember my watch beeping
for 12am and I laid down and was the luckiest god damned person in
the whole wide world right then *laughs*. I told the guy, I'm so
grateful for this. My life is 1,000,000 times better right now then
what it could be. I knew that he knew I appreciated it. So, that was
my night. I got a bit warmer, but in the morning they were pretty
dry, which I'm happy about. My bag might be a little damp because it
soaked up the water but hopefully it will be...well today is blue
skies and the sun kind of rose and foggy steamy clouds billowed up
everywhere. Hopefully they'll burn off. But making Seiad Valley this
afternoon and hopefully putting on another 10 after that, because
it's 33 from the cabin to Seiad Valley. My average right now is over
44 miles per day. So, I'm doing it man! I just have to keep strong
and always remember that tomorrow should be a better day if today
sucks.</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HgMXko_M-fM/UIwpjVU7muI/AAAAAAAAB0c/I_sDzvQJaNE/s1600/PCT+Compilation-513.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HgMXko_M-fM/UIwpjVU7muI/AAAAAAAAB0c/I_sDzvQJaNE/s1600/PCT+Compilation-513.JPG" height="150" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View down into the Scotts Valley by Etna, before the Etna road crossing.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08628242465814913016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871278426154035797.post-32367214208918067052013-01-10T07:00:00.000-07:002016-01-17T14:47:46.612-07:00Day 36: June 29, 2012<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<h3>
June 29, 2012.</h3>
<b><span style="color: #e06666;">Day: 36 Daily Miles: 50.75 Total Miles: 1583 Hours Hiking: 16.5 6:40am-11:15pm</span></b><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: lime;">Listen to the audio journal above or</span> <a href="https://docs.google.com/open?id=0By2m6B0qS-XOYVNOU3phbFh0NGc" target="_blank">Download June 29th Audio File Here</a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<b>Day 36</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H17AmbwZdLU/UIwpD-O5AQI/AAAAAAAABzM/098T-reEHvM/s1600/PCT+Compilation-504.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H17AmbwZdLU/UIwpD-O5AQI/AAAAAAAABzM/098T-reEHvM/s1600/PCT+Compilation-504.JPG" height="239" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View E, Mt. Shasta just visible behind the mountains.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
June 29, Day 36. I made it a total of
50.75 miles to mileage 1583. It was at a saddle by the trail,
actually by where the trail comes off of the ridge and shoots down
into the canyon next to Highway 93...about 5 miles away from Highway
93. That point was 0510763 E 4561531 N. I actually made it there by
11:13pm, which I am really proud about. I hauled ass.. *laughs*.. I
fuckin' made it pretty much 51 miles before 11:30pm. That's.. I'm
happy! Most of the time I'm hiking until 11:30pm and only make it to
48 or 49. So, a little bit ahead of the game. Anyway, I started off
in the morning , it didn't rain overnight. It was fairly clear.
Towards the south there was blue sky and over me it was partly cloudy
and to the north-northwest it was thicker. Not too cold, pretty warm
with good views. Yesterday I camped kind of tucked into some trees on
a ridge next to, or a little bit passed the second road you cross
coming up from the Castle Crags State Park climb. I took off in the
morning and I couldn't... the first couple miles were alright, and
them from like mile 3 to mile 10, I just like was in this haze and I
couldn't wake up. At least it was flat walking, so it wasn't hard
whatsoever, a few little ups here and there, but it's just when
you're in that state, it feels like you're not moving fast. I mean I
made it to mile 10 in 3 hours, which is right on pace. That's what I
judge and estimate my time by: 3 hours equals 10, </div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yO1erJdR2PM/UIwpIGrIsZI/AAAAAAAABzU/4BXdD1P7Lm0/s1600/PCT+Compilation-506.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yO1erJdR2PM/UIwpIGrIsZI/AAAAAAAABzU/4BXdD1P7Lm0/s1600/PCT+Compilation-506.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Evening sun after Hwy 4.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
miles. Then throughout the day I can judge how my pace is going. So I made the 10
miles in good time but, which was in-between the Dealfall lakes,
between the upper and lower, and I stopped. I had a Dr. Pepper from
trail magic that I'd carried from the night before. I knew I had to
get out of the funk, get out of the haze, so I had half of it and put
the other half into my water bottle. That strategy worked fine. I had
some cheese and salami and some other snacks to fuel myself. I've
found that after breakfast within the first 10 miles or so, it really
helps to keep your energy up, by giving yourself a lot of fat to
digest. So I fueled up and started hiking over to Park Creek Road and
the trail head there. It was all pretty flat still. I started meeting
a bunch of day hikers. I probably passed ohhh 7 day hikers coming in
from that trail head..it was Friday, so I guess people were making a
long weekend of it. Shasta was directly to my west, or so I believe
was my west, but hiding behind the hill. Finally, the caffeine and
liquid sugar kicked in and I started feeling better, the haze
disappeared. I kind of felt, instead of feeling like I'm struggling
to keep the pace, that I was moving faster. I got across Park Creek
Road and there were some rain showers. Once you cross you have to do
this big huge kind of U-turn above a valley. It's basically a 5 mile
90 degree turn, you even go a little bit back to the south and can
see where you came from, which is really annoying. But, you know
through there, in this little U-turn bowl area...you're following
these hill/mountains that form a bowl...it showered a little bit.
Nothing big. I didn't put any protective gear on or anything. Then it
cleared up after that, and for the rest of the day the skies were </div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKAqOXhSDsHIQ3nSiKYXEVBR6Mr7-mkhbzWW_S9jkDcMRc0GcOMdyh41AW-ALQtZF36aSigIJUvz3sKsbvomWLTSadLTHjkudqJChPMbzsfNhNCjFYXfeu5v9SIEK_s2uwZgdjfJsFb9R8/s1600/PCT+Compilation-507.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKAqOXhSDsHIQ3nSiKYXEVBR6Mr7-mkhbzWW_S9jkDcMRc0GcOMdyh41AW-ALQtZF36aSigIJUvz3sKsbvomWLTSadLTHjkudqJChPMbzsfNhNCjFYXfeu5v9SIEK_s2uwZgdjfJsFb9R8/s1600/PCT+Compilation-507.JPG" height="236" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">HDR sunset.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
filled with big white puffy clouds - blue sky and partly cloudy. It
was nice, not very hot. I kept going and going and going and it was
really a flat day. Downhill, downhill, all the way until basically
Highway 3, at which point it, at first it lazily meanders up and then
it continues up at an easy incline for about 8 miles, which isn't
hard, but it's just a long grind. It's not steep enough to make you
out of breath, but steep enough that you don't want to be doing it. I
met another thru-hiker names White Hat or a section hiker I mean, and
another section hiker possibly named Couscous, she's still deciding
if she wants that name. They were just around Highway 3. When I hit
Highway 3, I was at mile 36 and it was about 5pm, which I was happy
about because I knew I was going to go big and go early. So I put it
into high gear, had the rest of my Dr. Pepper, some food, some power
bar energy gel things with a little caffeine in them, so I was
loading myself up, because I knew it was going to be a long and
grinding up. My goal was to hit the ridge line before 9pm. You go by
the Marshy lakes, well you go above them and kind of around this
little amphitheater. Because of the clouds, the sunset was pretty
good, there were sun rays coming through highlighting mountains and
kind of this patchwork of sunlight across the open expanses of
forests and mountains. Shasta was wreathed in clouds, back behind me.
I got to the ridge line at 9:01pm, so I was right on schedule. From
the ridge you follow along the back side. It turned dark</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Jn7fhJlhiq4/UIwpQlWLGsI/AAAAAAAABz0/GR4y2YAoE1E/s1600/PCT+Compilation-510.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Jn7fhJlhiq4/UIwpQlWLGsI/AAAAAAAABz0/GR4y2YAoE1E/s1600/PCT+Compilation-510.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
and I was
right on schedule. I was hoping I'd get there a little earlier so I
could go to be earlier, but I was happy regardless. My first proper
50 that I could write down. I have done other 50's except for that I
have split them up into multiple days depending on how one defines a
day - whether it's a day or the record or a day as we commonly think
of them (6am-6am for a record 'day' or 12am-12am for normal day).
It's the first one I can record. I hope I can repeat it tomorrow.
We'll see how it goes. The 50 puts me on a good schedule for
hopefully hitting Seiad Valley with the store being open still. I
have my package at the RV park, so it doesn't matter about the post
office, but it would be realllly nice to be able to buy anything,
anything at all for the next segment. So, there was a campsite marked
on Halfmile's map, and that's where I stopped at. I thought I might
actually find someone there because there is a guy called Mouse
somewhere right ahead of me. Doing the math I figured he may be 15 to
20 miles ahead and he probably doesn't hike nearly as late, so I
think I'm whittling down the distance. Otherwise, I didn't put up my
tarp. The sky was just big puffy clouds, partly cloudy when I went to
bed. I figured it wouldn't rain and it did not. In the morning, the
clouds were a bit lower and by about 2 hours I left, I looked back
and the saddle I was sleeping in was socked in with clouds. Good
thing I got up early, well not even that early. I left about 6:40am.
But good thing I got out of there and it didn't happen overnight,
otherwise I'd be wet! That's about it. It was a great day and I am
happy I could pull off that 50.</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IdBsAhWiPb4/UIwpMRH98NI/AAAAAAAABzo/icx0B9_yT5c/s1600/PCT+Compilation-508.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IdBsAhWiPb4/UIwpMRH98NI/AAAAAAAABzo/icx0B9_yT5c/s1600/PCT+Compilation-508.JPG" height="196" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sunset 10 miles after the Hwy 4 crossing.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
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</div>
</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08628242465814913016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871278426154035797.post-32086700461648968332013-01-09T20:00:00.000-07:002016-01-17T14:47:31.663-07:00Day 35: June 28, 2012<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<h3>
June 28, 2012.</h3>
<b><span style="color: #e06666;">Day: 35 Daily Miles: 48 Total Miles: 1532.25 Hours Hiking: 17.5 6:20am-11:50pm</span></b><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: lime;">Listen to the audio journal above or</span> <a href="https://docs.google.com/open?id=0By2m6B0qS-XONU9TSUt3aWRpcDQ" target="_blank">Download June 28th Audio File Here</a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<b>Day 35</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AmJZRZOGx-Y/UIwonAHXFcI/AAAAAAAABx0/_hW4lNu1SLI/s1600/PCT+Compilation-495.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AmJZRZOGx-Y/UIwonAHXFcI/AAAAAAAABx0/_hW4lNu1SLI/s1600/PCT+Compilation-495.JPG" height="237" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Approaching the descent to Castella and the I-5 crossing.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
June 27 {meant 28th}, Day 35. Ohh, I made 48 miles
yesterday, to mileage 1532.25. That put me above the Castle Crags
climb, across a few rocky ridge walks and kind of between the first
two roads you encounter. That point is 0540323 E 4563245 N. Ohh
yesterday... It was a pretty good day. Lets see here. I started up on
the jeep road in the trees. Proceeded to go down to Trough Creek
where it really got back into the dense poison oak again, so I had to
do the poison oak shuffle. From then, you kind of just bob along
until you go down slightly to the big Squaw Creek, which has a nice
bridge and is really pretty and scenic. Then you climb right after
that and keep climbing for a while. Not to bad of climbing. Good
switchbacks...switchbacked it up, kind of long straight stretches
along the...just below the lip of ridges to get you to the high point
or saddles etc. Finally, you make it to the top ridge line and you
have a nice view of Mt. Shasta, Black Butte, the valley in-between,
and then over to Castle Crags. You get this whole huge panorama of
kind of where you're going and what you've been seeing. However, it's
hard to take a picture of it because there's always trees somewhere
in the way. The downhill to the Sacramento river and Castella was
looong. It's just. There's one switchback that does this 1.5 mile
detour out and then come right back to the same ridge you were on to
before the switchback, so you could have just kept going down that
same ridge instead of going way out of the way. The only thing I can
think of as a reason for it, is because there are two little creeks
on it. I mean otherwise this thing is sooo pointless, like</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hGsUBvi9I94/UIwokaCFcEI/AAAAAAAABxk/vp8vrbKaEoY/s1600/PCT+Compilation-494.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hGsUBvi9I94/UIwokaCFcEI/AAAAAAAABxk/vp8vrbKaEoY/s1600/PCT+Compilation-494.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The constant view down...walking legs!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
3 extra
miles of just barely going down switchback...it's retarded. I know in
2009 we took the shortcut down the little ridge trail/road, because
we were like that's reallly dumb. Just switchbacked down, down, down,
down, down, down, down.... I got to the Sacramento, crossed that guy
and then you start going up, up, up, up, up. For the first 5-6 miles,
probably a little more, when you enter the State Park area you do a
steep little up at first and then you just kind of shuffle up and
down, up and down a little bit along the side as you kind of come
around to the back side of the crags, which takes a while. There are
lots of pretty little streams coming off the crags. Then you finally
hit this long up. It's a little steeper than what is nice to climb,
and it's a little overgrown, so it's beating off bushes and going
steeply up rocky terrain. Not all that unpleasant, but could be
better. The clouds started coming in at about ohh, 5-6pm. I was
hoping to get an early start and basically get through that area
sooner than later, before it would get really really hot. Which I
actually entered the state park at around 2pm, like the worst time
ever, but thankfully it wasn't a very hot day and the clouds kind of
came in somewhere around 4pm and kept the sun off. It wasn't as bad
as I thought it could be. There was a breeze and the clouds. Up up
and away. I just kept chugging at it and I knew I needed to top out
at the corner peak, hopefully before dark, which I managed to do. I
got water at one of the springs along the 4 mile traverse from the
saddle behind the crags over to the point. Then </div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zT0VW7cxnxE/UIwoxoEiNUI/AAAAAAAAByM/ScI1wMr6wAk/s1600/PCT+Compilation-499.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zT0VW7cxnxE/UIwoxoEiNUI/AAAAAAAAByM/ScI1wMr6wAk/s1600/PCT+Compilation-499.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Climbing Castle Crags.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
it was dark and I
just kept pushing. The moon is about half full, a little over. The
worst part is that there are clouds so it wasn't as good as light as
it should have been. Nice ridge walks, but there are rocky as all
hell. Just little, I mean fist sized rocks that are all pointy that
are in a pile and they call that trail. It hurts your feet,
especially after a long day, especially if your feet are already
hurting. But, that was relatively short lived. There are really no
trees around there, so there's nothing to really make any dirt. I
just plodded along. I finally got to the first road at about 11:15pm
and kept going to the next road to make one more mile. I'm trying to
stop earlier so I can get more sleep. I'm definitely lacking in that
department, or at least my body is wanting more than the 5-6 hours
that I'm usually getting. For some reason or another, I just can't
seem to get a fucking 50. I think yesterday I left at like 5:45am or
something and went all the way to god damned 11:30pm and only a 48.
