Tom's Cyber Cafe, Kennedy Meadows' Best

Adaptability is the name of this game so far.  After hiking into Kennedy Meadows with a sore foot on Friday, we took two days off to let it recover.  By Monday it was still very sore, so we decided that Garrett should hike on for the next 50 mile leg without me and I could stay at Tom's hostel (aka the "Cyber Cafe"- because it's the only place on the mountain with interwebs) to recover for a few more days.  Tom's place is great.  Every hiker or couple of hikers gets their own vintage camper to stay in.  This was ours.

On Monday morning I headed down the hill with Tom to Ridgecrest, a 1.5 hour drive down a harrowing hill. It's the closest town and Tom needed to go grocery shopping and I visited a clinic to get my foot checked out.  The doctor ruled out a trip-ending stress fracture (hallelujah!) but said it was a "soft tissue injury."  This is good news, though.  A pulled or strained muscle or tendon will heal much faster than a bone injury.    I enjoyed the next two days hanging out with new friends who would come to stay at Tom's for a zero or a double zero day.  Great people!

Today Garrett is returning from Lone Pine with Patches, another hiker, who has a ride back to KM to pick up a package.  It works out well for us and I'm feeling well enough to go and join Garrett now.  I can walk without a limp and with a little Vitamin-I the pain is tolerable.  I'm thankful that this is a great journey, no matter how fast or slow we go.

We're headed into the Sierras now where we will have bear cans, 7 days of food and crossing some amazing  landscapes!  Headed now to VVR.

Walker Pass to Kennedy Meadows

We had a successful day of travel on Wednesday beginning at 3:30 am when we left our house and making it through three connections to land in Bakersfield where Russ, a friendly trail angel, met us.  Russ took us to a sports store where Garrett bought a small pocket knife and I bought a mosquito head net.  We stopped by the long-awaited In-N-Out burger joint on our way out of town and got to Walker Pass by 6:30 pm.  We said goodbye to Russ and hiked up the two mile ascent to the top of the ridge above the pass.  A beautiful sunset awaited us and we put up our tent and slept well after a very.  long.  day.   

We hiked the 50ish miles into Kennedy Meadows and arrived Friday afternoon in time to get our resupply box from the general store before they closed at 5.  We're staying at Tom's hostel here in this small mountain town where everything runs on solar, including the computer and internet router from which I send this.  Weather has been excellent with cool, breezy days and a fair amount of cloud cover.  The terrain was up and down and very much still desert-y.  We both have sore feet and ankles from all the sandbox walking.

We will stay here in KM for today (Saturday) and prepare our bodies and packs for the long Sierra leg coming next.

Trail angel Russ.  Thank you!!!

leaving Walker Pass!

hiking up from Walker Pass after a long day of airplane travel

sunset that greeted at the top of our two mile hike on Wednesday night

Beautiful campsite at Chimney Creek

This is just a test.

Mail Drop Bonanza

It's been busy here around the homeplace as we, among other things, box up 18 mail drops.  This time around we are resupplying predominantly with mail to save time in town (and to avoid going IN to town at places where small inns/campgrounds along the trail accept packages).     

We made shopping trips to BJs for bulk quantities of cracker packets, nuts, cliff bars and other snacks and gathered up some dinner type things from other various stores.  Our dinners will be either mashed potatoes, Ramen, Lipton rice/noodle sides, stuffing, or - the new addition this year:  Mac and Cheese!   (this is very exciting.....and heavy).

We've spent several weekends repacking all this food into ziplocks and portioning out each day's food. Our guidelines are roughly:

+ one 250-300 calorie breakfast (either Cliff bar or pop tart)

+ five snacks each 200 calories (star crunch, cracker packet, nuts, dried fruit, m&ms, etc)

+ lunch is tortillas with cheese (for A) and peanut butter/nutella (for G).

+ supper is one the meals I just mentioned above with added dried veggies or dried tuna.

Here's Garrett packing stuff up.

mmmm, lemon cookies.

This is a bag of food for me for a 3 day drop all ready to go.

