8/26/2010
Got in late last night, slept in until 6:30 or 7 in the cabin, so the whole day was late. Ate lunch at 2, go into camp at 9. I need to get an earlier start tomorrow morning. We are also sleeping in a shelter tonight, but this one is open air (and somewhat open-roofed too), nothing like last night's.
I saw so many huckleberries today! And some nice
lakes, and more beautiful burnt areas (is my morbid love of tree-corpses the hiker equivalent of high school Goths?) I think I can add onto yesterday's statement, I could move to Oregon for it's summer recreation opportunities too.
- Typoed on my iPhone
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Mile 1536.3: sex, drugs, and Blue angels
8/11/2010
Sex: Sweet 16 bought men's deodorant bar soap for our quarter-showers while in Castella. We can all smell like it on ourselves, and really enjoyed the upgrade from smelling like stinky, sweaty men to hot, clean men. As I wandered groggily up the trail, I forgot it was me and thought I was following aforementioned hot, clean man. By now though, I think our clothes all smell foul like hockey gear or whatever.
Drugs: The only ibuprofen available at the store in Castella was Advil PM. I slept like a rock last night, despite trains, but woke up an hour later than usual still completely drugged up.
Blue Angels: Two fighter jets, obiously goofing around somewhat, went over the rige top we were hiking along. They were moving fast enough that the fighter was already past us by the time the sound hit. It was loud, BUT SO COOL! I think I have an inner hick that wants to be indulged with cheap beer and hockey, shooting stuff, going to see airshows, and monster truck rallies.
Today was pretty uneventful, it started with a 14 mile uphill, we ate lunch 2 hours earlier and 5 miles later than intended. But we made our goal miles before dark!
- Typoed on my iPhone
Sex: Sweet 16 bought men's deodorant bar soap for our quarter-showers while in Castella. We can all smell like it on ourselves, and really enjoyed the upgrade from smelling like stinky, sweaty men to hot, clean men. As I wandered groggily up the trail, I forgot it was me and thought I was following aforementioned hot, clean man. By now though, I think our clothes all smell foul like hockey gear or whatever.
Drugs: The only ibuprofen available at the store in Castella was Advil PM. I slept like a rock last night, despite trains, but woke up an hour later than usual still completely drugged up.
Blue Angels: Two fighter jets, obiously goofing around somewhat, went over the rige top we were hiking along. They were moving fast enough that the fighter was already past us by the time the sound hit. It was loud, BUT SO COOL! I think I have an inner hick that wants to be indulged with cheap beer and hockey, shooting stuff, going to see airshows, and monster truck rallies.
Today was pretty uneventful, it started with a 14 mile uphill, we ate lunch 2 hours earlier and 5 miles later than intended. But we made our goal miles before dark!
- Typoed on my iPhone
Mile 1509.0: good talks and a long resupply in Castella
Microburst had and I had a long, serious talk as we hiked down toward I-5. What if I'm doing permanent damage to my knees? What if I had to get off the trail? Would I be able to think of what I've already done as a partial success, or would I view my lack of finishing as a failure? Given my history of knee problems, was this whole hike a really stupid idea? Should I give up hiking (more specifically, downhills), running, and downhill skiing in favor of swimming, biking, and cross country skiing? A switch like that could be a cop-out, but I could also be the doorway to a happy, active future- with less pain and limping. The conversation ended with us both crying and hugging, suddenly very emotional about the idea of me leaving.
When we caught up to Sweet 16, conversation turned sillier. Ever since Micro thought she saw/heard a cougar hiking into the night, we've been discussing the merits of cougars, and cat's in general. They can hang out and jump on you from rocky outcroppings and cliffs, they can sneak around, etc. No wonder there's a Cat Woman. Felines can do cool shit. But what if there was an enemy, or maybe a side kick: Dog Woman. Her powers: loyalty, happiness, and rolling in smelly stuff.