There was a climb in there, I'm just trying to figure out why I can't
do it and where the time is going, because it should be enough, if I
keep on it, for a 50. Overall, yesterday was pretty good. I got some
trail magic, some soda was wonderful....And yeah, nothing too
terribly remarkable besides I got that ugly ugly Castle Crags climb
out of the way. Now, if I just remember right, it's fairly easy going
up on top of the ridge. Yeah there are some bigger ups and downs, but
otherwise you stay on easier tail tread, of memory serves, which I
hope it does. We'll see where we go and see if we can get this big
hulk of Shasta out of my view today. It just looms over your shoulder
for these 200 miles. It feels like you never make any progress with
it always being there.</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_CcTNTsN2WQ/UIwo6BWHaLI/AAAAAAAAByk/XeRH51Ir168/s1600/PCT+Compilation-501.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_CcTNTsN2WQ/UIwo6BWHaLI/AAAAAAAAByk/XeRH51Ir168/s1600/PCT+Compilation-501.JPG" height="132" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Evening panorama from behind (N-NW) of Castle Crags.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
</div>
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</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08628242465814913016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871278426154035797.post-11580598330219502382013-01-09T18:00:00.000-07:002016-01-17T14:47:16.555-07:00Day 34: June 27, 2012<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<h3>
June 27, 2012.</h3>
<b><span style="color: #e06666;">Day: 34 Daily Miles: 43 Total Miles: 1484.25 Hours Hiking: 14.5 8:50am-11:30pm</span></b><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: lime;">Listen to the audio journal above or</span> <a href="https://docs.google.com/open?id=0By2m6B0qS-XOME1taXFWSGtHeXc" target="_blank">Download June 27th Audio File Here</a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<b>Day 34</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/---i3NEZN3LM/UIwn8GIJiQI/AAAAAAAABwM/ixKgAySWqeQ/s1600/PCT+Compilation-484.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/---i3NEZN3LM/UIwn8GIJiQI/AAAAAAAABwM/ixKgAySWqeQ/s1600/PCT+Compilation-484.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of the first good views of Mt. Shasta,</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
June 27, Day 34. I made it to mile
1484.25 for a total of 43 miles. I made it to the ridge separating
the McCloud River and the other... like Trough and Squaw creek
canyons, and camped on a really disused jeep road on a saddle. I may
have camped there in 2009 - I know we camped somewhere close to that.
Anyway that point was 0572834 E 4552664 N. Ohh, where to begin on
yesterday. It was an awful day. Not super demanding with terrain, but
just mentally and physically a bad day. I hiked until ohh, 11:40 or
so the night before and went to bed probably at 12 something-or-other
and in the morning I couldn't wake up really. I was behind this tree
on pine needles, pretty comfy actually and the sun was up shining...
I was on the eastern slope. I just would wake up, look and go ugghhh,
and go back to sleep and I basically got up at 8am and didn't get up
on my feet and moving until about 8:50am, which is a reallly late
start. That's almost 10 miles behind a normal day. So that didn't
start anything off on a good foot. You know, I was just like 'you got
a little extra sleep, you feel better, so if today is going to be a
bad day... if you started of bad, it usually just keeps, or
continues..that feeling like I'm behind, ohh no'. All day long you're
like 'I had today grrr.' So I was just trying to tell myself to just
walk my normal pace and wherever you get to, you get to. Just try and
make it to 40 miles. So, I, just couldn't wake up really. My mind
just felt kind of foggy for most of the morning, and that makes
things hard. You're not really paying attention and you're just kind
of...you realize you're walking and can't zone out. You think like
'I'm foggy, I'm walking...why am I doing this, blah ba blah, ba </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgckzxB_DoodTMYL56qQzh6PX2HusGZFls1ViwOMg-DyAbrSX684W1S6glKdewab6Cap64IMXtGllYnk7dSg2sMUBwgJ2oAQsMzpfusaKNL12CrwYhoc0Et7oYKdjEGQe-hPq6fz1zCiHFH/s1600/PCT+Compilation-486.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgckzxB_DoodTMYL56qQzh6PX2HusGZFls1ViwOMg-DyAbrSX684W1S6glKdewab6Cap64IMXtGllYnk7dSg2sMUBwgJ2oAQsMzpfusaKNL12CrwYhoc0Et7oYKdjEGQe-hPq6fz1zCiHFH/s1600/PCT+Compilation-486.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
blah...'. So, I just kept going, busting through the brush in section
O. Forested slopes, fairly steep with some good views of Shasta. At
one point you kind of come out on this...you kind of do a lot of rim
walking, on the edges..on ridges..on the edges of pretty big canyons.
A lot of the places, until the evening were on volcanic soils that
erode away quickly, forming these steep cliffs, or these slopes with
manzanita , so it's not really tall trees, so you can actually get a
view. I kept going, kept going, kept going... I tripped myself up
with a pole and fell completely for the first time and cut the back
of my heel/ankle, an inch or so above where the top of you're shoe
would be in the area actually where there's this big rough gnarly
typically open sore, because it's where the foot/skin flexes. Like
the skin in the back there accordions as you take a step and your
foot pivots. I was talking to Chimichanga about this, and that pretty
much all fast hikers that he's talked to - because we were trying to
figure out what it's from - have it and it looks like its from just
use. That it becomes a sore, a rough spot, that gets caked with dirt
because we take so many more steps everyday and therefore use it so
much more. But yeah, it's painful. Plus the edge of your shoe - the
back top edge of your shoe likes to kind of rub that area too, which
does not help. Anyway, I cut that a little bit, then proceeded into a
logging area, which I had to do about 7-8 crossings where the trail
just completely disappeared for about 10-20 feet among these big huge
Caterpillar tracks and there was just piles of crap on the trail. Not
very good. Went up and up and up. Passed some springs and creeks. On
top of a ridge I remembered there were good views back towards Lassen
and where I had just come from - about the previous 20 miles. I
actually got to eat a big burrito and a hot pocket yesterday from
Burney Falls, the extra food that I had brought along. So that was a
little bonus. I was at about mile 20 or a little less than and I was
on this ridge below a lookout tower - and it's kind of slanted trail because</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fheLgV9fSzI/UIwoNHFnKQI/AAAAAAAABww/kLlJLYApk7o/s1600/PCT+Compilation-488.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fheLgV9fSzI/UIwoNHFnKQI/AAAAAAAABww/kLlJLYApk7o/s1600/PCT+Compilation-488.JPG" height="236" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mt. Shasta will be visible off and on for 200 miles, until into OR!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
it's on the side of a steep hill and it slants on the
downward side...and all of a sudden I got this terrible shin-splint
like pain on my left shin. I had felt it a little but before a couple
days back, but this time it was kind of hobbled from it. I had to
limp along at a bout 2mph. That lasted for about 3-4 miles. Then I
took a break after I got off the steep slope at a road and had lunch
and stuff. After the break, it didn't come back nearly as strong
{bad} but it did come back a little bit towards the end of the day
because from that road it was a 10 mile downhill to the McCloud
River. I did see a whole bunch of bear crap on the trail, and then I
found the bear. It was eating berries on the trail at a point nearly
directly beneath the lookout tower on Pigeon Hill I believe. It was
one of those instant reactions - it didn't see me as I came up to
it... I was about 20ft away and my body realized what it was and
before I had a chance to think about it, I yelled at it and it tooook
off. I went like rawwwhh, and it shoooom, running down the trail. So
that was fun. On the downhill towards the McCloud, it wasn't so bad.
I actually found out that... my feet started hurting after the
break...the two cracks I have on both my feet between the toes, my
shin splint a little bit, my heel, just places started hurting. But I
did find out that jogging, not on a steep downhill...that jogging
made it feel better, so I jogged for little bits here and there. I
actually came across two more bears, this time a cub and a mom.
However, there was a big ponderosa pine between me and the mom. They
were probably 50 ft up the trail and I didn't react the same way as
before, so they didn't know I was there and they couldn't really see
me. So I stopped, got my camera out. The cub was closer to me...it
saw me and took off into the bushes while the mom just looked at it
like 'What the hell are you doing?' *laughs* because she couldn't see
me. She kept eating. I used the tree to sneak up and then held my
hand out from behind the tree and took a couple photos of her zoomed way in before I was noticed.</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Z64UVPEvJoQ/UIwoaVK4LMI/AAAAAAAABxE/AWzCTnqYMdw/s1600/PCT+Compilation-490.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Z64UVPEvJoQ/UIwoaVK4LMI/AAAAAAAABxE/AWzCTnqYMdw/s1600/PCT+Compilation-490.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Trailside bird nest.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Once that happened she took off down the
trail as fast as she could. So that was cool, three bears in one day.
I'm up to 5 total. From there, the downhill wasn't so bad. It started
getting warmer - you drop...you start at about 6,000ft and drop to
about 2,500 ft. It just turns into a drier, rockier, steeper cliff,
transferring from the pines more into the oaks. Poison oak started.
That's fun, always, because it likes to overgrow the trail because
the cliffs are so steep that anything that is growing above the trail
liked to hang over the trail. It wasn't so bad on the way down, but
on the way up from the McCloud, which I hit at about 8:30pm...it's a
really pretty river, a couple people fly fishing... the trail turned
into the poison oak slalom at night with a flashlight. I'm so glad I
grew up in an area with poison oak because I can identify it really
really well, it's like second nature. But it was...*laughs*...the
bump and jive to try and miss it all as you're trying to climb up a
steep hill at night. I managed to not really hit any, it was awful.
It did not make my day any better. It made the end of it bad. I did
take half a caffeine pill at the bridge because I knew I wanted to
make it up the hill and my goal was actually 44 miles, just so my
average wouldn't suffer. But, I got 43. Actually one of the worst
things of the day was that on the way down towards McCloud bridge, my
big toe on my right foot just started hurting like it was rubbing, or
that's what I assumed anyways because I had just gotten new shoes.
Pressing on the toe hurt, so I stopped to investigate and I started
looking at it....the left edge of my big toe was where it was hurting
and was kind of red. So three days ago, just before I hit the
midpoint, I actually had to trim the nail, because the nail was
digging into the skin and hurting. So I was pressing around, pressing
around then all of a sudden puss just squirts out onto the nail. I
mean not like just a little but quite a bit. My immediate reaction
was "ohhh shit" *laughs*. Because, you know, an infection
that you can't fix can definitely be a hike killer. So I clean that
off and press some more, and again a big squirt of puss. And again I
was like "ohh no..!" So I finally cleaned it completely
out, got my neosporin, </div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3hmpDLJCg4M/UIwobDXRSzI/AAAAAAAABxM/NzdcZNRR9Nw/s1600/PCT+Compilation-491.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3hmpDLJCg4M/UIwobDXRSzI/AAAAAAAABxM/NzdcZNRR9Nw/s1600/PCT+Compilation-491.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of the 5 bears I saw within 3 days.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
crammed it in there with my knife tweezers. My
foot felt better, obviously, because there was so much pressure built
up there from the puss. After that, it didn't really hurt anymore.
Upon checking it again that night, there didn't seem to be anymore
puss and it didn't hurt nearly as bad when I laid down for bed. So
just a culmination of thing made yesterday awful. I got a good camp
spot at least, made 43 so the day wasn't a total failure. I should be
up in the 48's, but that goes to show that if I would wake up and
push as hard as I do, I can easily make 50's, which I hope to do
today. Today, I've dropped down over to Squaw Creek and then get to
go way back up and then drop down to I-5, then go up the Castle Crags
climb, which getting to the top of that climb will be somewhere in
the 40's or low 40's. So that'll be good, to be up and above towards
the end of the day. But I know I have to climb kind of in the
afternoon, which is going to suck and be hot, because the weather
just started warming up again. Like yesterday was warm, it felt like
the normal temperature versus the cold that we've been having with
the storms coming through. But we'll see. I woke up 5:40am and got my
butt in gear and started walking at 6:20am, so here we go!</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0GjvToJTJzg/UIwoNBid2oI/AAAAAAAABws/lVjRiC8MFw8/s1600/PCT+Compilation-489.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0GjvToJTJzg/UIwoNBid2oI/AAAAAAAABws/lVjRiC8MFw8/s1600/PCT+Compilation-489.JPG" height="122" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The long ridge exposed ridge walk after the first very good veiws of Mt. Shasta. Down to the McCloud River from here.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
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</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08628242465814913016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871278426154035797.post-13697828189061110112013-01-09T17:00:00.000-07:002016-01-17T14:46:50.082-07:00Day 33: June 26, 2012<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<h3>
June 26, 2012.</h3>
<b><span style="color: #e06666;">Day: 33 Daily Miles: 45 Total Miles: 1441.25 Hours Hiking: 17 6:50am-11:50pm</span></b><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: lime;">Listen to the audio journal above or</span> <a href="https://docs.google.com/open?id=0By2m6B0qS-XOaDY5MnVpVjlpNlk" target="_blank">Download June 26th Audio File Here</a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<b>Day 33</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-33tCdC0EBFQ/UIwnwX8-njI/AAAAAAAABvk/wdl4oot-igw/s1600/PCT+Compilation-480.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-33tCdC0EBFQ/UIwnwX8-njI/AAAAAAAABvk/wdl4oot-igw/s1600/PCT+Compilation-480.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Morning Mt. Lassen from the Hat Creek Rim.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
June 26, Day 33. I hiked 45 miles with
a resupply at Burney Falls State Park, ending at mile 1441.25. I
stopped probably about 11:40pm. Yeah, that point was up in Section
O's famed and horrible shrubbery mess, which you have to plow through
and you can't see. I was actually about a mile away from where I had
camped in 2009 with LINT, Avo, and Miss Info. That point was 0301682
E 4550457 N. Ohh, where to begin. We woke up a little late. I was
camping out with Chimichanga. It was the first time I had camped out
with anyone so far on this trek. We night hiked for a while in the
rain and finally found trees and camped out underneath them because
it was dried and offered protection from the wind. So we got up and
everything was wet and we weren't very keen on moving fast, so we
didn't get started until about 6:45am I believe. All the plants were
still wet, so our shoes were soaking withing a matter of
minutes...which sucks. Wet feet plus having done lots of walking
already... calluses and dead skin and stuff...basically all the dead
skin, calluses etc start to soften and want to fall off even faster,
which you don't want. You want that dead skin to stay on there as
long as possible, because it's just your line of defense. We finished
off the Hat Creek Rim and met a SOBO section hiker. We got down to
the lava flats and kept chugging along. It took forever, they never
seem to end. Eventually we made it to the fish hatchery, got a little
confused and lost. We caught up with two more thru-hikers just passed
the fish hatchery - Charley, who I guess met me in 2009 and oh I
forget, there's a German guy. We stopped at Highway 299, Chimichanga
and I. He had thought about going into Burney Falls {town} by
hitching, but my feet were wet and hurting a lot because of the shoes
were done. They had over 700 miles on them and they were wet, so
there was no cushion or anything left, especially after going over
the lava. So we stopped and we needed to dry out all of our stuff, so
we did. There was a sunny spot next to the road and we proceeded to
throw all of our tarps and ground cloths and sleeping bags out in the
sun. I ate, it was almost 20 miles, so it was kind of like a lunch
break. Then, I finally packed it up after about 40 minutes and </div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-g1s6UYIsWwk/UIwn4G9xSII/AAAAAAAABv8/zpvX9eB7iN4/s1600/PCT+Compilation-482.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-g1s6UYIsWwk/UIwn4G9xSII/AAAAAAAABv8/zpvX9eB7iN4/s1600/PCT+Compilation-482.JPG" height="252" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Almost to Burney Falls State Park.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
was
like, see ya I'm headed to the state park, I've got to make my
resupply. It was another 8 miles. I got there {Burney Falls State
Park}, the other two thru-hikers - Charley and the German guy - had
already passed us and they were hanging out and chowing down. So I
did the same. I got my box, got a pint of ice cream. I got a
microwave burrito, I got a hot pocket, and two more burritos for the
next days. I went outside, packed, got my new shoes on, which I was
sooo happy about. Chatted for a bit and filled up my water, charged
my phone...all the things you do in town. By the time I was almost
ready to go, Chimichanga showed up and he was like 'I didn't hitch',
but he did get lost too, which I knew Burney Falls is a really
confusing place to kind of come into. But regardless, I left at about
6pm, about a half hour later than I'd have liked to have. It's really
hard to resupply with other people because they want to chat and you
want to chat and it makes it just go much slower. But, I just kind of
plodded on. My dad had told Uncle Boggs to buy my a Red Bull, they
got me a 32oz Red Bull, which I had carried from the top of Hat Creek
Rim overlook, and I was like 'I am not carrying this. I have 5 days
worth of heavy food plus a bunch of extra food that I bought'. So it
was heavy and I was not going to carry liquid heavy. I chugged that
and made great time during the evening... obviously! Probably 11-11.5
miles in about 3 hours.....Ohh my god I'm in fucking manzanita,
jesus, owe. It's up to my chest. This is not a cool part of the
trail. I just saw Shasta for the first time actually right
now.....Anyway, last night I met two other thru-hikers, they were
finishing off their section hike, they were an older couple, probably
mid 50's. They were cool. I chatted with them for a little bit. Yeah,
it turned into dark, I kind of had an idea of where I wanted to be -
get up passed the long climb - the Peavine Creek, the power lines and
kind of finally get into section O's terrible overgrowth. Section O,
is 'O' for "Ohhh nooo!" or "Overgrown" or
"Ohhhhhhh.....". So, I knew there were plenty of roads to
camp on, so I just kept going and kept going and finally it just got
too late and I was like 'why am I still walking? It's 11:40, I need
to eat dinner still". So I finally got to an even mile mark. I
got above the climb at least, that was the best part, and stopped. I
had dinner and promptly brushed my teeth </div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-H2jxIBIStsA/UIwn5YSWm-I/AAAAAAAABwE/mMtOD1qsNU0/s1600/PCT+Compilation-483.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-H2jxIBIStsA/UIwn5YSWm-I/AAAAAAAABwE/mMtOD1qsNU0/s1600/PCT+Compilation-483.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The destruction after another 700 miles, new shoes today!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
and went to bed. But, the
morning actually was...I don't know...It was soo comfortable, I don't
know, I probably was extra tired, I bet it was partially the Red Bull
that kind of wrecked me, but I didn't get up until 8am. I tried. I
kept waking up and kept saying this is too comfortable and nice, so
I'm going back to sleep, screw it. So I didn't get started today
until about 8:50am. We'll see how the day goes, but yesterday was a
pretty good day. I need to get back onto a nice regular schedule of
waking up early and ending earlier, because it's better to hike in
the day time, just because you go faster. So if I started at
5-5:30am, and ended at like 10:30pm, it would be much better. That
would mean only about 1.5 hours of night hiking. So maybe today, I'll
have to call it a short day at 40 miles and be done, and then on from
there. It seems like still it's so far away though. It's one of those
5 day hauls and it's kind of flat but. Uggh, whatever I'll just do it
and get it done with. The hard part is that my food supply is based
on doing like 47's and shit because of just how the math worked out.
