We hiked 15 miles by 1 pm to Buck's Summit to beat Sweet 16's mom there. We chilled on the side of the road like bums until she arrived with snacks and clothes and whisked us off to Chester. Her family has a cabin and a house on Lake Almanor, and Microburst's parents met us in Chester.
We've been chilling there for three full days, eating, drinking, reading, boating, etc. It has been nice. Now we start again at 6, time to push, hard, toward Canada. I admit, I'm feeling less than enthused. I hike now less of the joy of hiking, more to get further toward done.
- Typoed on my iPhone
Friday, July 30, 2010
Mile 1255.0: Motorcycle magic
I've started dragging again. I want to blame it on my feet: my left shoe gave me a blister, and my busted right Chaco cinches down uncomfortably fast. I think the actual problem is psychological though. I know that I can hike 3 miles an hour, I know that it feels good to hike 3 miles an hour. So why, when I start feeling tired or like a burden, must my hiking pace reflect that and stay at 2 miles an hour for days or weeks?
I'm getting so used to hiking alone that hiking within conversational distance of anyone else for more than an hour becomes tiring. Maybe just tiresome. Mentally, I can handle the stimulation, but I've reverted to the maturity level of a six year old, get bored, and selfishly want to return to my own thoughts. Mine aren't even very interesting.
At a road crossing, Microburst and I ran into a guy on a motorcycle who gave us soda, and all of his snacks and ibuprofen. We talked for a while, and it turned out he'd done some bicycle touring in his days. One day, a French guy stopped him to give him refreshments, and so Arthur's altruism for the road-weary (or trail-weary) began. He even came back to check up on us, just to be sure that our water source down the way was flowing. I definitely feel inspired by all the trail angels we've met along the way, I truly do hope to continue the spirit of magic.
There was some nice rolling terrain for a while, so lovely and d easy, and then switchbacks down, down, down to the Middle Fork of Feather River. I unfortunately missed the "delicious spring" and had to clamber down rocks to get to the river's edge for water.
We camped on Bear Creek bridge, the only flat spot guaranteed for miles. The flatness was nice, the vibrations were not. I slept in the middle of the bridge, and every time somebody turned over, the bridge would shake, and I would sit bolt upright, convinced that there was a bear on the bridge. At 4:30, nature and promise of her mother's food called Sweet 16, so she started getting up. The unzipping noise sounded like a growl to me, I responded with a deep, loud, "Hey!" which scared 16 almost as much as she scared me. I had been lying awake since three, and decided it was a good time for me to get up too. So much for catching up on sleep: 8 hours in two nights.
- Typoed on my iPhone
I'm getting so used to hiking alone that hiking within conversational distance of anyone else for more than an hour becomes tiring. Maybe just tiresome. Mentally, I can handle the stimulation, but I've reverted to the maturity level of a six year old, get bored, and selfishly want to return to my own thoughts. Mine aren't even very interesting.
At a road crossing, Microburst and I ran into a guy on a motorcycle who gave us soda, and all of his snacks and ibuprofen. We talked for a while, and it turned out he'd done some bicycle touring in his days. One day, a French guy stopped him to give him refreshments, and so Arthur's altruism for the road-weary (or trail-weary) began. He even came back to check up on us, just to be sure that our water source down the way was flowing. I definitely feel inspired by all the trail angels we've met along the way, I truly do hope to continue the spirit of magic.
There was some nice rolling terrain for a while, so lovely and d easy, and then switchbacks down, down, down to the Middle Fork of Feather River. I unfortunately missed the "delicious spring" and had to clamber down rocks to get to the river's edge for water.
We camped on Bear Creek bridge, the only flat spot guaranteed for miles. The flatness was nice, the vibrations were not. I slept in the middle of the bridge, and every time somebody turned over, the bridge would shake, and I would sit bolt upright, convinced that there was a bear on the bridge. At 4:30, nature and promise of her mother's food called Sweet 16, so she started getting up. The unzipping noise sounded like a growl to me, I responded with a deep, loud, "Hey!" which scared 16 almost as much as she scared me. I had been lying awake since three, and decided it was a good time for me to get up too. So much for catching up on sleep: 8 hours in two nights.