In Castella, I talked on the phone to a friend's husband who is an Orhopedic surgeon's P.A. From our converstion, this is what I gathered:
I'm probably not doing
When we caught up to Sweet 16, conversation turned sillier. Ever since Micro thought she saw/heard a cougar hiking into the night, we've been discussing the merits of cougars, and cat's in general. They can hang out and jump on you from rocky outcroppings and cliffs, they can sneak around, etc. No wonder there's a Cat Woman. Felines can do cool shit. But what if there was an enemy, or maybe a side kick: Dog Woman. Her powers: loyalty, happiness, and rolling in smelly stuff.
In Castella, I talked on the phone to a friend's husband who is an Orhopedic surgeon's P.A. From our converstion, this is what I gathered:
I'm probably not doing
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Mile 1489.?: Dealing with the aftermath, deep questions asked.
8/9/2010
After another night of excruciating knee pain and little sleep, I changed something last night: I propped my legs up on a tree to "drain" for 20-30 min while I wrote last night's entry. It seemed to help really well, I slept pretty darn good. I even woke up bright, chipper, and perky. It stayed that way until about five minutes of hiking, when that positive energy gave way to nausea that lasted for the entire rest of the day.
I stopped for lunch and a nap after fifteen miles. If I were the only person on the trail, I might have been in and out in an hour, but between Microburst and Sweet 16 stopping to chat and eat, and Cloudkicker following ten minutes after I finally got peace and quiet, my break lasted two and a half hours in total.
The final miles of the day were brutal. My knees were killing me on the long downhills, and my feet could feel every single rock trying to indent themselves into the bruised ball of my foot through my thin and utterly thrashed running shoes. I wanted to be hiking faster, but instead I was taking short, pained, mincing steps. In my exhaustion and self-pity, I found myself sniffling my way down the final downhill, and then giving in to full-on heaving sobs.
When I got to Squaw Valley Creek, I could see Microburst and Sweet 16 waiting for me on some cliffy ledges below the trail. I took my time trying to regain composure before joining them, which held for about three seconds until 16 asked, "How's it going?" when I lost it all over again. At that point, Micro and 16 were suddenly flanking my sides, hugging me, petting my head, and generally being super-awesome friends. The cognizant part of my head that wasn't wrapped up in my feelings, giving into them, and struggling to get a hold of myself; wondered if I was putting on a show for attention. I think I was exhausted and being melodramatic, not a drama queen.
The sobbing fit spurred some important discussions, after it was decided that we'd camp at the creek rather than the originally planned four more miles to a day's full marathon.
1.) How many miles do we need to be doing to finish on time? If we take one zero day in Ashland and a quarter of a day for each resupply, we do indeed need to hike a marathon a day.
2.) What if I can't cut it? I'll probably go north to the border and hike south to Ashland, giving myself more time to race against the snow. Microburst and Sweet 16 would either stay on the original plan (they aren't struggling) or join me, depending on what they wanted to do.
3.) Am I enjoying myself? What defines enjoyment?How important is it for me to enjoy myself? Microburst can tell I'm not having fun, and it both bothers and worries her. I get enjoyment out of many of the things I do in the making and meeting goals. This is no different. If I was out here to have fun, I would have skipped all the hard/boring parts. I'm out here for the challenge. Am I really having less fun now than I was in the desert?
After another night of excruciating knee pain and little sleep, I changed something last night: I propped my legs up on a tree to "drain" for 20-30 min while I wrote last night's entry. It seemed to help really well, I slept pretty darn good. I even woke up bright, chipper, and perky. It stayed that way until about five minutes of hiking, when that positive energy gave way to nausea that lasted for the entire rest of the day.
I stopped for lunch and a nap after fifteen miles. If I were the only person on the trail, I might have been in and out in an hour, but between Microburst and Sweet 16 stopping to chat and eat, and Cloudkicker following ten minutes after I finally got peace and quiet, my break lasted two and a half hours in total.