I'll figure it out, I have plenty of food. So everything is good, I
just have to find the energy today and bust it.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Supplement to June 26, Day 33. I forgot
to mention how nice it was to actually hike with somebody. Not just
only at night and spending the night...we hiked until about 1-2pm
together, or whenever we hit Highway 299 - Chimichanga and I. You
know, he's a law student, ya know he's probably 24 or 25. So yeah, we
get along great - have similar views, like most of the people, or
most of our peers along this trail or people you find have similar
views. It was nice just to have a conversation and not be stuck to
your own thoughts and only hear other peoples voices for the brief
times you meet them on trail or like audio books or podcasts, where
you're not actually having a conversation, you're just listening. So
it was quite nice and yeah, it made yesterday a lot better than most
days, even though I had to hike late and had a resupply, I managed it
all and had a good time.</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-j84OGZ318W0/UIwn0r_H20I/AAAAAAAABv0/LC4jlIYJ0M4/s1600/PCT+Compilation-481.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-j84OGZ318W0/UIwn0r_H20I/AAAAAAAABv0/LC4jlIYJ0M4/s1600/PCT+Compilation-481.JPG" height="134" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hat Creek Rim north end around 10am and NOT hot! </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<br /></div>
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</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08628242465814913016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871278426154035797.post-60674300075136770062013-01-09T16:00:00.000-07:002016-01-17T14:46:30.417-07:00Day 32: June 25, 2012<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<h3>
June 25, 2012.</h3>
<b><span style="color: #e06666;">Day: 32 Daily Miles: 48 Total Miles: 1396.25 Hours Hiking: 16 6:25am-11:30pm</span></b><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: lime;">Listen to the audio journal above or</span> <a href="https://docs.google.com/open?id=0By2m6B0qS-XOV2VoUWtyd3BybUE" target="_blank">Download June 25th Audio File Here</a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<b>Day 32</b></div>
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<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SFcP-2aeL7Y/UIwnU8ENtUI/AAAAAAAABt8/Lvqa_ne_eAo/s1600/PCT+Compilation-468.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SFcP-2aeL7Y/UIwnU8ENtUI/AAAAAAAABt8/Lvqa_ne_eAo/s1600/PCT+Compilation-468.JPG" height="238" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Passing through Drakesbad, note the steam!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
June 25, Day 32. I hiked on the Hat
Creek Rim and camped about 1.5-2 miles before Forest Service road
#22, where the water cache is up on top of the Hat Creek Rim. I did
48 miles on the nose, stopping at mile 1396.25 at point 0633570 E
4520564 N. Yesterday... Lets see here. It started off pretty good. I
got up and left at about 6:30am after having I think my best night of
sleep on the entire trail. I slept on a nice carpet of pine needles
and just slept soundly through the night. I stopped somewhere around
11:15-30pm. I made a quick Mac 'N Cheese dinner and proceeded to pass
out, which was good. I woke up, felt energized and charged up and
started off the day pretty well. I headed into Lassen National Park,
a little bit of climbing at the beginning and then, I actually hit
Drakesbad sooner than I thought I would. It was about 2 miles from
the actual border of the national park. So I plowed on through,
passed the boiling lake, hit Drakesbad and wish I could have stopped
and gone swimming in their hot pool. Right before I went up the climb
out of the Drakesbad valley, I met a couple who were camping out for
the week from Chico, who had signed my witness log and they had seen
19 people go by in the last three days, all thru-hikers I believe, or
at least they assumed such. Got talking, they were really nice. I
headed up and out. Kind of powered along up through the creeks and
passed someone in a tarptent still sleeping at about 8am or so. Yeah,
I kept going. When I finally made it to the little pass, which I
remembered at least because it was up around where I had camped one
night in 2009 before I made it down to the Heitmans and met up with LINT again. I had totally forgotten about the very long and relatively </div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jd_CgLGqlTc/UIwneClSW-I/AAAAAAAABuc/3IMU68bPXbA/s1600/PCT+Compilation-471.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jd_CgLGqlTc/UIwneClSW-I/AAAAAAAABuc/3IMU68bPXbA/s1600/PCT+Compilation-471.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mt. Lassen seen through burned trees, in the National Park.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
flat segment between the place where I camped {in 2009}
and the kind of pined forest you wander about in sandiness before you
reach the Heitmans {Old Station}. It wasn't bad, really flat, really
fast and easy. Just really monotonous. I just kept trucking. Good
filtered views of Mt. Lassen through was was basically a burned area,
which is kind of interesting. You have these tall skeleton trees that
are all burned out, with this snow capped mountain peeking, kind of
filtered through behind them. But, yeah. Flat, easy a nice walk
passed two pretty lakes. It was windy. Eventually got to the downhill
part and I started listening to the lecture series I have - an actual
{podcast lecture} class on astronomy of our local solar system, which
is interesting. About 30 minutes episodes/lectures from the
University of Ohio in Columbus. Learning cool things like the word
'orient' actually in Latin means east, so the 'orient' as referring
to Asia, was to the east of Europe, and therefore when you 'orient' a
map it technically means you put the east to the top where north
normally is. And cool things like, that we think of time as
seconds...time as an hour with 60 minutes in the hour and 60 seconds
in the minute and we think that degrees of lat/long are determined,
or came from time, but it's actually the other way around. Time took
the names from degrees and such. They first were measuring angles and
then wanted to figure out and measure time. The reason it's called a
minute is because it is a 'mi-nute' portion of a degree and the
reason it's a second is because it is the 'second mi-nute' portion of
a degree. And thats why have our names for time - minute and second,
from Latin basically, which is really cool. It's just the origins of
words and how they evolved and how we use them. So yeah, I was
listening to those through the wooded area, the sandy pits, passed
the turn off to the Old Station store. I kept going and I had gotten
a call earlier, oh I don't know a day or two earlier from my aunt and
uncle, that they were </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pGEjx2Dy-Ho/UIwnmktbliI/AAAAAAAABu8/Qk1P--hNDdY/s1600/PCT+Compilation-475.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pGEjx2Dy-Ho/UIwnmktbliI/AAAAAAAABu8/Qk1P--hNDdY/s1600/PCT+Compilation-475.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mt Lassen in the clouds from the Hat Creek overlook.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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hoping to meet me at the Highway 44 crossing by
Subway cave. So, I was hoping they would be there and I reached the
crossing at about 5:30pm and low and behold, there they were sitting.
They said that they had just gotten there. I guess I had told my
parents a rough estimation of when I'd be in Old Station and they
judged accordingly and were there. I convinced them, they had a bunch
of food for me, like dinner, and I convinced them to meet me up at
the Hat Creek Overlook so I wouldn't have to lug a stomach full of
food up the hill. So they agreed and I met them up top in about 40
minutes. At the overlook/rest area where a bunch of hikers were
actually hanging out. When they got up there I guess there were three
of them waiting around, and they started talking to them and told
them who I was and what I was doing, so they wanted to stick around
and meet me. Which is cool, because I shared all the food and gave
them some good trail magic, even though they had just resupplied and
were full and had lots of food, they still managed to east some more.
It was awesome to finally talk with some people for a little while.
So, I ate my fill, which was awesome - fried chicken, and fruit
salad, my aunt Marty went overboard, but that was great because there
were other people. And, I stuffed myself. By the time I was ready to
leave, two more people showed up. Tic-Tok, or Tok I guess from 2009
actually, remembered me and had taken my picture and was happy to
meet me again, and there was someone named James who had head of what
I was attempting, as well as....I forget their names, I'm sorry....of
another guy who had heard of me from the PCT-L. But um, I finally
left at about 7:20pm. I still needed to do a good 10 miles to make my
rough mileage for the day and actually left just after Chimichanga did, and he was hiking pretty fast trying to catch up to some friends. So we hiked into the night, all</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cnTCOF_snM0/UIwnqfBwtgI/AAAAAAAABvM/5MBKQvaPHUs/s1600/PCT+Compilation-477.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cnTCOF_snM0/UIwnqfBwtgI/AAAAAAAABvM/5MBKQvaPHUs/s1600/PCT+Compilation-477.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sunset into the rain clouds.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
the while a front was
building to the west and was basically killed the sun about an hour
early and proceeded to cloud over us. At about 10-10:30 it rained. We
were still hiking, we hiked until 11-something-or-other, but it
rained, it was cold. We were on the Hat Creek Rim where it should be
100 degrees, hot and terrible and then it was like 45 degrees, windy
and wet. So a compete 180 from what the normal was. We hiked for a
while, the rain kind of stopped, but by that time all the grasses
were wet so our feet were soaked and we were kind of just...not
miserable, not quite angry, but just disappointed that there was
rain. We don't like rain. Rain sucks. So, we hiked until about
11:30pm because I was like 'I know there are trees, we just have to
keep going until we find them, there will be good, much better in the
trees rather than in the open land with a few bushes'. We finally
reached some trees and low and behold it was fairly dry..it was
actually dry ground under the trees. It didn't rain super heavy, but
enough to make things pretty wet. So we parked it as soon as we
could. It proceeded to again, rain a bit more as we were setting up
camp, so we kind of... I half-assed set up my tarp, I tied it to a
couple low branches of the tree and made sort of leanto right next to
the trunk and went to sleep. But basically through the night, or at
least at 3:30am when I woke up and looked at the sky, it was all
stars out. So I took my tarp down because it was creating some
condensation on me and slept open for the rest of the night which was
perfectly fine. So that was interesting. I guess there is supposed to
be another trough, hopefully a small one, coming through in about a
week or less. So hopefully that peters out and doesn't produce much
precipitation because I don't want to hike in rain. I don't like
rain. Rain sucks for hiking and it should not be in California at
this date. So tomorrow I pick up my resupply at Burney Falls State
Park, which is just under a 30 mile day. I'll almost be on schedule.
I'm still probably about 20-25-30 miles behind my 60 day schedule,
but I hope to make that up pretty soon. I just have to dry my stuff
out a little bit and keep rockin'. I hope that Chimichanga keeps up
with me because it's really nice to have someone to talk to for a
change. I mean it's been 32 days and the most I've hiked with another
person has been about 4 hours, and that was with Dan coming out of
Cajon Pass at the big climb. So it has been nice having some
conversation and just basically just being able to talk. I don't talk
to myself, so it's all mostly internal thoughts and listening to
audio books and briefly talking on the phone or talking to people for
like 5 minutes as I meet them on trail. So we've had some good
conversations and just general banter, which is really appreciated.
So I'm hoping we get to hike together tomorrow and I'll be a good
day.</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-aeoBXTkCpb4/UIwnszRzPOI/AAAAAAAABvc/bTksfxcMYx0/s1600/PCT+Compilation-479.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-aeoBXTkCpb4/UIwnszRzPOI/AAAAAAAABvc/bTksfxcMYx0/s1600/PCT+Compilation-479.JPG" height="184" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hat Creek Rim filled with morning fog - view from where we camped on day 32.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08628242465814913016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871278426154035797.post-63343335649614107462013-01-09T15:38:00.000-07:002016-01-17T14:45:44.329-07:00Day 31: June 24, 2012 - PCT Midpoint!<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<h3>
June 24, 2012.</h3>
<b><span style="color: #e06666;">Day: 31 Daily Miles: 47.25 Total Miles: 1348.25 Hours Hiking: 16 7:25am-11:25pm</span></b><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: lime;">Listen to the audio journal above or</span> <a href="https://docs.google.com/open?id=0By2m6B0qS-XOQXVqNlFBa2I5MHM" target="_blank">Download June 24th Audio File Here</a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<b>Day 31</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<u>Midpoint Record Recording</u></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
June 24th, 4pm and 45 seconds 2012. I crossed and touched the midpoint of the Pacific Crest Trail at 1,325 miles, for a time of 30 days, 9 hours, 55 minutes and 45 seconds. I left at 6:05 am on May 25, 2012. The only known northbound record to the midpoint that I have seen comes from the 2009 speed record going northbound with Adam Bradley and Scott Williamson, and that was 34 days, 18 hours, 47 minutes and 2 seconds. So at this point, I should have a new record and I have beaten their record by ohh, a good 4 days. So hopefully I can keep this up. I'm soooo happy to be here, wooo hoo!</div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-T5fL8T2adA4/UIwnAcOZqhI/AAAAAAAABtU/DvdnEf-tDLU/s1600/PCT+Compilation-464.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-T5fL8T2adA4/UIwnAcOZqhI/AAAAAAAABtU/DvdnEf-tDLU/s1600/PCT+Compilation-464.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Success, new PCT halfway record! 30d9h56m</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
June 24, Day 31. I made it 47.25 miles
to trail mile 1348.25. About 1.5-2 miles before the Lassen Volcanic
National Park boundary. The coordinates for that point is 0638337 E
4472404 N. I stopped at about, ohh I believe 11:30pm or so. It was
kind of a slow day. I got up and got moving right around 7:30am, so
it wasn't by any means a fast, quick start. I took a good half hour
or so at the halfway point because I actually had cell service, so.
