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.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

3.5 miles in 4 hours

Day 33, Mile 523ish - A rough day for the most part, but it had its rewards. This morning we started out a little later then planned but still early by most standards. By 820 it was apparent that we might be off trail, by 9 it was very apparent as we were told by someone constructing new trail that this wasn't the pct yet. So the yellow tags we had followed as far back as Wrightwood coming through snow were no longer a viable source of route finding. The maps in the guide book can be frustrating and in this case they were really not helping. Long story short we got back on trail and as the title says we did 3.5 mile in the first 4 hrs of hiking. We made it to "hiker town" around 330 after a very frustrating section in which this time we actually were on the right trail, but wished we were not. Tigger (wife of Chuck Norris) was there and offered us a ride to Gil's country store. It was definitely a country store, not much to it, but i managed to get a few calorie boosters for the next two days. Speaking (writing really) of that, i do not think i am getting enough calories out of my current diet. I did the math today in my head and even round up to some degree it seems as though i might be around 1900. That would be fine if i was playing some racquetball twice a week or something, but out here i need probably 2500-3500 and even more in the colder stretches. So i gotta work on that so i don't run out of gas in the sierra's or anywhere else along the way for that matter. We took off from there after packing food; we each bought a bag of pasta and split a jar of Ragu sauce -tonight's dinner. It was real good and filling. After dinner the wind died down a bit here and there, enough for me to get my tent up in the lulls. I love this tent, its blowing across the Mojave tonight pretty good and in here i no longer feel like a midget in a plastic grocery bag. Leg made it 20+ miles today counting our little detour and no pain so the outlook on the sierra's looks good. Oh yeah i forgot- just before we left, Bob the owner of hiker town, came out and said there is a fire above Kennedy Meadows. I hope that gets put out with the quickness, and it doesn't do too much damage. 36 miles to Tehachapi, so far the dreaded Mojave hasn't been all that bad ::knock on wood:: We shall see. Thought of the day; how come the MLB championships is dubbed the "World Series", i mean besides steroids from Mexico, and players from the Dominican Republic and japan there isn't much worldly about it. World Cup soccer, now that makes sense. Songs of the day; Beat It by Michael Jackson, Yellow Submarine by the Beatles, and I Feel Good by James Brown. Craving of the day; uncle Tracy's- everything you need in life is in there- wonderful tasting pancakes, and a glass of cold milk.Post Script: it is now 208am, the wind is blowing so hard that i am up, Kraig is up, Gina is soon to follow. So far my tent is holding, Kraig just got out to redo one of their stakes, thank goodness I'm not in my Tarptent. Some more sleep would be nice, just about every time I'm almost there the wind blows so hard that i mentally go through every single stake i put down guessing which one will break loose. Fun fun fun in the Mojave.

JWC on the PCT

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Love the "midget in a plastic grocery bag" imagery!