- Typoed on my iPhone
Mile 1228.5: long day
Long day. Started with a desperate hike to trees, we could see them for an hour before we reached them. Oh, how they taunted our bowels. Saw a sign that read:
OAKLAND POND 2
A TREE 8
Turns out it was referring to the "A-tree" which is a dead, grey, gnarled tree along the trail, and I could find no traces of any distinguishable qualities.
That night, after a long ass day of hiking, I made a very bad JC (judgment call): my terribly written, simple plot Scottish smutty historic romance novel, "Border Lass," got a little bit interesting. I stayed up til 1 am to finish it.
OAKLAND POND 2
A TREE 8
Turns out it was referring to the "A-tree" which is a dead, grey, gnarled tree along the trail, and I could find no traces of any distinguishable qualities.
That night, after a long ass day of hiking, I made a very bad JC (judgment call): my terribly written, simple plot Scottish smutty historic romance novel, "Border Lass," got a little bit interesting. I stayed up til 1 am to finish it.
Mile 1202ish: Sierra City, music, and bear safety
This morning, I set out with two goals: get to Sierra City, and drain my iPod battery while listening to music. I haven't listened to music in so long because I stepped on my earphones a long time ago, and when I finally replaced them I forgot to turn it off or at least to "Airplane Mode," so I'd been conserving battery ever since. Music is awesome! It makes me feel so good (or at least so much, I've been known to listen to sad songs every once in a while)! 'Kids' by MGMT has a perfect beat for hiking.
In Sierra City, a spit-on-the-road town with folks even nicer and more generous than those in Wrightwood, we ate breakfast, resupplied, ate lunch, and loitered until 6 hours after our departure goal. It was ok, I ordered a replacement hat for the stupid visor that I thought I had been lucky enough to finally lose, and Uri and Barack (the Israeli Gears?) taught me how to say "I love you" and "I love food" in Hebrew.
The general store had a t-shirt about bears, the general gist was:
"Both black bears and brown bears are known to frequent this area. Outdoorsman are advised to carry annoying little bears and pepper spray. It is also important to be able to tell the difference between black bear shi and brown bear shit. Black bear shit is dark with twigs and berries, while brown bear shit has little bells in it and smells like pepper."
Awaiting us after our resupply was seven miles of hot climbing, switchback city. Stoked that I had a full battery and warned about bears in the brushy upcoming terrain, I decided to take a new tack on bear safety. Bears can hear me better than I can hear them, right? I listened to music while I hiked, but made sure I was singing/humming/beatboxing along to it, at least every few gasps of air. As I huffed and puffed and tunelessly sung along, I wondered which was more annoying: those little bells, or off-key, off-time me, yelling out random snippets of song but not all the words in between. "Summer....cleavage!"
I of course was doing this when I was by myself, and conversed while I was with Micro and 16. Only once on the switchbacks did they hear me singing. It reminded me of when I thought I was going to learn the harmonica and bring it along, I told my Danish friend "I'm going to bring a harmonica to play on the trail," meaning "at campsites along the long-ass PCT, but he said, "That sounds fun, but don't you think the other people hiking will want to hike in silence sometimes?" That, too, reminds me of when Microburst and I would joke about wheezing up the hills with harmonicas clamped between our lips. "Maybe every switchback or so, we'll move our mouths to another hole so we can play two new notes with each inhale and exhale!"
- Typoed on my iPhone
In Sierra City, a spit-on-the-road town with folks even nicer and more generous than those in Wrightwood, we ate breakfast, resupplied, ate lunch, and loitered until 6 hours after our departure goal. It was ok, I ordered a replacement hat for the stupid visor that I thought I had been lucky enough to finally lose, and Uri and Barack (the Israeli Gears?) taught me how to say "I love you" and "I love food" in Hebrew.