It took me a long time to make the miles, which I was OK with. It
wasn't too bad a night, much better night hiking experience than the
previous night coming up from Belden. I started off and had to climb
for about,... actually I started off with frost on me in the morning.
The sun came up just enough that I put my sleeping bad on some bushes
and dried it off, and similarly with ground tarp which was covered in
condensation on the bottom. I got them pretty dry and took off. I had
about 2.5 miles more of up, but at least this wasn't the staccato
rubble pile of kind of level and then straight up, then kind of level
and then straight up. It was more of a switchback, constant gradient.
This was very welcome. I finally hit the ridge and could see Lassen
pretty well and came down off Frog Mountain over across a couple snow
patches and into the land of just ups and downs, ups and downs across
volcanic ridges and around....up and around and down and through the
trees </div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KD1jtOxo0t0/UIwm25B0-PI/AAAAAAAABs8/nXGPJMaelH0/s1600/PCT+Compilation-461.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KD1jtOxo0t0/UIwm25B0-PI/AAAAAAAABs8/nXGPJMaelH0/s1600/PCT+Compilation-461.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mt Lassen on the way to the midpoint.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
basically. You occasionally get sights of Lassen kind of poking
through basically just to the north of you, north-northwest actually.
You just kind of weave around the valleys trying to stick to ridges.
So you know you might be hiking for 2 hours and all of a sudden
you're like, look there's the trail across the valley from where I'm
at right now....well that was 5 miles, ya know, just to get here from
there. But, it wasn't bad. It was fairly easy, I kind lulled in the
morning. I didn't wake up for along while and the afternoon, or up
until the afternoon or noon, I was just kind of dragging ass. I had
to do some foot maintenance, my big toenail was digging into my
flesh, so trimmed all those, which fixed the problem instantly pretty
much {in two days it would become infected and last until I got off
trail...}. And then, I just kept chugging along. I knew that the
midpoint was approaching and I hadn't really looked to see exactly
where it was. Depending on who's mileage you go by, it could be
various different points, but it was at 1325, or 1326 actually,
shoot. It says 1325 on it, but on the Halfmile mileage, it's at
1326.5 I believe. Anyways, I got close to the halfway point and was
getting hungry and it was uphill, so I stopped and took a break. And
then, i realized that, 'shit I should get there sooner than </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OWz70AIDcpc/UIwm_aYXHpI/AAAAAAAABtM/w_04mivblqs/s1600/PCT+Compilation-462.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OWz70AIDcpc/UIwm_aYXHpI/AAAAAAAABtM/w_04mivblqs/s1600/PCT+Compilation-462.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mt Lassen between volcanic boulders.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
later,
and then take my break there'. So I get up from my awesome view of
Lassen - I'm pretty much directly east of it at this point, or what
seems to be due east...I'm not sure exactly what direction I was
looking actually *laughs*. And then I trucked it for the next mile
and a half and get there at 4pm on the nose, which translate to
actually being a little bit earlier than a full on hour, because I
started at 6:05am on the 25th of May. I made... basically I hit the
midpoint at 30 days, 9 hours and 55 minutes and 45 seconds. So,
basically that slaughters the other old northbound record that I know
of, or at least that has been recorded, which is awesome news. I
actually tuned on my phone to take a couple pictures of myself so I
could send them out later and I had full service and continued to
have full service for a long time, probably a good 12 miles or so. So
I was texting people and calling people and trying to get a hold of
folks just to check in because I had good service and a full charge
from Belden. From the midpoint, it's downhill for a good 8-9 miles to
Highway 36, and then it's flat for another 3 miles and then it's a
fairly easy easy up and then another down to the North Fork of the
Feather River/headwater area. And then kind of a gentle up again.
But, by the time I was heading down towards the North Fork, it was
dark and I was using my light. So I didn't really get to see a lot,
but I got to see all of this in 2009 and remembered about it and just
kept chugging a long. My goal was to get to the national park
boundary, but I found a great campsite beforehand and the map kind of
showed </div>
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not so great contours for sleeping so, i took it a little
early and knew I could make it up tomorrow morning. I had a wonderful
sleep. I don't know. It's probably been one of the best on trail
sleeps I've had. It was on a bed of pine needles, there was kind of a
little divot for my butt, so my back was kind of in a nice shape and
this morning I woke up at about 5:40 and I was like ' ohh this is soo
comfortable and warm, I do not want to get up', so it took me about
10 minutes to get...to rouse myself. All through yesterday I listened
to the 'I Robot' audio book. Completed it actually and lets just say
the movie is nothing like the book. The movie is kind of like one of
the mini..the little stories extrapolated and twisted from the books
many, like 7 stories or so. So it's, it was interesting. I didn't
know what to expect and now I know. So, I should hit the Hat Creek
Rim this evening {'tomorrow'}, which will be awesome because today
was actually more or less cold and breezy. A lot of the day was about
50 degrees and you're in the shade of the trees and it's breezy, like
I had to actually put my jacket on, and left it on for most of the
day, even though it was sunny. The sun was warm, but you weren't
really ever in it for a long time. So tomorrow, the weather is
supposed to get a little bit warmer, but not hot yet and keep clear,
so the Hat Creek Rim will be awesome and great, instead of being
sweltering hot and blistering everything. So I look forward to it.
I'm getting close to Burney Falls and my next mail drop.</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Dg-56r4w-3U/UIwnnwlxEdI/AAAAAAAABvE/PBVF-0GFBXc/s1600/PCT+Compilation-476.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Dg-56r4w-3U/UIwnnwlxEdI/AAAAAAAABvE/PBVF-0GFBXc/s1600/PCT+Compilation-476.JPG" height="120" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Day 32 Panorama - Hat Creek Rim near overlook in the evening. It will rain in a few hours :(</td></tr>
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</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08628242465814913016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871278426154035797.post-43598030598219912492013-01-09T13:00:00.000-07:002016-01-17T14:44:53.461-07:00Day 30: June 23, 2012<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<h3>
June 23, 2012.</h3>
<b><span style="color: #e06666;">Day: 30 Daily Miles: 45.25 Total Miles: 1301 Hours Hiking: 15.5 6:20am-11:40pm</span></b><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: lime;">Listen to the audio journal above or</span> <a href="https://docs.google.com/open?id=0By2m6B0qS-XOOHZnclpZUnV6azQ" target="_blank">Download June 23rd Audio File Here</a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<b>Day 30</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-31PkXsZU8pU/UIwmmyPaIGI/AAAAAAAABsM/QppVN_7EgpQ/s1600/PCT+Compilation-455.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-31PkXsZU8pU/UIwmmyPaIGI/AAAAAAAABsM/QppVN_7EgpQ/s1600/PCT+Compilation-455.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a>June 23, Day 30. I did 45.25 miles
ending at the 1301 mile mark. I started about 4-5 miles up from the
Middle Fork of the Feather River and ended about 2 miles from the top
of the Belden climb- the climb out of Belden, in the grassy little
meadow area after all of the gnarly, stupid, terrible, horrible,
awful, steep, rocky climb. *laughs*n Yeah, pretty much. Lets see,
that point was 0637230 E 4432947 N. So yeah, the day well began wet
and pretty much...it was cold and still wet for most of the rest of
the day. Well, for at least half of the day. But um, it rained for
half of the night. At about 4am, the big shower happened. I don't
know hot big, but I was covered in my tarp instead of setting it up,
because up until I went to bed, it hadn't precipitated, sprinkled or
whatever in like 6-8 hours, so I figured I'd be good, you know? The
clouds were broken up and it was partly cloudy, but no, it sprinkled
as I put my head down. So I pulled my tarp out and just laid it over
me..which I knew would cause problems with condensation in the inside
and get my bag wet, but no big deal. But, um yeah, at 4am the big one
hit. There were a couple puddles on my tarp when I woke up, but I
stayed really dry besides the condensation. So that good. I woke up
and was like 'crap its dripping, everything is wet', but there was
blue sky above, even though there was still a bunch of clouds, at
least some blue sky. I finally got going at I think 6:25, everything
was still wet...I shook it off the best I could and was just like
"I'll just dry it out later'. The climb up and out of the canyon
was easy. A bit chilly because everything was damp and you're in the
shade a lot. I got up to 'Lookout Rock' and called mom and dad just
because I hadn't talked to </div>
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
them for a little while and I knew Greg's
wedding (my cousin) was happening. Lets see then. I just kept
plodding along. A little further on from Lookout Rock, the trail had
puddles still. All of the bushes were still covered in water, so my
feet were soaking wet. I'd take steps and see water squish out of my
shoe - that's how wet it was. But, I just kept going. It was a 33
mile or so day to get into Belden for my resupply and I wanted to do
it early enough so I could stop by the little Belden tavern/resort
store and also make it out of there {Belden} in the same day, which I
managed to do. I just kept trucking along, it was like 50 F and
breezy all day, so I was cold. It was one of those times where I
wasn't sure if I wanted to put on my jacket and be a little warm or
just wear my sleeves down and keep hiking fast. So, I just kept
hiking fast. The sun felt really good, but when you were in the
shade, the wind just chilled you. I got to...Lets see...what else is
there from yesterday...umm.. I remembered quite a bit of it {the
trail from 2009} yesterday, I don't know why. It seems to be that
town days from 2009 I remember {the trail} better. Probably because I
was looking forward to them more than other days. I mean I was happy
yesterday for sure, until the evening *laughs*, then I was angry,
because that climb was awful {especially in the dark}. I got a couple
good views once i got up to the top of the ridge. I saw Mt. Lassen
for the first time. I met two women - a mother and daughter hikers -
they seemed a little clueless about what they were doing. But I
hopefully straightened them out on a few things and gave them some
good advice and kind of nudged them in the direction of certain items
they should exchange. But they were really nice and headed to Belden
as well. I didn't get to see them again, because they were probably
going a little slower than my rapid turn around. I also met...once I
got out to the ridge that overlooks the North Fork of the Feather
River canyon where Belden is at, the wind was pretty strong, but at
least it was completely sunny and I could see all the way down into
the central valley - Chico-Oroville are which was pretty cool. Then I
just bombed it down into the canyon. I met another guy called
Hawkeye I believe, on the way down - a thru-hiker. And then bashed my
way through bushes, dodged poison and then I was basically there. I
went into the Belden resort area thing, got the Belden Burger, which
was double patty with bacon and a bunch of cheese. They were out of
fries, and I was like " Ohh my god, that's all I could ever want
right now..and you're out of fries and onion rings..!!" So, I
got a salad, which doesn't quite do it, but you know, greens are
better than nothing. I did manage to eat all of the ranch dressing
though. *laughs* That took a little while, even though I got it to
go, so I perused the store and bought a thing of cookies and </div>
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
another
smaller can of frosting and a Drumstick ice cream, just to kind of
keep those extra calories in my pack, so I can keep on eating them.
The burger took forever, but I finally got it and by that time,
Hawkeye had arrived and I let him use my phone to call the Braatens
so he could get a ride there. Basically as soon as I got outside and
started walking down the street, the Braatens arrived to give him a
ride and she was trying to convince me to take a ride too. But, I was
like 'no, no, I have to walk {on account of the record}. It took
about 20 minutes to walk to her place...and the burger was really
good {ate is as I walked}. I finished it within the first 3 minutes
of walking. But yeah, not so many cars. I pulled my sleeping bag out
and draped it over my back because the sun was behind me and it was
super windy, so I could dry it out as I went. It must have looked
really ridiculous to passing cars because you couldn't really see me
besides my feet. I was just this big black lump walking. I go to the
Braatens, stripped open my package, laid out all of my wet stuff
outside was the first thing I did. I got everything packed into my
pack, charged my phone and then I managed to find some goodies to eat
in the kitchen, I signed the register and basically that was about
it. I got everything packed up again and adios. It took me about an
hour or so to resupply at the house itself. It never goes quite as
fast as you'd think because you're like 'ohh I can sit down and relax
a little bit'. Back on the road, then I got back onto trail around
7:15-20 pm. and from there, just proceeded to climb up the
valley....uggghhh, it was awful. The first part wasn't bad. You go up
steeply and you're probably 200ft above the road - you parallel the
road for a while. Then you turn into the canyon and parallel the
canyon at that height for a while </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-136oENCTEQ8/UIwmvt1cqfI/AAAAAAAABss/NNj7l34KUdY/s1600/PCT+Compilation-459.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-136oENCTEQ8/UIwmvt1cqfI/AAAAAAAABss/NNj7l34KUdY/s1600/PCT+Compilation-459.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">First view of Mt Lassen before the Belden descent.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
and then you hit switchbacks, which
there are a lot of them, they are a little steeper than normal, but
they aren't terrible - they are nice, they are flat, they're
switchbacks, they're good. Those go on for like 4 miles...
switchback, switchback, switchback, then you just keep gradually
climbing, climbing, climbing at an angle. Then you kind of drop down
a little bit and then it turns rocky, which would be OK if it was
like granite and solid rock, but it's not. It's like scree field
rocky. These scree field rocks are like the size of softballs and
baseballs. So, you start getting rocks that aren't fun to walk on and
are hard to walk across and then you enter the forest and it combines
the two. So you get kind of these pine needle covered trails, a
little bit of dirt, then rocky patches, and of course the trail
itself kind of goes flat along the dirt pine needle patches and then
screams steeply upwards up all of the rocky patches. So it's kind of
walking up a loose riverbed. And it just does this for 3-4 miles. The
trail is just not well made in this area. It doesn't keep a
continuous grade or anything, it just goes kind of up, then really
up, then kind of up, then really up and then winds around. Lots of
little creeks. Eventually I made it. I was super tired by the end. I
wanted to make it to 1300 miles and there was no place to camp there
so...there was a little spot on the map (halfmile maps} marked as a
campsite at 1301 and that's where I went. I was really happy to sit
down and made dinner and pass out, so that was yesterday. Today I'm
tired. Oh well.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
In addition to June 23, Day 30 journal
entry, I think the climb through there was bad because it was at the
end of a 40+ mile day. I had resupplies and it was just steep and at
night. Also, I hit the midpoint tomorrow. It should be about ohh, 30
or so miles away, so I should hit it late afternoon. I'm hoping to
hit it before 6pm so when you do the math, it's less than 61 days to
complete the trail - 60 days and X amount of hours.</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-FGyYFvxmW-U/UIwm5eoM5QI/AAAAAAAABtE/GHQKOwQnXGE/s1600/PCT+Compilation-460.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-FGyYFvxmW-U/UIwm5eoM5QI/AAAAAAAABtE/GHQKOwQnXGE/s1600/PCT+Compilation-460.JPG" height="124" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The descent down to North Fork of the Feather River and Belden..sooo far down, then right back up :/</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08628242465814913016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871278426154035797.post-7677847376910264192013-01-09T12:00:00.000-07:002016-01-17T14:44:34.181-07:00Day 29: June 22, 2012<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<h3>
June 22, 2012.</h3>
<b><span style="color: #e06666;">Day: 29 Daily Miles: 49 Total Miles: 1255.75 Hours Hiking: 15.5 7:25am-11:00pm</span></b><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: lime;">Listen to the audio journal above or</span> <a href="https://docs.google.com/open?id=0By2m6B0qS-XOb0dPQTkzWVpxSmc" target="_blank">Download June 22nd Audio File Here</a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<b>Day 29</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3pceHKqwZmg/UIwmfITXD7I/AAAAAAAABr0/99eEPPgh7Cc/s1600/PCT+Compilation-453.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3pceHKqwZmg/UIwmfITXD7I/AAAAAAAABr0/99eEPPgh7Cc/s1600/PCT+Compilation-453.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Sierra Buttes and Deer Lake.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
June 22, Day 29. I made it 49 miles to
ending mile 1255.75. That was about 5 miles up from the Middle Fork
of the Feather River bridge, perched on the side of the hill. Point
0665256 E 4408342 N. Ohh yesterday. It wasn't a bad day. I could
definitely have been better on account of it was raining and it
rained through the night. Otherwise, it was actually a really awesome
day. Lets see. I woke up and go moving at 7:30am, a late start. That
was on account of 1. being up until 1am but 2. there were clouds in
the morning which, I was kind of on a ridge, but the clouds blocked
the sun after it first rose, so it made it seem like it was earlier
than it actually was. A lot of waking up times is based on kind of
how sensitive you are to the light and what it looks like and it was
just not as bright as it should have been because of the clouds.