The final miles of the day were brutal. My knees were killing me on the long downhills, and my feet could feel every single rock trying to indent themselves into the bruised ball of my foot through my thin and utterly thrashed running shoes. I wanted to be hiking faster, but instead I was taking short, pained, mincing steps. In my exhaustion and self-pity, I found myself sniffling my way down the final downhill, and then giving in to full-on heaving sobs.
When I got to Squaw Valley Creek, I could see Microburst and Sweet 16 waiting for me on some cliffy ledges below the trail. I took my time trying to regain composure before joining them, which held for about three seconds until 16 asked, "How's it going?" when I lost it all over again. At that point, Micro and 16 were suddenly flanking my sides, hugging me, petting my head, and generally being super-awesome friends. The cognizant part of my head that wasn't wrapped up in my feelings, giving into them, and struggling to get a hold of myself; wondered if I was putting on a show for attention. I think I was exhausted and being melodramatic, not a drama queen.
The sobbing fit spurred some important discussions, after it was decided that we'd camp at the creek rather than the originally planned four more miles to a day's full marathon.
1.) How many miles do we need to be doing to finish on time? If we take one zero day in Ashland and a quarter of a day for each resupply, we do indeed need to hike a marathon a day.
2.) What if I can't cut it? I'll probably go north to the border and hike south to Ashland, giving myself more time to race against the snow. Microburst and Sweet 16 would either stay on the original plan (they aren't struggling) or join me, depending on what they wanted to do.
3.) Am I enjoying myself? What defines enjoyment?How important is it for me to enjoy myself? Microburst can tell I'm not having fun, and it both bothers and worries her. I get enjoyment out of many of the things I do in the making and meeting goals. This is no different. If I was out here to have fun, I would have skipped all the hard/boring parts. I'm out here for the challenge. Am I really having less fun now than I was in the desert?
Mile 1476.8: Two Girls, No Map, or "Careful when taking directions from German tourists"
Today was probably Sweet 16's worst on trail. I won't share all the details, but the morning started shitty, followed by bushwhacking and lots of spider webs, two things that 16 despises. I ate lunch seperately from everyone else, who had an early lunch at the water source 12 miles in. I pushed on and ate mine at two, hoping to make the afternoon feel shorter by stretching out morning as long as possible. Sweet 16 caught up by the end of my lunch, and that's where the fun began.
Several southbounders warned of bushwhacking ahead, and advised us to take the forest service road to cut the shrubwhacking and a little distance too. It sounded very appealing, despite the fact that neither of us have maps for this section. So we got directions for when to get on and off the road from a southbound German couple.
We took a big, well-maintained road from the junction, but instead of numerous trail crossings, we dead-ended at a clear cut about a mile down. Never fear, we have Sense of Direction on our side! The trail has got to go along the ridge, so we'll just go to the top and intercept the trail along the way! Up we went, contributing to the erosion in the clearcut, brushwhacking and route finding until we got to the big, wide, flat ridge. No trail. We hunted around for a little while longer, until we accepted that we'd wasted an hour trying to cut distance and avoid bushwhacking, and instead we've bushwhacked and made no (negative?) progress, and were borderline lost. In defeat, we made our way back down to the road and back up to the trail.
Right at the trail, no more than five feet away,,we saw a little overgrown road that looked like it only went back to some campsites. This road is important enough to have a name?
As we hiked in turbo, "It's 6:00 and we still have 10 miles to do," panic mode, we saw that shrubby little "road" weave back and forth across the trail, but it didn't even skip the worst of the brush. We finally got back to the area we'd been searching in, and sure enough, the trail dropped below the ridgeline right there, on the wrong side. Damn. We busted out butts all ten miles, hiked with headlamps for an hour, and got into camp at ten.
Several southbounders warned of bushwhacking ahead, and advised us to take the forest service road to cut the shrubwhacking and a little distance too. It sounded very appealing, despite the fact that neither of us have maps for this section. So we got directions for when to get on and off the road from a southbound German couple.
