May 1, 2015
Day 20
Miles to date: 321

A little catching up:

There’s weather in So Cal. Hiking out of Idyllwild up Mount San Jacinto, I ran into a few snow banks, which made me glad. Then it started to snow lightly which made me laugh. It didn’t last long but the clouds spoiled the view. Woke up to a frozen water bottle and began the tortuous descent to Cabazon. A long day, 18 miles of downhill in high winds, followed by 5 miles of slogging through deep sand in a head wind. No place to camp by the I-10 but I finally stumbled in to Ziggy and the Bear’s trail angel operation at 6:45 pm, where 14 or 16 fellow hikers were stretched out side by side in sleeping bags in the backyard surrounded by wind breaking fence. Sanctuary! The winds continued the next day along the crest, blowing me off my feet a number of times until I dropped down into Mission Creek and camped in perfect solitude while light rain freshened the air and packed the sandy trail for the next day’s beautiful uphill 22 miles back into the wind. A wicked howling night with a wind chill that made me feel like I was home, followed by a 20 mile day to Big Bear, which was markedly improved by friends Jim, Larry, Tom and Ellen who met me with cold IPAs 4 miles from the parking lot. How cool is that? Beer killed the residual leg pain from the long downhill day, but it’s rather fortunate I had trusty hiking sticks to keep me from tipping off the trail.

The day before Day 1 at Scout and Frodo’s in San Diego. I stayed in a tent with 4 other women and started the trail the next day with them (plus 6 other thru-hikers), including Poppy (Natasha). We somehow found ourselves hiking similar miles and camping and town visiting on about the same schedule.  We  arrived at Big Besr and stayed at the hostel. The next morning she awoke to a foot infection, very sudden, and has left the trail. I will miss her strong, cheerful, and self reliant presence.  Heal well!

Back on the trail at 266, I stealth camped just 14 miles in due to the start necessitated by getting a ride. Then a big 25 because there were no flat spots to put a tent in the beautiful Deep Creek canyon. Glorious day, I saw a coral snake and a black and white striped snake, kind of had to hustle them off the trail. And frogs!

Every day I’m out here is a gift.  I’m even more aware of that since seeing how suddenly my fellow hikers can be sidelined.  In Big Bear alone, Snack Pack left with a pinched nerve in his shoulder, Poppy got an infection, a girl was made miserable by her hiking partner and I heard sweet Bree rolled her ankle badly.  So far I’ve worked through most of the usual aches and pains I expected from the simple act of walking while carrying a backpack day after day.  I am happy.

In a comment on a previous post, Dan asked what the hiker term was for “a long, sinuous, snakelike alignment like from Idyllwild….” Thank you Dan for your question and the excellent use of sibilants. The short answer is “Squiggles,” which are the modern replacement for the historic and sensible “Switchbacks.” The PCT is a patchwork of trails connected by a name threading through assorted county, state and federal jurisdictions. Some of the oldest stretches were designed and constructed by actual engineers in an era where algebra, dynamite and slope gradients were commonly deployed in transportation projects. Trail users in the heyday of 1930’s trail making included mules who are particular about walking on no more than an 8% grade. Humans needed mules to carry canvas tents with wood frames, canned goods and heavy woolen outerwear. Thus, the engineers calculated the pitch of the slope, the vertical distance between top and bottom, the width of the terrain, and some other very important stuff like how much dynamite was needed to blow chunks off the mountain. They came up with a formula multiplied by the coefficient of evil to get a plan for sensible, sinuous switchbacks suitable for man and beast. An excellent example of this approach is Forrester Pass in the Sierra. In the modern era of trail building, as evidenced by the descent from Idylwild to Cabazon, the State of California, or its consultants, developed a series of 10-Year Plans each requiring 1000 page Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) and extensive public review, to determine the best possible method of trail construction for new or replacement links in the mighty PCT system. The State of California replied, “OK, will do,” to a comment made by Mr. Robert Basilovitch on page 632 of the revised, amended Appendix H of the EIS, “Respect the environment, every rock, every bush, has a right to exist in the exact spot where nature put them. The trail needs to avoid each of nature’s little babies.” This was the turning point in the evolution of trail building. Also the cost of the pre-design and pre-construction process was so high that few funds remained for the actual construction process. The modern construction contract specifies the Squiggle Method be used to design a trail: “See that mountain? Cover it with trail and avoid every rock, bush, squirrel hole and sacred spot. Construction equipment: One pair of shoes, Men’s size 8 maximum. Construction method: one human in specified shoe size walking heel to toe all over the mountain so as to cause maximum mileage with minimal trail surface. If hikers could just walk in a straight line, they’d be climbers.”

April 21, 2015
Day 10
Miles to Date: 151.9

Not bad so far. Getting used to dry camping and calculating how many liters of water I need to carry between water sources. It’s hot and dry and the country out of Julian, MP 77.1, has been kind of unvarying: brush, manzanita, cactus, dirt, enlivened by an occasional drop down into a dessicated stream bed with poison oak and ticks.

I hike for hours on my own, and then spend hours leap frogging with other hikers. We tend to gather at water sources like wildebeests and lions on the savannah. We talk story. The community of hikers is like the snowboard community in a lot of ways. The names are just weirder: Blisters, Butt Newt, Daytripper, Occupy, Costco, 30-30, The Predator, Squachy, Poppy, Jihad, Stinger, Geisha.