Still a little windy in the morning. It didn't really warm up, for
most of the day actually it stayed pretty cool. The first oh... 7
until about 1pm, it was more or less sunny, partly cloudy - the sun
coming in and out. The walk along the ridge by the Sierra Buttes,
looking down on Gold Lake and all the other lakes was pretty nice.
Sections of snow in </div>
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the trees. I actually didn't see anyone until
later that day. But um, I just kept trucking along. Not a whole lot
to mention or remember. You do forget how much volcanic terrain there
is out there. You think a lot of it is granite, it's just how I kind
of think of the Sierras but ever since Sonora pass, you're in and the
high points are volcanic on top of the granite. So, I mean the Sierra
Buttes themselves are sedimentary it looks like but then you have
these huge mudflows all around it - this kind of tan-grey with these
rounded volcanics inside of it. There was a big kind of peak of that
stuff where you have to climb up along side, then go down the back,
then literally repeat the same thing over again right by the Sierra
county line. But uhh yeah, coming on around 1pm the skies definitely
got grey and clouded and I was kind of zoned out listening to a book
called Snow Crash, which I just finished actually today, which is
really good. And I really just kind of zones out and I had a big
climb up and up and up back to the same place where in 2009, I had
kicked a branch on a downed tree across the trail and it broke the
second time I kicked it easily and my foot went through and literally
impaled my calf on the broken sharp point. So I remember that spot
pretty well. I had to hobble for like half a day. It was not bad
though. Just being zoned out is a nice way to go up a hill. You don't
think about it too much, or you don't try and think about it anyways,
but when you do think about it....as I'm going up hill right now...
you just try and take your mind off of it, because hills suck, a lot.
After the hill you hit this ridge where </div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7AKWtmTq3LdTsGy0T5Lx350QMaeJ7e8UnxZmUxrRJDE0wm93seRo28d6ujeTlfbn9nn2oxipGZi9eyTevN1f3HuHJkvTQv8t0jLu87rG5rY4Q9IwftwViVQ4n1yWRjKlD-2VrIBZqsRyn/s1600/PCT+Compilation-454.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7AKWtmTq3LdTsGy0T5Lx350QMaeJ7e8UnxZmUxrRJDE0wm93seRo28d6ujeTlfbn9nn2oxipGZi9eyTevN1f3HuHJkvTQv8t0jLu87rG5rY4Q9IwftwViVQ4n1yWRjKlD-2VrIBZqsRyn/s1600/PCT+Compilation-454.JPG" height="320" width="238" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Into the big trees around the Sierra Buttes.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
it's cold and windy, a few
sprinkles here and there. Below the fire lookout tower, the rain...a
first wave of it started, so I pulled out my rain stuff, which I had
never used before and found out that it aaaa...it'll work, it just
definitely needs some modifications. Whoever designed the dry ducks
poncho was a moron. Like, it needs...its your typical poncho shape,
rectangle front and back and comes down a little bit over the
shoulders, but there is no way to connect the front flap and the back
flap. So, if it's windy at all it just blows around and doesn't do
jack for you. So I'm going to have to rig something, some kind of
ties between the front and back so that it'll stay on you, cover you
even if it's windy. So you know, fiddling with that for 10-15
minutes, I had lunch and basically just kept going down trail. It
didn't really rain. I met a section hiker who was just camped out in
his tent. He gave me an apple, I had him sign my witness log, since
he was the first person I had seen in a good 1.5 days. And then I
kept going and it rained a little bit more (harder) for about 20
minutes and then it stopped actually for the rest of the afternoon
and evening. From that point, it was pretty much all more or less
level and downhill until you get to the real steep part and drop down
into 4 or 6 miles or something into the Middle Fork of the American
River, which would have been awesome and great and easy, which it
was, but...having had rained and then not wind or sunshine, the
overgrown plants in the canyon were sopping wet. So, as I had to go
down the hill, the plants are towering above you and beside you and
over the trail, they completely soaked my shoes and I was bashing
them with my trekking poles but still wet, wet wet... I made it down
to the bridge at about 8:30pm something. I didn't really stop, just
kept going. I wanted to make it as far up the canyon as I could
possible make it before I stopped, so that my climb out tomorrow
would easier. Which all in all the climb itself is really easy, it's
just long. They made it pretty graded. I passed Bear Creek, which I
thought may be a good point to stop, and said "ahh, screw it".
It was barley 9:50pm so I just kept going. At 11pm, I passed a
little, what looks like to be an old overgrown road, but when your on
a canyon wall, one flat spot looks really great compared to a little
flat spot on trail. I could have easily made a 50 yesterday, but I
knew that camping would have been very difficult, so I didn't keep
going. .....phew up that hill finally... I then got all of my stuff
in order - dinner - and the rest of it (for the next day). And just
as I was putting my head down - I didn't set up my tarp because it
hadn't rained since 4 or 5 O'clock or even threatened. You know
partly cloudy, broken up clouds. Just as I put my head down, it
starts sprinkling on me and I knew from then on, it was going to be a
wet night, which it was... Instead of actually setting up my tarp, I
just pulled it out, threw it over me and said screw it and went to
sleep. It worked out fine, you know it just creates condensation on
the inside so you get your sleeping bag wet. It isn't so big a deal
because you can dry it out the next day. So I spent the night kind of
tossing and turning as periodic rain showers dumped over me. The one
last one at 4 in-the-frickin-morning was the worst. It poured real
good, I'm not sure how long, but after that it stopped. I woke up in
the morning and the trees were dripping and it was actually blue
skies above me. I got up fairly early and tried to shake out all my
stuff so I could make it to Belden early enough to hit Belden and
then get the heck out of town and hopefully make it to the Belden
Resort or whatever to get a dinner or something as an extra meal and
maybe hit up their little store. So I'll hit the midpoint in 2 days,
HECK YEAH!</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl0jlR_g75CcCEB8ZmiupB1HSC-7a72qSeriqEoUr3PTmLXfdGQaMtJt9wAH6Lwh7uDehWTsSJj61aQNDQXlQsUhB_MhbN8HrMKrIOG5iBcSJqk3-eK7mNupCaADIP0q6ao8iZNLohansZ/s1600/PCT+Compilation-444.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl0jlR_g75CcCEB8ZmiupB1HSC-7a72qSeriqEoUr3PTmLXfdGQaMtJt9wAH6Lwh7uDehWTsSJj61aQNDQXlQsUhB_MhbN8HrMKrIOG5iBcSJqk3-eK7mNupCaADIP0q6ao8iZNLohansZ/s1600/PCT+Compilation-444.JPG" height="140" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Day 27 Panorama - 6 miles from Donner Pass</td></tr>
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</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08628242465814913016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871278426154035797.post-46606566433988862472013-01-09T11:00:00.000-07:002016-01-17T14:44:14.272-07:00Day 28: June 21, 2012<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<h3>
June 21, 2012.</h3>
<b><span style="color: #e06666;">Day: 28 Daily Miles: 47.25 Total Miles: 1206.75 Hours Hiking: 16 8:25am-12:05am</span></b><br />
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<span style="color: lime;">Listen to the audio journal above or</span> <a href="https://docs.google.com/open?id=0By2m6B0qS-XOaVZXdWxMajNfS2c" target="_blank">Download June 21st Audio File Here</a><br />
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<b>Day 28</b></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FPZOigHjrDc/UIwmE3KKeuI/AAAAAAAABq4/cGSq2tzREeA/s1600/PCT+Compilation-446.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FPZOigHjrDc/UIwmE3KKeuI/AAAAAAAABq4/cGSq2tzREeA/s1600/PCT+Compilation-446.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sign just before crossing under I-80.</td></tr>
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June 21, Day 28 of my record attempt
adventure. I made it to mile 1206.75 for a total of 47.25 miles. I
made it to...i made the climb up the Buttes, the Sierra Buttes,
passed the little trail head on top where it meets the road, just
before you come up the hill on the paved road. I camped at point
0700220 E 4387867 N. Ohh yesterday. Lets see. Yesterday I got a very
late start, 8:30 roughly. Uhh, I don't know what happened, but I woke
up roughly around normal time and I just didn't feel good and so I
just turned over and kinda went back to sleep, even though the
traffic was getting louder and louder with more hours of the day. I
just tuned it out. Maybe I had one too many beers, but I only had 2,
so I don't think that's it. Maybe it was just the extra food or
something that I wasn't used to. But regardless I got up and got
moving. It was actually a fairly easy day. I made the climb up to the
Peter Grub Hut, nobody there. And then from there on, for the next
10-15 miles I hit more snow patches and creek, or trail that was
flowing with water, than I have had the whole entire trip so far. I
must have walked across 50 snow patches and I want to say that those
15 miles had more snow </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuBL0lyNpj29NxDWRQ-Sa1kw5yYoqn3BY2gZtaypW59JqJhiQ_DlzOTe8iXu9cWyowVUewcVwNrzsRg2fNL3jOnfU_tiIsUDsao_eRnZS9HKJsPOdAPkytyR036uNuHsP4B2Zw0fuN3lb_/s1600/PCT+Compilation-447.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuBL0lyNpj29NxDWRQ-Sa1kw5yYoqn3BY2gZtaypW59JqJhiQ_DlzOTe8iXu9cWyowVUewcVwNrzsRg2fNL3jOnfU_tiIsUDsao_eRnZS9HKJsPOdAPkytyR036uNuHsP4B2Zw0fuN3lb_/s1600/PCT+Compilation-447.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">10 Miles north of Donner Pass, looking NE.</td></tr>
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crossing than the Sierras and Sonora Pass
combined, which normally would say a lot. But this year it doesn't
say a whole bunch except for there was a bunch of snow and my feet
got wet because I had to keep dodging the trail that was a river and
the mud puddles and such things. But um yeah, it was actually fairly
nice. A few mosquitoes here and there. A nice sunny day, breezy. You
would drop down on the north side, hit a bunch of snow, then climb up
the south facing adjacent ridge amongst the thousands and thousands
of Mule Ears and volcanic terrain or soils and stuff and crest out,
walk aways and drop back down the other side. Eventually I was
descending from the Castle Crags to the Yuba at Sierra City, so it
was a day of a lot of downhill, until the end actually. But I was
making good time. I knew that Highway 49 was about 37-38 miles away
and that there was a climb up the Buttes right after that. And since
I wasn't resupplying at Sierra City, I thought, why not make it up as
much of the Buttes as possible, so that in the morning I won't have
to do it. Plus, it puts me up, in better position for the next
following days. I figured out that if I make it up the Buttes then do
a 45 I'm at the bottom of the Middle Feather River, I'm at the creek
itself, so I can start doing that climb at the end of tomorrow night.
And then, if I manage to do that, it gives me a 40 into Belden, which
then means I can leave in the evening versus having to wait until the
morning. Which means I can probably get in and get out and get </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GF2DSNz8Qa0/UIwmN7vcf5I/AAAAAAAABrM/yun5HruAihA/s1600/PCT+Compilation-449.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GF2DSNz8Qa0/UIwmN7vcf5I/AAAAAAAABrM/yun5HruAihA/s1600/PCT+Compilation-449.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Sierra Buttes, be there tonight!</td></tr>
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a
couple miles up the Belden climb at night *laughs* rather than early
in the morning. So, by doing big miles, I actually have set myself
up, if I can continue them, to basically do a lot of these climbs at
night. So back to where I was, um...Yeah lots of downhill. You
finally get to one ridge and you just start trucking down and down
and down and you see Jackson Meadows Reservoir. You pass by that. You
go up a little bit and then you just keep hauling down. You finally
hit, ohh I forget which creek it is, its a really pretty little creek
probably about 6 miles from the highway, Highway 49, and you
parallel, cross it twice, but you kind of parallel it for a while.