The general store had a t-shirt about bears, the general gist was:
"Both black bears and brown bears are known to frequent this area. Outdoorsman are advised to carry annoying little bears and pepper spray. It is also important to be able to tell the difference between black bear shi and brown bear shit. Black bear shit is dark with twigs and berries, while brown bear shit has little bells in it and smells like pepper."
Awaiting us after our resupply was seven miles of hot climbing, switchback city. Stoked that I had a full battery and warned about bears in the brushy upcoming terrain, I decided to take a new tack on bear safety. Bears can hear me better than I can hear them, right? I listened to music while I hiked, but made sure I was singing/humming/beatboxing along to it, at least every few gasps of air. As I huffed and puffed and tunelessly sung along, I wondered which was more annoying: those little bells, or off-key, off-time me, yelling out random snippets of song but not all the words in between. "Summer....cleavage!"
I of course was doing this when I was by myself, and conversed while I was with Micro and 16. Only once on the switchbacks did they hear me singing. It reminded me of when I thought I was going to learn the harmonica and bring it along, I told my Danish friend "I'm going to bring a harmonica to play on the trail," meaning "at campsites along the long-ass PCT, but he said, "That sounds fun, but don't you think the other people hiking will want to hike in silence sometimes?" That, too, reminds me of when Microburst and I would joke about wheezing up the hills with harmonicas clamped between our lips. "Maybe every switchback or so, we'll move our mouths to another hole so we can play two new notes with each inhale and exhale!"
- Typoed on my iPhone
Friday, July 23, 2010
Mile 1193ish: half naked ladies
7/22/2010
I've been slowing down, and as my cruising speed dropped, so has my morale. I've felt like the permanent caboose to our party, and a liability rather than a teammember. Yesterday, I managed to book it once I was pissed off. Today, I was determined to maintain that pace while detaching from the emotions that allowed it. It worked! Mind over matter, I set and mostly maintained my pace at a good clip today. I'm just as sore and tired as usual now; but in much better mental health. I'm crossing my fingers that I can maintain tomorrow, and so on and so forth until it is natural habit.
We ate lunch at a stream in a deep ravine. To get down required mad skills that neither Sweet 16 or I have when carrying water bottles; we both ended up sliding down the mud on our butts. While I was down there, my feet singing the praises of freedom and cold water, I tried to wash the mud off. As it kept flaking off of me, I just kept stripping more layers off. Micro looked down to see me completely topless and splashing around. As I tried to clamber up the steep muddy walls, I ended up holding my water bladder (now dubbed "the dead baby" due to how awkward it is to hold and carry) between my teeth so I could get muddy all over again on all fours, in shorts and a sports bra. I felt like a barbaric wildwoman, but in a good way.
Later, crossing a bridge on a short road walk near a reservoir and campground (with FLUSHING toilets, so worth the walk), I peered over the edge to see Pika and Catch-Up taking a river bath. "I was washing my feet, and then my legs, and as I worked my way up, suddenly the shorts and panties came off too!" she later described to me. "Hi!" awkward wave.
Now we're camped five miles from Sierra City with Paparazzi, Pika, and Catch-Up. Tomorrow: early hike, breakfast, post office, resupply, maybe laundry and showers, lunch, and ten miles to camp. We turn and burn!
- Typoed on my iPhono
I've been slowing down, and as my cruising speed dropped, so has my morale. I've felt like the permanent caboose to our party, and a liability rather than a teammember. Yesterday, I managed to book it once I was pissed off. Today, I was determined to maintain that pace while detaching from the emotions that allowed it. It worked! Mind over matter, I set and mostly maintained my pace at a good clip today. I'm just as sore and tired as usual now; but in much better mental health. I'm crossing my fingers that I can maintain tomorrow, and so on and so forth until it is natural habit.
We ate lunch at a stream in a deep ravine. To get down required mad skills that neither Sweet 16 or I have when carrying water bottles; we both ended up sliding down the mud on our butts. While I was down there, my feet singing the praises of freedom and cold water, I tried to wash the mud off. As it kept flaking off of me, I just kept stripping more layers off. Micro looked down to see me completely topless and splashing around. As I tried to clamber up the steep muddy walls, I ended up holding my water bladder (now dubbed "the dead baby" due to how awkward it is to hold and carry) between my teeth so I could get muddy all over again on all fours, in shorts and a sports bra. I felt like a barbaric wildwoman, but in a good way.