We took a big, well-maintained road from the junction, but instead of numerous trail crossings, we dead-ended at a clear cut about a mile down. Never fear, we have Sense of Direction on our side! The trail has got to go along the ridge, so we'll just go to the top and intercept the trail along the way! Up we went, contributing to the erosion in the clearcut, brushwhacking and route finding until we got to the big, wide, flat ridge. No trail. We hunted around for a little while longer, until we accepted that we'd wasted an hour trying to cut distance and avoid bushwhacking, and instead we've bushwhacked and made no (negative?) progress, and were borderline lost. In defeat, we made our way back down to the road and back up to the trail.
Right at the trail, no more than five feet away,,we saw a little overgrown road that looked like it only went back to some campsites. This road is important enough to have a name?
As we hiked in turbo, "It's 6:00 and we still have 10 miles to do," panic mode, we saw that shrubby little "road" weave back and forth across the trail, but it didn't even skip the worst of the brush. We finally got back to the area we'd been searching in, and sure enough, the trail dropped below the ridgeline right there, on the wrong side. Damn. We busted out butts all ten miles, hiked with headlamps for an hour, and got into camp at ten.
Mile 1440.5: Burney Falls and how not to handle a bear
8/7/2010
We caught up to Brazil Nut (who we haven't seen since the Saufley's) this morning. She had hiked 37 miles yesterday, trying to catch up to us, though unbeknownst to her, she had passed us during dinner. She's Brazilian, with a beautiful Portugese accent, and an absolute hoot. Her style is to hike long days and then party in towns, but I hope we'll be able to keep up for at least a few days.
We got into Burney Falls State Park this morning. Sweet 16 had to resupply, and unfortunately the pickings were slim. She ended up buying a loaf of bread and some bologna. We ran into Gnar, who's been talking about getting off the trail for quite some time now, but every time we run into him, he's changed his mind. This time, he's set on it, and we didn't try to talk him out of it. He's going to Humboldt to enjoy the best of what the county has to offer, and also the beaches and honeys. We're sad to see him go, but he might end up southbounding Oregon or something like that.
Burney Falls is pretty cool. The falls themselves are tall and pretty and flowy and the like, but 600 feet upstream, the riverbed is completely dry. Except during peak runoff, the falls are completely spring fed. It's awesome!
A few miles down the trail from Burney Falls, we crossed Rock Creek. There's an excellent - albeit nearly inaccessible - swimming hole beneath the falls. We found some decent swimming holes upstream of the bridge, although it took a little (bu)'shwacking. I was so happy! I got in with all my clothes on, and just tried to stay 90% submerged as much as possible. As I lazily swam in place pointed upstream, Brazil Nut called me a salmon, and once I started taking off my clothes, I couldn't stop, and she ended up calling me Eve in my own little Eden. Once ou of the water, I laid out all my clothes to dry while I brushed my hair and ate lunch, and refused to put any on until I was ready to go. Sweet 16 took a photo of me in my underroos and cowboy hat, with my long hair making up for the lack of bra.
We came across a sign nicely explaining how the trail ran through an area that was in the middle of being logged. They were attemting to create an old-growth ecosystem by removing the smaller, thinner, shorter trees and thereby reducing competition for the old trees. Sure enough, I looked around and saw little stumps and big trees standing happily. I felt pretty good about the whole thing, but somebody had written, "Bull Shit!" A few miles later, we saw a tirade taped to a tree. The gist was about how the next section is all natural as nature can regulate itself, and the last section was just raped and pillaged to line the pockets of Big Timber tree co. We all had to laugh, because it seemed like the doofus who wrote these things doesnt understand forest ecology any better than we do it.