It's such a steep creek that they bring you way up high so you can't
see a lot of it, and then you zig-zag and then all of a sudden you're
at the Yuba at the bridge. You cross the bridge and you go for about
another mile and you're at Highway 49, which Scott had told me that
he and my dad had put up a sign at the crossing. And when I crossed
Highway 49, right above the PCT symbol, there was a little chunk of
wood with "Hannah Montana Rocks!" scrawled on it, which, is
funny because Scott has always thought my trail name should be Hannah
Montana, and it was kind of my runner-up idea, just because it's
ridiculous </div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ozijbaXXztM/UIwmYJw411I/AAAAAAAABrs/j8tJfDibprw/s1600/PCT+Compilation-451.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ozijbaXXztM/UIwmYJw411I/AAAAAAAABrs/j8tJfDibprw/s1600/PCT+Compilation-451.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Sierra Buttes, be there tonight!</td></tr>
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and would be really funny to introduce yourself to people,
because you would pretty much always get a laugh, I think. I wrote on
the piece of wood 'hey thanks guys, I really wish you guys were
here.' I actually screwed up, I put my current time on there as 28
days and 14 hours, which it should have been 27 days 14 hours since I
was counting up the hours to day 28. But whatever. I also realized
yesterday that I'm going to hit the midpoint in 3 days. I'll hit the
midpoint somewhere around the well, I think the evening, I'm not
sure, yet. I haven't completely figured out the exact miles and
whatnot, but I should hit it on the 24th, which is three days from
today. And that being said, I will be at I think like 30 days and X
amount of hours into my trek. Anyway, by the time I made it to
Highway 49, it was ohh, 8:30pm and I was at 37 miles for the day, so
I had to at least make 1200 which was going to be my 40 miles (for
the day). So I blasted up the switchback, switchback, switchback,
switchback, switchback and finally getting to 1200 around 9:30 or so,
and then kept going. I mean there was no in stopping. A, there is no
camping and B. In the morning I am going to be very happy that I
don't have to do this climb. Which the climb itself after the
switchbacks and the few rocky places isn't </div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yMFJtQXxJWU/UIwmgULpcQI/AAAAAAAABr8/Zq4nSahCTdY/s1600/PCT+Compilation-452.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yMFJtQXxJWU/UIwmgULpcQI/AAAAAAAABr8/Zq4nSahCTdY/s1600/PCT+Compilation-452.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yuba River crossing by Sierra City.</td></tr>
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really bad. You kind of go
really gently yup for the last three miles or so. But I did it, it
was great. I could see the lights of Sierra City, looking at the
horizon, I could see the glow of Reno, Sacramento. I could actually
make out a few clusters of town lights out in the central valley. So
it was not a bad night. A little rough on the feet - there were some
rocky patches that sucked and whatever, but I made it to the top and
finally made it to the trail head around 11:55pm and kept going
trying to find a good camp site because it was windy up on the ridge.
Trying to find a cozy little nook and it took me until about 12:08am
to finally find a place that I wanted to camp. Settled in, made
dinner, got a whole bunch of stuff ready for the morning. Ate a whole
bunch, and finally went to bed, I think at like 1:05am. So it was a
high mile day, but I had to go late because I got up late. But you
know, it's OK I got a little extra sleep and then I went a little
extra further. So we'll see if I can get back onto a normal schedule
tomorrow.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BTHOl1sCSuA/UIwmSI8803I/AAAAAAAABrU/AV8ji-4fbSQ/s1600/PCT+Compilation-448.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BTHOl1sCSuA/UIwmSI8803I/AAAAAAAABrU/AV8ji-4fbSQ/s1600/PCT+Compilation-448.JPG" height="84" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">North of Donner Pass about 15 miles.</td></tr>
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</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08628242465814913016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871278426154035797.post-82946258907690247262013-01-09T10:00:00.000-07:002016-01-17T14:43:54.852-07:00Day 27: June 20, 2012<br />
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<h3>
June 20, 2012.</h3>
<b><span style="color: #e06666;">Day: 27 Daily Miles: 43 Total Miles: 1159.5 Hours Hiking: 14 5:55am-7:55pm</span></b><br />
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<span style="color: lime;">Listen to the audio journal above or</span> <a href="https://docs.google.com/open?id=0By2m6B0qS-XOZnNjRGpTVHh6ZjA" target="_blank">Download June 20th Audio File Here</a><br />
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<b>Day 27</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<u>Morning</u><br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Uni7PeiFwt0/UIwliVaUEQI/AAAAAAAABpU/TMQfPKhqIeA/s1600/PCT+Compilation-434.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Uni7PeiFwt0/UIwliVaUEQI/AAAAAAAABpU/TMQfPKhqIeA/s1600/PCT+Compilation-434.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a>Having been on trail for, well 26 days
and like 3 hours now, I uhh... Well yesterday I got a message from
Colina (my friend) and it was basically just like 'Hey, just having a
bad day, wish you were here to talk to, I miss you" And the
strange part is that I uhh, it's been 27 days and I'm totally
disconnected mentally and well just in general from the rest of the
world. And I haven't even truly give it a thought at all. Like, it's
such tunnel vision right now, its just do the miles, go as far as you
can, go fast. Food. Water. Where are you sleeping? It's been boiled
down to the basics and I haven't given pretty much anything else much
thought truly. Um, it's kind of interesting being disconnected, ya
know I have my phone, but I get relatively little service, so it's
not that useful to keep connected with. It just kind of hit me like,
I was like 'Ohh yeah, there are other people out in the world that I
care about and they care about me". And, it's strange. I mean
sure I send little text updates and things, but that's really
informal. It... I don't know. It's just one of those things that just
hit me. I think its </div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMkkJ_7wkY2W3kd91K3fvzt6_quupPawOjbVaxPPKygdWJKjbBRfo7-L8im3l5gg-mQeL9cjqJrguZ2xEW7CkXYx-ysh_Xwyfc3UqT7hhvJUx7P8z96-hn3Q1zAHUYPkxH-Y9aGI4B4teB/s1600/PCT+Compilation-437.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMkkJ_7wkY2W3kd91K3fvzt6_quupPawOjbVaxPPKygdWJKjbBRfo7-L8im3l5gg-mQeL9cjqJrguZ2xEW7CkXYx-ysh_Xwyfc3UqT7hhvJUx7P8z96-hn3Q1zAHUYPkxH-Y9aGI4B4teB/s1600/PCT+Compilation-437.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Almost on top of the long Sierra Crest ridge.</td></tr>
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
going to have to stay that way to finish this
bastard. You know it's nice to meet up with people and things, but
definitely right now it's one-track-mind, nothing else matters. Not
to say I won't call her back and talk with her, it's just you don't
think about things. I haven't thought about women, I haven't thought
about.....just pretty much anybody but myself. And not even
particularly myself but what I'm doing. So, yeah. You think it might
be a time for like reflection and contemplation, which it is to a
point, but truly doing this many miles a day...everything blurs
together and you really just kind of zone out because you have to.
Like you don't sit there at a pond and be like "Ohh this is so
pretty, I wish so-and-so was here, la de dee..." It's more of
the "ohh look, a hill to climb, OK." Set your breathing,
set your pace, get the trekking poles moving and start counting so
that you take you mind off how much this sucks. And look 20 minutes
later I'm at the top, awesome! Ya know, that's how a day goes. You
don't think. So I'll try actually I'm going to see....Ohh god
mosquitoes!... how it goes. But for now, I'll give her a call back
when I get back into service.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ_QokiUtffbWA5e9m4K_JJw-RMzuiFg_K14YDvhXsmcjOON43e4TDP4X9IpceDUzlBuR2Q-ylMw2wD-GgkjmpFmSM7vlDx6Jy6Xqz-Wwk0TjXcATca3571wGHovrXOkuEwr1mrV08Hq9n/s1600/PCT+Compilation-436.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ_QokiUtffbWA5e9m4K_JJw-RMzuiFg_K14YDvhXsmcjOON43e4TDP4X9IpceDUzlBuR2Q-ylMw2wD-GgkjmpFmSM7vlDx6Jy6Xqz-Wwk0TjXcATca3571wGHovrXOkuEwr1mrV08Hq9n/s1600/PCT+Compilation-436.JPG" height="176" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sierra Crest above Sierra At Tahoe ski resort.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fRL87aeu5Pw/UIwlu5msq9I/AAAAAAAABp0/fnfkZATYo0o/s1600/PCT+Compilation-438.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fRL87aeu5Pw/UIwlu5msq9I/AAAAAAAABp0/fnfkZATYo0o/s1600/PCT+Compilation-438.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I see you Tahoe! HDR</td></tr>
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
June 20th, Day 27. Mile 1159.5, thats
43 miles for the day. I slept pretty much right next to the westbound
rest area on I-80, because my brother surprised me with trail magic
and I didn't feel like going very far after we talked. Anyways I'll
explain that in a bit. Lets see, I started really early, well not
realllly early. About 5:55am. Lets see. Basically I had a really
quick awesome day. I had called my brother from Echo Lake and he was
like "Yeah I can probably meet you, sometime on Wednesday".
So I wanted to make sure I was...well at the rest area before it got
dark and was too late because if I took my normal time, I would have
probably gotten there when it was dark and that wouldn't have been
cool. So, lets see, I tried to get an early start, I made really good
time, um lets see, I um had easy terrain for the most part. In the
morning a ridge walk, down and ups and nothing too difficult. Once I
got about 20 miles in, I started to get out...I broke out of the
forest and onto the peaks with the ski areas, which was awesome. They
are one of the best parts of this area, is walking up on the ridges
and having a clear view... basically walking along the Sierra Crest
on the volcanics and having a clear view both to the east and west.
Yeah, I just love that because you're literally right on the ridge. I
had lunch at 20 miles, was about 1/2 mile ahead of my hoped for time.
Ya know it was like 6 hours and I was already at 20.5 miles, which is
great. I mean I eventually would make it 40 miles in about 12.5
hours, </div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RcMY-StuD3I/UIwl2VVIYQI/AAAAAAAABqM/p9sv5sEPv3A/s1600/PCT+Compilation-440.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RcMY-StuD3I/UIwl2VVIYQI/AAAAAAAABqM/p9sv5sEPv3A/s1600/PCT+Compilation-440.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
which is basically no time for stopping, it's just go all day
long. I was tired. Anyway, I got off the ridges and on the ridges and
ups and downs. I remembered a lot of it from 2009 and I remembered I
loved it. There was still a bunch of snow actually on the ridge after
you cross the forest road #3 that brings you down to South Lake
Tahoe. Otherwise it was a great day. It was a little warmer than I'd
like for some of the climbs, probably somewhere in the lower 80's,
but all in all great. I only saw 2 hikers the whole day. One was a
guy doing a little bit of the section and then I saw Billy Goat
towards the end of the day about mile 31-32. He actually knew who I
was, not because of my hat, but because I'm in his words "on of
the only guys that's like 6'8") *Laughing* That was kind of cool
that he recognized me. We chatted for about 5 minutes and then I was
like "I've gotta go, I'm trying to probably meet my brother and
blah blah blah". Thankfully I made it. My actual...my hardest
snow crossing was actually right there by Mt. Lincoln. About 2.5
miles away from Hwy 40 at Donner Pass. The trail cuts around this
ridge and drops down, and you pop over the ridge and suddenly find
about 10 ft of kind of flat level snow, then it drops about 20 ft
down to the trail - vertical, hard, can't kick steps really, so I had
to do a big detour to manage that one. And, by that time, because of
the snow and talking with Billy Goat, I was a little behind, which I
was worried about. Eventually I made the next three miles over to
I-80 and got to the rest area, which since he was coming up from
Grass Valley, he was on the eastbound rest area, and it's really a
pain to get over to the westbound rest area so I just literally
walked across I-80, not a </div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JcJJD9mDg18/UIwl9-pUeyI/AAAAAAAABqc/l5mc8QiRfQU/s1600/PCT+Compilation-442.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JcJJD9mDg18/UIwl9-pUeyI/AAAAAAAABqc/l5mc8QiRfQU/s1600/PCT+Compilation-442.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Massive fields of Mules Ears abound.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
problem. There wasn't that much traffic and
no median, well the median is a big huge 50 ft rock and dirt area, so
not a problem. I met him there at about 8 O'clock and just hung out
basically. I had done a big mile day and I didn't need to do more so
I just said screw it, this will be my "rest day". Had beer,
he brought a pizza, ya know and some other snacks and we just hung
out, it was great. I hung out until about ohh, I don't know, 10ish,
and he was headed back home. Star and Paxx were there too. It was
good, it was nice to see them and great to get some extra calories
and literally just hang out and stop moving for two hours. I was
tired because I did push really hard the whole day. So I didn't feel
like going on any further. I just basically just sauntered back into
the woods and I had scoped out a good spot earlier to rest and so be
it, that's where I laid down for the night. The road traffic didn't
bother me one bit. I can sleep through anything pretty much now.
Sleep on anything, sleep through anything. Um yeah, it was a good day
and it ended even better.</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-44O5zjc4cGY/UIwl0Dh8j8I/AAAAAAAABqE/M9GGMWp62QA/s1600/PCT+Compilation-439.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-44O5zjc4cGY/UIwl0Dh8j8I/AAAAAAAABqE/M9GGMWp62QA/s1600/PCT+Compilation-439.JPG" height="94" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sierra Crest above Squaw Valley ski resort.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
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</div>
</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08628242465814913016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871278426154035797.post-59711462383767081822013-01-09T09:00:00.000-07:002016-01-17T14:43:36.559-07:00Day 26: June 19, 2012<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<h3>
June 19, 2012.</h3>
<b><span style="color: #e06666;">Day: 26 Daily Miles: 44 Total Miles: 1116.5 Hours Hiking: 16.5 6:10am-10:40pm</span></b><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: lime;">Listen to the audio journal above or</span> <a href="https://docs.google.com/open?id=0By2m6B0qS-XOZ2VlckhzYzA5Y2M" target="_blank">Download June 19th Audio File Here</a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<b>Day 26</b><br />
<u>Morning</u></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fH0dJLPwNX4/UIwkzki4H3I/AAAAAAAABnc/0Fv_eLHMaME/s1600/PCT+Compilation-420.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fH0dJLPwNX4/UIwkzki4H3I/AAAAAAAABnc/0Fv_eLHMaME/s1600/PCT+Compilation-420.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">PCT sign a mile from Carson Pass.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
June 19th. I just passed, or crossed
Carson Pass. I did about 4 miles to get there this morning. A little
bit of snow across the elephants back. It wasn't bad at all. I got to
Carson Pass's little ranger-ish station/information center, there
were 3 volunteers that were super nice and another thru-hiker called
"Z". I think they really enjoy thru-hikers because they had
sandwiches and coke and fruit and things like that ready for us. It
was really nice for them. I want to thank them, I did thank them a
bunch and was in and out hopefully pretty quick. Hopefully it was 20
minutes. Ya know I was just telling them what I'm doing and it's time
like that when other people's enthusiasm, ya know not just like "ohh
yeah, cool, good luck" but like "I hope you finish".
That's an amazing thing. It helps keeps me motivated, how about that.
It's one of those - sure I'm doing this for me, but I'd also like to
do it for them kind of thing, if that makes any sense. It's - there's
no way they could ever understand what it's like to do this, but at
the same time, their good intentions go along ways. So I'm about </div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bizanYFyc9Y/UIwk7N2skVI/AAAAAAAABnk/UlIdvh6XGPA/s1600/PCT+Compilation-421.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bizanYFyc9Y/UIwk7N2skVI/AAAAAAAABnk/UlIdvh6XGPA/s1600/PCT+Compilation-421.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wild iris a couple miles after Carson Pass, looking south.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
14,
12, whatever miles away from Echo Lake. I'll roll into there,
probably take a shower?...no, definitely take a shower and do some
laundry. I hope to get out of there within an hour, hour and a half
and make it over Dicks Pass into mosquito central tonight. See if I
can pull off a 40 mile day on a resupply. I did the math this
morning, yesterday actually. When I'm all said and done, I'm
averaging 42.9 miles a day, a jump of about 1/3 of a mile a day since
the day prior. So doing big days is still bringing the average up,
which is great, because the record is at 41.2 miles a day, so I'm
ahead of the record by almost 1.7 miles per day, so multiply that out
and by the end of it, I'd be almost 120 miles ahead of the record.