A few days ago I decided I had to have a shower at the Warner Springs Resource Center, which is run by volunteer seniors, and closes at 4. I made the 16 miles in good time but they’d “turned off the water” to the outdoor showers and closed the little store I needed to buy food from. So I camped on the grass by the parking lot with a bunch of other hikers, some I knew, some new to me. At MP 109.5, this odd place across from the fire station, (“Hey, shit bird new guy, wash the truck!” over the fire yard PA as you walk by with your hiking sticks.) was gathering hikers with issues, some staying for days in the parking lot, like winged ducks rafting up in the Minto Flats during hunting season. A guy with blisters so bad he hobbles in hiker-box flip flops almost the right size, a guy who walked too many 20-milers and got an Achilles strain, and people waiting till Monday when the post office opens and they can pick up their resupply boxes. However, most of us get up the next day, buy a great $6 breakfast cooked by the volunteers, and get back on the trail.

I’ve had sweet little campsites the last 2 nights, tucked out of the wind and out of sight. Today, a first, cool and a mist with the wind, it felt like the Scottish Highlands, I expected Braveheart to come bellowing down the trail at any minute. No cell connection so no weather report for 2 days. I saw no one the 3 hours it took me to get to Paradise Valley Cafe where I joined a bunch of hiker trash at a table and ate a bacon burger. More trickled in as we ate while others hitched into Idyllwild in 2’s and 3’s. Found out there’s a chance of snow on the trail ahead tomorrow. I love snow, I’m prepared, but it doesn’t hurt my feelings that I already booked a zero in Idyllwild.

I met Nacho here at USASA Snowboard Nationals in Colorado for the first time last year.  He’s a snowboard coach for the USASA Unbound Series of contests and I’m the Big Alaska Series Director and here as a snowboard official working on the boardercross course.  Nacho is a Triple Crowner and you may know his name from the photo credits of Trauma and Pepper’s historic first winter PCT trek from Canada to Mexico.  They stayed with Nacho in Mammoth and he hiked the last 20 miles to the Mexican border with them.

Nacho and I chat in the start area of the boardercross course and talk hiking while he waits with his athletes for their call to drop out of the four-across race gates onto a wild and crazy course with wutangs and bank turns while music blasts and race officials call commands on headsets and radios, ski patrollers stand by with sleds for injured riders and adrenaline and fear are nearly tangible.  I talk while managing course marshals strung out down the course and a slip crew whose task is to try to smooth out the ruts and rubble as best as possible.  It’s a gorgeous sunny day on the snow but we’re all covered up to protect us from the glare at 12,000′–hats, face masks, goggles, just noses showing.  It’s really hard to recognize people later in the day down in the village when you see their actual faces.

Nacho is so excited for my hike and shared, not advice or encouragement, but insight.  I’ll paraphrase:  “You’re going to love it!  Every day is different, some days the scenery is less interesting than others, some days will be harder than others, but you’ll keep going, it’s beautiful and amazing and you’ll get so strong.  Maybe you’ll get blisters or sore or tired, but you’ll keep going. You’ll see things you’ve never seen and you’ll keep going.  You’ll have really hard days and bad weather and really good days and you’ll keep going.  And when you get to the end, you’ll have such a feeling of confidence in yourself and accomplishment, you can’t describe it.  It’s going to be great, you’re going to love it.”

How weird is it when subcultures connect or collide?  Thru-hiking and snowboarding, what do they have in common?

Gear lists, resupply, training: there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of us getting ready for thru-hiking the PCT this year. Just check out the blogs linked through the Trail Journals page on the Pacific Crest Trail Association (PCTA) website.

I’ve been reading PCT blogs and books since 2012, dozens of which pretty much sounded the same and included similar images (mile 100 written in white stones and gnarly bleeding and/or blistered feet). I’d quit following when the blogger got too whiny, too wordy, or just sounded too much like a dozen others. The blogs I stuck with last year were unique–Loveline’s humor, Carrot Quinn’s writing, Captains of Us photos and positive attitude, and SlowBro’s daily, brief, matter of fact journal.  I hope the stories I tell will add texture and color to all the other stories out there this year about hiking the PCT, while maybe revealing why my unimpressed grownup kids describe me as either bad ass or crazy.

I intend to update this blog every week or two, and I hope my readers explore other PCT Class of 2015 blogs. Unless I develop an irresistible compulsion to share the details of my gear, food and resupply information, don’t expect to find it here.  Really the trip is about walking, a lot of walking, for a really long time. I can’t wait.

My start date is April 12.

Meanwhile I’ve got some snowboarding to attend to.

We camped next to one of the lakes, our down bags side by side on the ground cloth.  Mine was army green, or maybe khaki, with snaps.  I’d watched my parents in the garage the night before, cutting it down to fit my ten-year-old self.  Now I slept, my face cold at 10,000′, stomach queasy with altitude and the liquid red jello my Dad fed me.  The next morning, we hiked back up the switchbacks and I puked at every turn.  By the time we got to the top and started heading down the trail to the Tioga Road, I felt great, like I’d never been sick.  My first backpacking trip, although I’d been day hiking with my Dad since I learned to walk.  This is what my Dad taught me: to love wilderness and walking.