What Did Your Feet Look Like?

The Feet.

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...

Even my hands had burly calluses from trekking pole use...

September 29, 2012 - Off Trail

July 7, 2012.

Day: Off Trail   Daily Miles: 0   Total Miles: 1864   Hours Hiking: 0   

September 29

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.

Silver Pass Panorama looking at Lake of the Lone Indian.

July 13, 2012 - Off Trail

July 13, 2012.

Day: Off Trail   Daily Miles: 0   Total Miles: 1864   Hours Hiking: 0   

Listen to the audio journal above or Download July 13th Audio File Here

July 13 – Off Trail

Feet up with the view of Diamond Lake on my last day on trail,

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.

Addition

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.

Crater Lake Rim sunset, day 42.

July 7, 2012 - Off Trail.

July 7, 2012.

Day: Off Trail   Daily Miles: 0   Total Miles: 1864   Hours Hiking: 0   

Listen to the audio journal above or Download July 7th Audio File Here

July 7 – Day after Stopping

Mt Thielsen, the day before...

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

Mt. Thielsen and the snow covered trail, the day before.