So, 'bravo' me. I just hope to keep going and try and figure out this
weight problem. If it gets easier and easier maybe I won't be burning
as much, especially if I'm coming down in elevation, I know my body
won't necessarily need to use as much to keep me going. So I might
actually stop disappearing. I'll check back in later.</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DkwIavYx_D8/UIwlHPuSEDI/AAAAAAAABoM/nP557m4x03U/s1600/PCT+Compilation-426.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DkwIavYx_D8/UIwlHPuSEDI/AAAAAAAABoM/nP557m4x03U/s1600/PCT+Compilation-426.JPG" height="164" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Aloha Lake about 8 miles after Echo Lake Resort.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
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</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-y339-3xN-gM/UIwlAcX_AnI/AAAAAAAABn8/DhsHvGgDpyU/s1600/PCT+Compilation-424.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-y339-3xN-gM/UIwlAcX_AnI/AAAAAAAABn8/DhsHvGgDpyU/s1600/PCT+Compilation-424.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Second view of Lake Tahoe!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
June 19th. Day 26. I got to mile 1116.5
for a total of 44 miles, that's including a resupply which is really
good, to a point, in the data book it's called a 'High Point', it's
about 8 miles passed the summit of Dicks Pass at point 0743798E
4318519N. Yeah, yesterday went pretty well, all things considered.
Got up in the morning, left about 6:05am or 6:10am somewhere in
there. I was close to being on the ridge, I should have... had I
remember better, there was plenty of camping further on, and it would
have been an easy walk that night to get to the good camping out of
the wind. But no matter, I had a great day. I could have made my 50,
but it doesn't matter. Let's see, I got to the ridge, it was nice,
not so windy in the morning, not terribly cold. Good views. There was
some now across the elephants back. Less than 2009, but no a while
lot. It seems that passed the high Sierra, the snow has been similar
to an average year, like 2009, or at least what's remaining. Granted
I am a good 2 weeks or so earlier than I arrived in 2009, so that
probably accounts for the difference. I got to </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xOPPzQLSGfQ/UIwlHXuAjkI/AAAAAAAABoU/KkcxjCQQUso/s1600/PCT+Compilation-427.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xOPPzQLSGfQ/UIwlHXuAjkI/AAAAAAAABoU/KkcxjCQQUso/s1600/PCT+Compilation-427.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Carson Pass at about
8:30am I believe. There was another thru-hiker named "Z"
there, there were 3 volunteers that were super nice and just wanted
to give us trail magic. I had fresh fruit, a bear claw, a soda and
they were trying to keep pushing more, but I was 'I gotta go get my
resupply and trying to do this trail fast, blah blah blaa'. So I hung
out there for about 20 minutes, and it was really good. The walk to
Echo Lake was super fast and easy after that. You do a little bit of
a climb, then you're in this big meadow for a while, you do another
little climb and then you're kind of up in the trees and then it's
really just kind of a downhill with a couple little ups. I got my
first view of Lake Tahoe from the top of the first climb off of
Carson Pass. I passed about 7 day/overnight hikers, a boy scout
troop. There was snow throughout there, but it was really quick
going. I got down to Highway 50 at about ohh 1 o'clock, and then went
up to the Berkeley Camp, which they were actually in the process of
remodeling the kitchen and getting it all set up for camp to start
for the summer, which it hadn't yet. When I got there, there were 2
other hikers, 'Focus' and umm..ohh I forget his name. She had
actually worked there so they stopped in to see if there was any
food, because she was like "we used to give food all the time to
thru-hikers" and basically pamper us basically, Their first food
shipment was on </div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kph7rWzTalY/UIwlZqyRDxI/AAAAAAAABo0/xqU-GlqWRUo/s1600/PCT+Compilation-431.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kph7rWzTalY/UIwlZqyRDxI/AAAAAAAABo0/xqU-GlqWRUo/s1600/PCT+Compilation-431.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Looking back at Dick's Pass at sunset.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Thursday, and I was like "aww 2 days away!"
So we missed out on a really great meal. O'well. I got my package and
then they were all headed down to Echo Lake, so I huffed it back up
to the trail, because I just kind of dove off to the trail straight
down to the camp. I carried my package for the next half mile on the
trail to Echo Lake, where there were 2 other thru-hikers, so 4 of us
total. One was 'Caveman' and I don't remember the other guy. But hung
out at Echo. Packaging, talking, probably for a good, hour, 1:15.
Went to the store, bought some cheese, a soda, I got a milkshake,
what else did I buy? I forget...I think there was something else. We
just sat outside, packed and chatted and had a good time. The Echo
Lake store wouldn't give me a liter of water because they said they
had a limited spring, and yet they washed their hand every time they
prepared </div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5nfpYbyfzsk/UIwlcDjOG5I/AAAAAAAABpE/b1R9yBph7r4/s1600/PCT+Compilation-432.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5nfpYbyfzsk/UIwlcDjOG5I/AAAAAAAABpE/b1R9yBph7r4/s1600/PCT+Compilation-432.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sunset heading into the Desolation Wilderness.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
food and things. I just needed a liter, but O'well I didn't
actually really need it but it would have been nice to have. I got
stocked up, full of energy, jacked on all kinds of good stuff and
headed out. I made great time next to Echo Lake. I made it to the
1100 mile mark pretty quickly and then wandered my way next to Aloha
lake for a while, through and down and next to the other little
lakes. I huffed it up Dicks Pass, which got me for a second time.
It's a tricky pass, it's a tricky Dick, ya know. You get to a ridge
line, which is the lowest point, and yet the trail keeps going up
because it cliffs out at the low point. So you get to a false pass
and have to go up. I hit the top there, gorgeous sunlight. It was
7:20pm, so the sun was still pretty high, but just starting to turn
golden colored. Stopped at the top, figured out my mileage. I ate
cheese...OHH YEAH, I bought frosting! OoooHhhhh, that's what else I
bought. I had some frosting for another power boost and bombed it
down the hill. The first mile was snow pile after snow pile after
snow pile since it was on the north side in the trees. That was a bit
irritating. But I made it passed and wanted to get more miles, so by
the time it started getting dark, I had already covered 4.5-5 miles.
7:12</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lpLSdBilK1M/UIwlZlTQ7cI/AAAAAAAABo4/c4eSkumObzc/s1600/PCT+Compilation-430.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lpLSdBilK1M/UIwlZlTQ7cI/AAAAAAAABo4/c4eSkumObzc/s1600/PCT+Compilation-430.JPG" height="128" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">At the false summit on the Dicks Pass climb...tricked me in 2009 too!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
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</div>
</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08628242465814913016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871278426154035797.post-90547440331004652582013-01-09T08:00:00.000-07:002016-01-17T14:43:18.368-07:00Day 25: June 18, 2012<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<h3>
June 18, 2012.</h3>
<b><span style="color: #e06666;">Day: 25 Daily Miles: 49 Total Miles: 1075.5 Hours Hiking: 16.5 6:10am-10:30pm</span></b><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
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<span style="color: lime;">Listen to the audio journal above or</span> <a href="https://docs.google.com/open?id=0By2m6B0qS-XOYVIwN2ZHYjI4Mk0" target="_blank">Download June 18th Audio File Here</a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<b>Day 25</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<u>Evening</u><br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VBJ5p6IulQk/UIwjzAlg_wI/AAAAAAAABk0/IktJRqX42FA/s1600/PCT+Compilation-402.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VBJ5p6IulQk/UIwjzAlg_wI/AAAAAAAABk0/IktJRqX42FA/s1600/PCT+Compilation-402.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a>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 </div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-P36KFSA7QtE/UIwj05KtDoI/AAAAAAAABk8/rfccOi9XZj4/s1600/PCT+Compilation-401.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-P36KFSA7QtE/UIwj05KtDoI/AAAAAAAABk8/rfccOi9XZj4/s1600/PCT+Compilation-401.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Where's that trail?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
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 </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGG8DPApzHpymZt-JC6c6O3djaA_oro__CnXXpy1d1ltwCdoX_JY2gJWYZfC-h4aPECJfysNNgeUVNeAxsD1m813RKJcPiLwyKkrI1Vgk28aL_Ds_Mh7fOxlrV9LwJAk6r3d_Mu86Repdf/s1600/PCT+Compilation-403.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGG8DPApzHpymZt-JC6c6O3djaA_oro__CnXXpy1d1ltwCdoX_JY2gJWYZfC-h4aPECJfysNNgeUVNeAxsD1m813RKJcPiLwyKkrI1Vgk28aL_Ds_Mh7fOxlrV9LwJAk6r3d_Mu86Repdf/s1600/PCT+Compilation-403.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
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.</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1uEicVt_oH4/UIwj9Bqj20I/AAAAAAAABlQ/CX2Qm4f16-g/s1600/PCT+Compilation-404.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1uEicVt_oH4/UIwj9Bqj20I/AAAAAAAABlQ/CX2Qm4f16-g/s1600/PCT+Compilation-404.JPG" height="174" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Back onto the Sierra Crest 6 miles before Wolf Creek Pass.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8s1e0GxmK1o/UIwj_GRl5bI/AAAAAAAABlc/bnzkfTNx1_E/s1600/PCT+Compilation-406.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8s1e0GxmK1o/UIwj_GRl5bI/AAAAAAAABlc/bnzkfTNx1_E/s1600/PCT+Compilation-406.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Super strong winds on Wolf Creek Pass. Note the hair!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
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. </div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VfI8oviVbmI/UIwkHJcaEUI/AAAAAAAABls/f6vDusK7Mjo/s1600/PCT+Compilation-407.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VfI8oviVbmI/UIwkHJcaEUI/AAAAAAAABls/f6vDusK7Mjo/s1600/PCT+Compilation-407.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Down from Wolf Creek Pass.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
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 </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cKUMQvXgumk/UIwkdaVCbpI/AAAAAAAABmc/CBUgCavw5iU/s1600/PCT+Compilation-413.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cKUMQvXgumk/UIwkdaVCbpI/AAAAAAAABmc/CBUgCavw5iU/s1600/PCT+Compilation-413.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
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 </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ht4Ts9R5iD0/UIwknumsrqI/AAAAAAAABm0/u50pbx1j590/s1600/PCT+Compilation-416.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ht4Ts9R5iD0/UIwknumsrqI/AAAAAAAABm0/u50pbx1j590/s1600/PCT+Compilation-416.JPG" height="237" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
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 </div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1Qj0-j86D3I/UIwkot6efOI/AAAAAAAABm8/64zfeMzx6uw/s1600/PCT+Compilation-418.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1Qj0-j86D3I/UIwkot6efOI/AAAAAAAABm8/64zfeMzx6uw/s1600/PCT+Compilation-418.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Molly's Nipple!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
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.</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-y6vHuZlLsrM/UIwkT6IZB_I/AAAAAAAABmM/NPMrt4X7PBQ/s1600/PCT+Compilation-410.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-y6vHuZlLsrM/UIwkT6IZB_I/AAAAAAAABmM/NPMrt4X7PBQ/s1600/PCT+Compilation-410.JPG" height="174" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">North of Ebbetts Pass</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08628242465814913016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871278426154035797.post-85618285302182684282013-01-09T07:00:00.000-07:002016-01-17T14:42:57.751-07:00Day 24: June 17, 2012<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<h3>
June 17, 2012.</h3>
<b><span style="color: #e06666;">Day: 24 Daily Miles: 47 Total Miles: 1023.5 Hours Hiking: 17 5:45am-10:50pm</span></b><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: lime;">Listen to the audio journal above or</span> <a href="https://docs.google.com/open?id=0By2m6B0qS-XOX0g1U1dWSlF3Z1E" target="_blank">Download June 17th Audio File Here</a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<b>Day 24</b><br />
<u>Afternoon</u></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_CYBC4cTSgI/UIwiGl9WMlI/AAAAAAAABf0/v9bIe4nelZ8/s1600/PCT+Compilation-366.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_CYBC4cTSgI/UIwiGl9WMlI/AAAAAAAABf0/v9bIe4nelZ8/s1600/PCT+Compilation-366.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Good Morning.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
June 17th. This is just a middle of the
day report. I just recorded yesterdays. Approaching mile 20 some-odd.
22 I think at Dorthy Lake. It's hot. It's like...my watch says 80
degrees and I've been exposed for the last 9 miles. Probably at about
9,000 some-odd feet. The day started off with the two climbs I
remembered from 2009, that I just detested. Granted I don't think was
feeling good that day. But, It's like walking through mosquito soup
and uphill, then dropping down to a creek, and then repeating it for
another hill. So I did that early. I actually got up at 5 some-odd
o'clock and left at about 5:40am. So an early start. I think that's
why I feel like shit today. But an overlying theme has definitely
been my legs just feel like they don't have any power left. Flat
walking or downhill, fine. Anything with an uphill, they just start
hurting and I have to go slow. Granted, a lot of these things are
stupid steps, which are the absolute worst. Like, if it was a slanted
trail, I could probably go OK, but they put in these rocks or they
kind of stack rocks in a ramp, like 2 inches of height difference
between one rock to the next and about 3 inches in depth. I don't
know what the hell they were thinking, as you can't just walk up
them. You have to pick a lip and try and stand on it...it sucks. </div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EirVEi2N3cI/UIwiJdrSCqI/AAAAAAAABgE/ne0OHVEy7HM/s1600/PCT+Compilation-368.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EirVEi2N3cI/UIwiJdrSCqI/AAAAAAAABgE/ne0OHVEy7HM/s1600/PCT+Compilation-368.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wilmer Lake (or Wilma Lake).</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
But,
yeah, I'm trying to make it up to Bond Pass by Dorthy Lake, then it's
like a 10 mile down, so that'll bring me to about 30 miles. Then I
have to hike my ass all the way up to the crest, 10 miles away from
Sonora Pass. Which once on top it's fairly easy going, but then
there's another big climb {after Sonora Pass}. But, I don't know, I'm
trying to figure out ways to get energy back into my legs, but it's
just not happening. So we'll see. Those mosquitoes have been awful. I
don't know how may bites I've gotten. I've been putting on Deet and
been pretty vigilant with feeling them and smacking them off. But you
just can't win when there's a cloud around you at all times. Oh yeah,
yesterday, one of my headphones decided to die, so now I've got one
ear only. I can call somebody and get another pair sent in. Today
started off good, and now it's just dragging. It's 12:45pm and I feel
like I just want to nap forever. But that's nothing new. Nap forever
and eat everything in the world. Those are the two things I want to
do right now. Yeah, definitely. These days are sooo long and the
nights are soo short. But we'll see how I feel towards the end of the
day. Once I get up to this pass and have some downhill and I know
I'll like it once I'm on the crest. So yeah, whahhh and boo hoo.</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij_lmiutau4iYvrqKBZ0OSfGlQI9ys16hdzuVGm3KAEmCOnB6HRtQZcdMUDpDqYS4XPG75JdZ3SdCm3z03PcgpUqHX8L2TVwjCITDHXQeuRsRC6jcAWlOq_NOnxnRKwyfojOqJye29XMso/s1600/PCT+Compilation-380.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij_lmiutau4iYvrqKBZ0OSfGlQI9ys16hdzuVGm3KAEmCOnB6HRtQZcdMUDpDqYS4XPG75JdZ3SdCm3z03PcgpUqHX8L2TVwjCITDHXQeuRsRC6jcAWlOq_NOnxnRKwyfojOqJye29XMso/s1600/PCT+Compilation-380.JPG" height="90" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Atop the big climb up the Sierra Crest 10 miles before Sonora Pass.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RgB8RrJhOv4/UIwiUtZEbTI/AAAAAAAABgk/4PrZacPzlz4/s1600/PCT+Compilation-371.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RgB8RrJhOv4/UIwiUtZEbTI/AAAAAAAABgk/4PrZacPzlz4/s1600/PCT+Compilation-371.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Leaving Yosemite National Park, looking south.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
June 17th. Day 24. I got to mile 1023.5
for a grand total of 47 miles yesterday. I stopped ohh about a mile
or 1.5 miles down from the Wolf Creek Pass {I meant Wolf Creek Lake
Saddle}, which was about 4 miles away from Sonora Pass and Highway
108. That point is 0270354E 4249897N. I hiked until about 10:50pm.
About 20 minutes longer than I wanted. But that was because it was
super windy at the pass and for about a mile or 1.5 there was
absolutely zero camping. It was all just these streams and really
steep slope and things. I found a great spot and proceeded to rapidly
set up camp, make dinner and pass out. So, If you have listened to
the previous entry for today, I had an OK first couple hours and
then, kind of late morning to early afternoon was just bad. I was
moving slow, it was hot, and I was just in a bad state of mind.