Brazil Nut ran into a bear this evening. She's had a lot of bear encounters during this trip, and is completely unphased. Once the bear, a young adult by the sounds of it, had seen her, it moved a few feet off trail to behind a stump. Then it just stayed there, playfully/curiously peaking out at her while Brazil Nut quietly took photos and waited for us to catch up. It annoyed me, since my phobia of all bears tells me that bear attacks are like the Spanish Inquisition. If I had been in her shoes, I would have been making more noise as I walked along in hopes of preventing bear encounters, and once the bear had seen me and showed no sign of fear, trying to scare it away with yelling, poorly aimed projectiles, etc. Oh well. Nothing bad happenned, it ambled off very slowly once Sweet 16 and I showed up, and we talked in loud voices. Still, I don't like the idea of a bear that isn't immediately frightened away by humans.
We caught up to Brazil Nut (who we haven't seen since the Saufley's) this morning. She had hiked 37 miles yesterday, trying to catch up to us, though unbeknownst to her, she had passed us during dinner. She's Brazilian, with a beautiful Portugese accent, and an absolute hoot. Her style is to hike long days and then party in towns, but I hope we'll be able to keep up for at least a few days.
We got into Burney Falls State Park this morning. Sweet 16 had to resupply, and unfortunately the pickings were slim. She ended up buying a loaf of bread and some bologna. We ran into Gnar, who's been talking about getting off the trail for quite some time now, but every time we run into him, he's changed his mind. This time, he's set on it, and we didn't try to talk him out of it. He's going to Humboldt to enjoy the best of what the county has to offer, and also the beaches and honeys. We're sad to see him go, but he might end up southbounding Oregon or something like that.
Burney Falls is pretty cool. The falls themselves are tall and pretty and flowy and the like, but 600 feet upstream, the riverbed is completely dry. Except during peak runoff, the falls are completely spring fed. It's awesome!
A few miles down the trail from Burney Falls, we crossed Rock Creek. There's an excellent - albeit nearly inaccessible - swimming hole beneath the falls. We found some decent swimming holes upstream of the bridge, although it took a little (bu)'shwacking. I was so happy! I got in with all my clothes on, and just tried to stay 90% submerged as much as possible. As I lazily swam in place pointed upstream, Brazil Nut called me a salmon, and once I started taking off my clothes, I couldn't stop, and she ended up calling me Eve in my own little Eden. Once ou of the water, I laid out all my clothes to dry while I brushed my hair and ate lunch, and refused to put any on until I was ready to go. Sweet 16 took a photo of me in my underroos and cowboy hat, with my long hair making up for the lack of bra.
We came across a sign nicely explaining how the trail ran through an area that was in the middle of being logged. They were attemting to create an old-growth ecosystem by removing the smaller, thinner, shorter trees and thereby reducing competition for the old trees. Sure enough, I looked around and saw little stumps and big trees standing happily. I felt pretty good about the whole thing, but somebody had written, "Bull Shit!" A few miles later, we saw a tirade taped to a tree. The gist was about how the next section is all natural as nature can regulate itself, and the last section was just raped and pillaged to line the pockets of Big Timber tree co. We all had to laugh, because it seemed like the doofus who wrote these things doesnt understand forest ecology any better than we do it.
Brazil Nut ran into a bear this evening. She's had a lot of bear encounters during this trip, and is completely unphased. Once the bear, a young adult by the sounds of it, had seen her, it moved a few feet off trail to behind a stump. Then it just stayed there, playfully/curiously peaking out at her while Brazil Nut quietly took photos and waited for us to catch up. It annoyed me, since my phobia of all bears tells me that bear attacks are like the Spanish Inquisition. If I had been in her shoes, I would have been making more noise as I walked along in hopes of preventing bear encounters, and once the bear had seen me and showed no sign of fear, trying to scare it away with yelling, poorly aimed projectiles, etc. Oh well. Nothing bad happenned, it ambled off very slowly once Sweet 16 and I showed up, and we talked in loud voices. Still, I don't like the idea of a bear that isn't immediately frightened away by humans.
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