Later, crossing a bridge on a short road walk near a reservoir and campground (with FLUSHING toilets, so worth the walk), I peered over the edge to see Pika and Catch-Up taking a river bath. "I was washing my feet, and then my legs, and as I worked my way up, suddenly the shorts and panties came off too!" she later described to me. "Hi!" awkward wave.
Now we're camped five miles from Sierra City with Paparazzi, Pika, and Catch-Up. Tomorrow: early hike, breakfast, post office, resupply, maybe laundry and showers, lunch, and ten miles to camp. We turn and burn!
- Typoed on my iPhono
Mile 1168ish: Donner Pass and much confusion
7/21/2010
I forgot the absolute best part of yesterday: chocolate mousse! We did a "team dinner" between Microburst, Sweet 16, and I, with lasagna couscous in our big pot and instant mousse in 16's small pot. It was delicious, and two packets made enough that we would have made ourselves super sick if Granite and Terrapin hadn't helped us finish it off.
This morning was a gorgeous, long, mostly waterless ridgewalk from Squaw Valley ski area through Sugarbowl ski area to hwy 40 and I-80 through Donner Pass. There were countless beautiful views, none of which I took phone photos of (sorry).
By the time I got to Hwy 40, it was one and I was hungry. I had hoped Micro and Sweet 16 had waited there for me and were eating lunch, but I saw no sign of them. I'd had a slow morning, so I figured they might have gone four miles further to I-80 before hunger struck, so I pushed on.
By the time I had crossed I-80, it was three, and I could see 16's boot prints going up the trail from a nice lunch spot by a stream. Even though no harm had been done, I got pissed that they'd left me, scarfed my food (including spitefully eating a lot of Nutella sent by Amy without Micro there to share), cleaned up a sunscreen disaster, and kicked it into turbo-angry mode.
I was further annoyed every time I asked dayhikers about them: nobody recalled girls matching my description, so they had to be SUPER far ahead of me. As my legs ate up the miles at an almost respectable pace, and STILL nobody had seen Micro and 16, I began suspecting that they were behind me and I had missed a note or other sign. Still, I was occasionally seeing 16's boot prints and tracks that resembled Micro's new shoes, and I knew that they had wanted to do 25 miles today. If they were in front of me, stopping would do no good, and if they were behind, they'd know it and keep hiking on.
I decided I would finish out the 25 miles tonight, if I didn't see them, do another 5 early in the morning, and if still no sign, sit on my hands and wait there. The farther I went and continued to see tracks-occasionally, the more agitated I became as I imagined the inevitable argument waiting to explode once we rendezvoused, in either scenario. Finally, I started hearing a sound that didn't sound quite as annoying as the mosquitoes trying to find a way through my headnet to my ears. It was Micro, running down the trail after me!
Instead of a huge accusatory argument, we both made explicit expressions of relief at being reunited, and then she explained that they had eaten lunch at hwy 40 in the only shady spot around with excellent visibility and great views of the trail, the highway, and the parking lot I'd have to cross. Somehow we all missed each other, and I was following somebody else with 16's boots. Now we are camped at the top of a knoll with no water but only slightly intolerable mosquitos, after eating a tasty dinner of lukewarm stuffing, soupy mashed potatoes, and not-rehydrated chicken (with the mandatory couscous that exists in all of our meals).
- Typoed on my iPhoneom
I forgot the absolute best part of yesterday: chocolate mousse! We did a "team dinner" between Microburst, Sweet 16, and I, with lasagna couscous in our big pot and instant mousse in 16's small pot. It was delicious, and two packets made enough that we would have made ourselves super sick if Granite and Terrapin hadn't helped us finish it off.
This morning was a gorgeous, long, mostly waterless ridgewalk from Squaw Valley ski area through Sugarbowl ski area to hwy 40 and I-80 through Donner Pass. There were countless beautiful views, none of which I took phone photos of (sorry).
