Some thoughts before departure...

  • I am still not a vet, doctor, lawyer, dog trainer, cia agent, fbi agent or a navy seal so...walk
  • I am doing this for the challenge of course, and I hope to gain a confidence that comes with this type of endeavor. But also I hope to gain some new knowledge about the world and the truths that reside in it.
  • Am I walking to "find myself"? Or just to take a walk. You decide...and you'll probably be right.
  • I'm not in the best shape of my life, but I do have a lot of new great gear so....
  • After living with my parents the last 2 years, it makes perfect sense to walk 2650 miles - alone.
  • Yes there will be bears, cougars, rattlesnakes and scorpions both imagined and real along the way. I'm definitely more worried about those imagined.
  • Am I scared? Not as of yet, more of just a constantly increasing anticipation. But check back with me on the 3rd night in the desert.
  • I tried to keep my pack fairly light, but I definitely would not call it ultralight. Somehow when I added up all my ultralight gear and put it in my ultralight pack, I ended up with just slightly heavy.
  • My biggest concern for this trip is that I get too hungry somewhere along the way, my brain goes awol as it usually does when I get hungry and subsequently you never hear from me again...I'll try to eat frequently.
  • I am not Christopher McCandless. This is not Into the Wild.

Sunday, June 29, 2008

2 Passes, 2 Bears, 2 Wet Feet

Day 53, Mile 819.9ish
Looooong day. This morning i was walking through a freezing cold creek by 720am. Tonight i was walking through a freezing cold creek up to my knees at 803pm. In between those two times my feet remained wet for one reason or another. The two passes we did today each had there own problems. The first was Pinchot pass and we basically started that ascent first thing in the morning going almost 4000ft in elevation over 7 miles to finally reach the pass. In between the two passes was some beautiful country, but a lot of water, i think its mostly just the time of year with all the snow melt. At one crossing of the south fork of the king river it was too powerful to cross and there was a note saying go upstream for a better crossing. As we made our way up stream i saw brown fur out of the corner of my eye and then a bears head. I said BEAR and Kraig stopped, and we then both saw the much larger mama bear in front. Both were about 15yds from us. The bigger mama bear took off running and dove into the river and ran up the other side. The cub looked to be too old to still be with it's mother, we gathered this from his size (250 prob) and the way she just took off leaving him/her to figure it all out. He/she was much more tentative crossing the torrent of water and i think i may have been able to get a decent picture of him/her. The end of the day was fairly treacherous. We did the last pass between 500 and 615, it was some pretty difficult stuff. Most of the switchbacks were snowed over so we basically had to make our own way, Gina was not fond of this. I was really glad i had my ice axe once again, and it definitely gave me a boost of confidence and allowed me to be safer. We finally got to camp around 810, for a grand total of a 13hr day. I made half a macaroni and ramen combined with some jerky added for protein, it turned out pretty good. My only concern is that i think in my hunger and haste i may have counted wrong and now only have 2 ramen left for 3 dinners. Going to have to check on that in the morning. We are up over 10,000ft tonight and its pretty cold. I think i may sleep with my down jacket on. Speaking of sleep, once again its way too late, this is becoming a bad pattern. Thought of the day; the high sierra country is easy on the eyes, but hard on the feet. Songs of the day; Go Gettaaaah by R. Kelly and the song about the dog Bingo that was his name-o. Craving of the day; for breakfast- my moms crepes with a little vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg added to the batter and a fruit salad of honeydew, cantaloupe and cherry halves. For lunch-various meats and cheeses made into mini sandwiches on my Aunt Andrea's rolls, my Aunt Jane's rolls, and my Grandmother's "long beach" rolls. For dinner- thanksgiving, all of it.
JWC on the PCT

1 comment:

Aunt Janie said...

Jesse, I am so glad you are getting to do this.