Our 18 mail drops.  They each range between 2-8 days.  Most are 4-5.  

This box is going to Skykomish, Washington, a place that sounds awfully far away and imaginary.

Our largest drop is Kennedy Meadows with 8 days when we attempt to hike 160 miles to Vermillion Valley Resort in one fell swoop.  We'll each be carrying one of these bear canisters because they're required in the High Sierras (although 8 days of food doesn't fit inside....).

Glad to have this chore wrapped up!  We're thankful that Garrett's dad will be in charge of sending them all out to us.    

142 miles in April

142 miles logged in April in the run up to May 14th.

More walking, before more walking

Has anyone ever done those couch to 5k training programs?

I haven't, but do try to get out and exercise daily, usually by walking on the hill behind our house. There's a loop of 3 miles with 500 ft elevation gain so it's a good way to wake up and get ready for the day or to wind down after a stressful day at work.  

As a new years resolution I had decided to keep track of the miles walked daily, not including walking around during the day to get from the car to the office or around town, just recreational miles. This is what I came up with to keep track:

Hoping to have the time and motivation to get the purple line that is April to break 120 miles.

The first three months were relatively similar, and the miles walked probably most closely correlated to the weather.  But this month the miles are accumulating faster and it all started on Saturday April 6th when we went out on a 12 mile hike on the Finger Lakes Trail and came up with the idea that we might be able to hike the PCT this summer.  This idea has become a goal and since setting the goal, I've been more motivated to get out for a walk as a way to physically and mentally prepare for the trip.  With another week left in the month, I'm looking forward to seeing how many miles tick away.

  

Maybe you don't have any interest in running a 5k either, but what goals are you setting for yourself?

Back out to the PCT

Here's the back story on this year's hike.  In the days leading up to May 10th, 2009 Garrett and I packed all our belongings from our small University of Delaware grad student apartment and drove them to Virginia in a Uhaul where we stored them in my parents' two-car garage.

On May 10th we flew from Richmond to San Diego and arrived that evening at the southern end of the Pacific Crest Trail.  

Mile 0 on the PCT - Mexico/US Border Fence in the background

(Anna fell asleep trying to upload pictures... so I'll wrap this up.)

And then, we hiked North!

 

 



We learned to rest wherever we could find shade during heat of the day.  (113F at 11:30 below)






We learned the scarcity of water in the Southern California Deserts and appreciated water caches provided by kind people known as trail angels.

And we learned to appreciate coming across a stream once in a while.

We were lucky enough to meet great people and make some friends along the way.

Bluebird, Monolog & Todd

Bamboo Bob, Papa Smurf & Buster

Heaps

Tori & Tom

Monolog, Heaps, Shadow & Buster

Bink & Krudmeister

There were a handful of interesting wildlife encounters (sorry, wasn't fast enough to get a picture of the three bears in the middle of the desert)

Lots of small lizards

Lots of horned lizards

Not as many, but more than enough Rattlesnakes

Kittens! (just these two)

and an occasional California Mountain Cow

We were able to see some novel scenery for a couple of East Coasters

Barren high desert

Trail cut into steep rock slides high in the San Jacinto Mtns.

The Mesa Windfarm

Mountains made of sand

The Mojave Desert

Crossing the Mojave at dawn

And we learned you shouldn't wear a skirt while riding a bicycle.

 

After her bicycle accident in Aqua Dulce (PCT Mile 454), we took two weeks off staying at the Saufley's and then hiked another 200 miles while Anna "recovered" with two broken ribs and a broken wrist. At Walker Pass (PCT Mile 653) we decided to skip the High Sierra section known for being the most remote and challenging section to reduce some of the risk of continuing to hike while recuperating.  Ultimately Anna wasn't able to heal after we skipped up to Northern CA and she re-broke at least one of the two ribs while on trail ending the trip in 2009 near Lake Tahoe.

So... we'll pick up at Walker Pass this year and do our best to make it to Canada at a 26 miles/day pace, a bit faster than previous trips, but however far we get will be a lot closer to completion of the trail.

Looking forward to what is in store this summer, and hope you'll become a follower of this blog.