By the time I got to Hwy 40, it was one and I was hungry. I had hoped Micro and Sweet 16 had waited there for me and were eating lunch, but I saw no sign of them. I'd had a slow morning, so I figured they might have gone four miles further to I-80 before hunger struck, so I pushed on.
By the time I had crossed I-80, it was three, and I could see 16's boot prints going up the trail from a nice lunch spot by a stream. Even though no harm had been done, I got pissed that they'd left me, scarfed my food (including spitefully eating a lot of Nutella sent by Amy without Micro there to share), cleaned up a sunscreen disaster, and kicked it into turbo-angry mode.
I was further annoyed every time I asked dayhikers about them: nobody recalled girls matching my description, so they had to be SUPER far ahead of me. As my legs ate up the miles at an almost respectable pace, and STILL nobody had seen Micro and 16, I began suspecting that they were behind me and I had missed a note or other sign. Still, I was occasionally seeing 16's boot prints and tracks that resembled Micro's new shoes, and I knew that they had wanted to do 25 miles today. If they were in front of me, stopping would do no good, and if they were behind, they'd know it and keep hiking on.
I decided I would finish out the 25 miles tonight, if I didn't see them, do another 5 early in the morning, and if still no sign, sit on my hands and wait there. The farther I went and continued to see tracks-occasionally, the more agitated I became as I imagined the inevitable argument waiting to explode once we rendezvoused, in either scenario. Finally, I started hearing a sound that didn't sound quite as annoying as the mosquitoes trying to find a way through my headnet to my ears. It was Micro, running down the trail after me!
Instead of a huge accusatory argument, we both made explicit expressions of relief at being reunited, and then she explained that they had eaten lunch at hwy 40 in the only shady spot around with excellent visibility and great views of the trail, the highway, and the parking lot I'd have to cross. Somehow we all missed each other, and I was following somebody else with 16's boots. Now we are camped at the top of a knoll with no water but only slightly intolerable mosquitos, after eating a tasty dinner of lukewarm stuffing, soupy mashed potatoes, and not-rehydrated chicken (with the mandatory couscous that exists in all of our meals).
- Typoed on my iPhoneom
Mile 1143.3: Squaw Valley
7/20/2010
Microburst saw a chipmunk today. That's about the only interesting thing that happenned. What is there to write about when I walk about twelve hours a day, mostly alone?
We hiked around/through Squaw Valley Ski Resort over half the day, and we may be camping in the middle of it. It was cool to see the chairlifts all over, pick out ski runs, and Lake Tahoe (I think) in the background. I also liked hiking along the boundaries, seeing markers triple black diamond runs, all the "ski boundary area," "no ski patrol or avalanche control beyond boundary," "unmarked cliffs and avalanche chutes below" signs ten to twelve feet in the air, surrounded by yellow and purple wildflowers, and zero fear of killing myself.
My legs hurt, my knees hurt, my ankles hurt, and my feet hurt. I feel more tired and run ragged than I did starting the trail. Did I really set myself that far back by hitching 50 miles and taking a break from physical activity?
- Typoed on my iPhone
Microburst saw a chipmunk today. That's about the only interesting thing that happenned. What is there to write about when I walk about twelve hours a day, mostly alone?
We hiked around/through Squaw Valley Ski Resort over half the day, and we may be camping in the middle of it. It was cool to see the chairlifts all over, pick out ski runs, and Lake Tahoe (I think) in the background. I also liked hiking along the boundaries, seeing markers triple black diamond runs, all the "ski boundary area," "no ski patrol or avalanche control beyond boundary," "unmarked cliffs and avalanche chutes below" signs ten to twelve feet in the air, surrounded by yellow and purple wildflowers, and zero fear of killing myself.
My legs hurt, my knees hurt, my ankles hurt, and my feet hurt. I feel more tired and run ragged than I did starting the trail. Did I really set myself that far back by hitching 50 miles and taking a break from physical activity?
- Typoed on my iPhone
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