That's how it persisted. Basically I woke up, left early, it was
about 5:40am when I got on trail. I had the two ups-and-downs that I
remembered from 2009, hated back then and I knew they were full of
mosquitoes, and just steep and you </div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ilKeoE6QgsY/UIwiZC1PQ-I/AAAAAAAABg0/mT9j5GJcRjw/s1600/PCT+Compilation-373.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ilKeoE6QgsY/UIwiZC1PQ-I/AAAAAAAABg0/mT9j5GJcRjw/s1600/PCT+Compilation-373.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Starting up the climb to reach the Sierra Crest. Ugh.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
go up, drop down and then repeat.
So, I got those out of the way early, by like 9 o'clock I was covered
in sweat because the sun was on me, and I had finally finished the
uphill climb, then coming down to the next valley with - still those
clouds of mosquitoes. Then it was 10 miles up to Dorthy Lake, which
was the lake just before the pass, where you drop down and wind your
way about, until you have to make the big climb up to the ridge - the
volcanic ridge that takes you over to Sonora Pass. So I just trudged
along, trudged along, trudged along, those 9 miles to Dorthy Lake.
It's hiking in this sloping valley, not too hard, just mosquitoes and
you're in the sun a lot. And of course, my legs yesterday did not
want to do anything, so any little hill was hard. I have realized
though, that I had stopped using my trekking pole really. They were
just kind of an appendage that was useless. When I started using them
again, by actually putting weight on them like when I'm going up a
hill and using my arms, my legs were much happier. So, throughout the
rest of the day once I figured that out, my legs got a bit of a
reprieve and I shared the burden which was awesome! At Dorthy Lake, I
met two hikers. They were just hanging out at the lake because it is
a beautiful spot. I hung out, had lunch. I had actually previously
devoured the 1/2 lbs hot pocket I brought from Tuolumne the day
previous. </div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vi5EoEcy6lo/UIwi69aGbZI/AAAAAAAABiU/qeWx3YhuvVE/s1600/PCT+Compilation-382.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vi5EoEcy6lo/UIwi69aGbZI/AAAAAAAABiU/qeWx3YhuvVE/s1600/PCT+Compilation-382.JPG" height="239" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Old PCT sign at the top of the Sierra Crest climb.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
So yesterday was a good day for calories. I probably put on
an extra 1000-2000 cal, not probably around 2000 cal. more than
normal. I chatted with them a bit then took off. Up and over the
pass, it was nice and sunny and beautiful. Water everywhere. A few
puffy clouds. Mosquitoes lessening. Then a little ways down, I passed
the 1,000 mile mark. Which, lets see, I crossed the 1000 miles at 23
days 8 hours and 33 minutes I believe. I have it on my GPS point. I
calculated it out for the entire trail, at that speed, using the time
for 1000 miles, I would finish if I kept up that same pace at 62 days
and roughly 8 hours. So 62.333 days. Which ya know is breaking the
record, not quite what I want, but that is including the Sierras, so
it's good, I'm happy about that fact. So I kept going and I kinda
switched into a much much better state of mind. Basically I just
started charging and kept going and didn't stop....There's a creek
here, so it might be really loud... It's just, yeah, ya know... I
went into my, hunched down {for the uphill} and into quick mode,
which was awesome because I just powering through stuff. I know I was
going over 3.5 mph. And I just kept </div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AZyvB820HfE/UIwjHA2NBaI/AAAAAAAABi0/RxwZbvIPFoc/s1600/PCT+Compilation-388.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AZyvB820HfE/UIwjHA2NBaI/AAAAAAAABi0/RxwZbvIPFoc/s1600/PCT+Compilation-388.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sierra Crest before Sonora Pass HDR.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
going, I knew I needed to make it
up Sonora, up onto the ridge and make it down the backside to the
actual highway before it got dark, because I did not want to do it in
the dark because it's steep and things. Beautiful evening walking the
ridge. It was windy, probably in places 30-40 mph winds. I actually
crossed the most snow I've crossed yet within probably a 1/4 mile
back there, which was amazing. {Meaning I crossed more snow in 1/4
mile on the Sonora Crest than in the entire high Sierra}. There is
tons of water from the melting snow patches. Then again, it was just
beautiful. I just, just started dropping of the ridge as the sun
finally sunk behind, it looked like the coast range actually. I could
see mountains for ever and ever and ever. I finished the climb at
6pm. I was up on top at 9-10,000 ft or whatever. I was feeling really
good, still charged, then I took half a caffeine pill, which was an
interesting thing because I was already pretty psyched up. Ya know,
it was almost a little too much. It kind of made me sporadic, I
definitely started talking to myself a bunch. It made me really
happy, don't get me wrong, it was awesome. It just made me a little
jittery, kinda like I was a little high, I don't know exactly how to
explain it. It finally wore off. Right as I got to Sonora Pass,
someone </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2LLrvl4PFs8/UIwjpSJGgMI/AAAAAAAACHY/OvFP4PUM1BQ/s1600/PCT+Compilation-400.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2LLrvl4PFs8/UIwjpSJGgMI/AAAAAAAACHY/OvFP4PUM1BQ/s1600/PCT+Compilation-400.JPG" height="286" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sonora Pass just after sunset. Thx for the beer trail magic!</td></tr>
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had left a 12-pack of beer, Budweiser. Thank you Triple H. I
grabbed one and I drank it and it made....it relaxed me for the big
steep climb up to Wolf Creek Lake Pass. So it was a good night
actually. I'm glad I hiked up the pass, because I did not want to do
it in the morning. It would have been bad this morning, it was steep.
And at night, steepness - you feel it but you don't see it so it's
not as bad. Yeah, I think that's about it. I'm about 70 miles away
from Echo Lake. Tomorrow I'm going to try and make it 40 some-odd
miles over towards Molly's Nipple, which would put me in great
position to hit the Echo Lake Camp midday. I gotta call Scott and
figure out what he's all up too. So yeah, PEACE!</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YcUBSnglxHU/UIwjSiAcsrI/AAAAAAAABjc/V-pU-fb1nNI/s1600/PCT+Compilation-392.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YcUBSnglxHU/UIwjSiAcsrI/AAAAAAAABjc/V-pU-fb1nNI/s1600/PCT+Compilation-392.JPG" height="218" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Evening on the Sierra Crest before dropping down to Sonora Pass at Hwy 108.</td></tr>
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</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08628242465814913016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5871278426154035797.post-72128550673668443782013-01-08T20:00:00.000-07:002016-01-17T14:42:36.187-07:00Day 23: June 16, 2012<br />
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<h3>
June 16, 2012.</h3>
<b><span style="color: #e06666;">Day: 23 Daily Miles: 38.5 Total Miles: 967.5 Hours Hiking: 15.5 7:10am-10:30pm</span></b><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: lime;">Listen to the audio journal above or</span> <a href="https://docs.google.com/open?id=0By2m6B0qS-XOX2JRMkp3M2laTHM" target="_blank">Download June 16th Audio File Here</a><br />
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<b>Day 23</b></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-C-IFX9p8OWI/UIwhoFRZyXI/AAAAAAAABeU/HKPtLrITp8w/s1600/PCT+Compilation-356.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-C-IFX9p8OWI/UIwhoFRZyXI/AAAAAAAABeU/HKPtLrITp8w/s1600/PCT+Compilation-356.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">North end of the Tuolumne Meadows area.</td></tr>
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June 16th, Day 23. I managed to get
38.5 miles with a resupply and starting about an hour late at 7am. I
stopped just about a half mile down from Seavey Pass at point
0278838E 4214226N. Ohh where to begin. Overall summary of the day:
started out pretty well, was OK, wasn't too hard and then the evening
and night were hard and terrible and full of mosquitoes. Basically it
kinda just ended, like my legs just don't have any energy whatsoever.
But lets start at the beginning. I slept in a little bit because I
knew the store didn't open until 8am. I left, I was about 4 miles
from the store at Tuolumne Meadows. I left at about 7:15am or
something, and flat walking, real easy. I got to the store at 8:30am.
There were 4 thru-hikers there that were waiting around until the
next day to get passes to climb Half Done - Bone Collector, Tank, I
forget the other one and the one that's just kinda doing sections
with them, she had already hiked the PCT, named Orbit. They seemed
pretty cool. I immediately went in and bought a pint of ice cream,
two boxes of Chips Ahoy, what else...I bought a microwave burrito and
extra large hot pocket. Those two items are to take with me for my
lunches {extra </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_IeNQSv9I_A/UIwh6hEOtQI/AAAAAAAABfU/RnMNZgr_vDg/s1600/PCT+Compilation-362.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_IeNQSv9I_A/UIwh6hEOtQI/AAAAAAAABfU/RnMNZgr_vDg/s1600/PCT+Compilation-362.JPG" height="320" width="238" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Just after Miller Lake.</td></tr>
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calories and a treat while in the wilderness!} . So I
worked on...well I talked to the clerk, who said "oh yeah, I can
get your package". So I got my package as well, before the post
office was actually open at around 8:30am. So I went outside and
started unpacking my box into my pack, eating my ice cream, chatting
with the other hikers and stuffed my cookies away. Then went back
into the store and bought a couple It-Its, one for myself and two for
the others to split, and a Cobra, 16oz. Which, after about 3 months
of not actually having any alcohol and being at about 8,000ft, it
kicked in pretty well. I felt good, gave mom and dad a call, got the
voice mail and left a message. Gave Pi a call and chatted with him
for about 10 minutes or so. I went back in to see if I wanted
anything else from the store, since it would be one of my last
chances. I bought and avocado, ate that, and pretty much got up and
left. The first ohh half a day after that is not very hard. Fairly
flat, not a whole lot of going up. I mean you're kind of in a valley
for a lot of it. Then finally, towards the end, well the afternoon,
late afternoon, you start having to drop down into valleys and then
pop back out of the valleys into the next valley. It's pretty warm
actually, like in the 80's, which I don't know, it feels like it's
taking an extra bit out of me. I definitely know I'm tired from my 6
day run of the Sierras, the high Sierras that is. I </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uCQii1dtFWs/UIwiBRz6ClI/AAAAAAAABfk/C5Ir_lT7iTU/s1600/PCT+Compilation-363.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uCQii1dtFWs/UIwiBRz6ClI/AAAAAAAABfk/C5Ir_lT7iTU/s1600/PCT+Compilation-363.JPG" height="238" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Near Matterhorn Canyon Trail junction.</td></tr>
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know the
elevation is still kicking my ass. I don't know if it has anything to
do possibly with my sickle cell trait. That I've pretty much been
above 9,000 ft for a good week or so now, which means definitely a
lot of my red blood cells are going to be sickled, {approximately 6%
of my blood at 9,000ft, probably more due to the extreme exercise
involved}. Hence, that I'm not going to be getting as speedy of
oxygen delivery, because I have less of them {healthy red blood
cells} to deliver oxygen. Plus the fact that I've only been up at
altitude for a week, so acclimatization and the making more red blood
cells have been slow to happen. So yeah, the ups and downs, I have to
keep forcing myself to keep moving. It's one of those - it feels like
my legs are just dead, I mean completely dead. They...I'll hit a
little like 30ft climb after just come from flats and my legs will,
after about 10ft will start burning. And I wish I knew what to do
about it, because, ya know, I fight through it, fight through it, and
after a little while the burning goes away, but they just don't move
at all. So, it's one of those, I kinda just have to keep going slow
up any hill pretty much, and there are a lot of fucking hills. The misquotes started getting bad</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7_KFl7Jw4D4/UIwiDMyBgLI/AAAAAAAABfs/kJuluCwTfRY/s1600/PCT+Compilation-365.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7_KFl7Jw4D4/UIwiDMyBgLI/AAAAAAAABfs/kJuluCwTfRY/s1600/PCT+Compilation-365.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Neat 'stairs' climbing to Wilson Creek.</td></tr>
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at whatever pass that was {Benson
Pass}...I forgot, it's over by Smedberg Lake. And from then on, the
mosquitoes haven't let up. Even until the next day, I'm almost
probably about 3 miles south of Dorthy Lake, and they still just
swarm you. I have about two applications of Deet left, so I'm using
it sparingly. But anyways, up and over the pass by Smedberg Lake,
TERRIBLE misquotes. I managed to plow through them in the evening and
had another big up to Seavey Pass. Whooh, that was really hard. My
legs just don't want to work, even at the end of a 38. Ya know at the
end of the day they were just done. But, I managed to climb it in the
dark. Ya know, it was one of those passes - this section I just
remember as being awful, I don't think I felt very good last time. It
is, it's pretty fucking awful. Today isn't much better either. So I
knew, I remembered portions of it that I didn't like, so I wanted to
get passed most of those. I at least got passed one of those
obstacles and stopped hiking at about 10:30pm I think, just on the
other side of the pass. That was it, no mosquitoes until the morning.
They were dormant overnight, so I slept out, cowboyed it. But I don't
know... I'm really feeling wrecked. That's a lot of today speaking as
well. I could definitely feel it yesterday evening. My body just
doesn't want to go. So we'll see where this ends up. I should be at
Sonora Pass sometime tomorrow.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjei6b5HaDRl_ZQa3morfQ8A186do7cYB4MNGmYKt6O8Fq1n8jx1dvM6yhJ5Sz8ViGZ-clU5Wa3YIbPz7vi67Kk_1kKooLxNbHNsi7M0YbfXH0mmUbsexr0P8X6uztYQExfOXAzP1aGdpH9/s1600/PCT+Compilation-343.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjei6b5HaDRl_ZQa3morfQ8A186do7cYB4MNGmYKt6O8Fq1n8jx1dvM6yhJ5Sz8ViGZ-clU5Wa3YIbPz7vi67Kk_1kKooLxNbHNsi7M0YbfXH0mmUbsexr0P8X6uztYQExfOXAzP1aGdpH9/s1600/PCT+Compilation-343.JPG" height="218" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Day 22 Panorama - Climbing up to Donohue Pass.</td></tr>
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</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08628242465814913016noreply@blogger.com