ADZPCTKO

So glad I made the effort to be here for the ADZPCTKO which stands for Annual Day Zero Pacific Crest Trail Kick Off.
I got a lot of useful advice about hiking the PCT. I met so many thru hikers, many of which knew me from my blog. I met many people that, up until now, I had only read their books, purchased their gear, or watched them on video. I met Henry Shires, founder of the Tarptent, and he gave me a lot of tips for setting up my tent in rain and wind. Thanks Henry! I met Halfmile who made and loaded the maps on my GPS prior to my hike. Billy Goat, who has probably walked more miles on the PCT than anyone, was there onpiring pthers. Then there was Tequila Jack and wife Boo Boo who whose 2011 journal was full of great info. And Liz who hiked with Wired last year, and Rockin and her husband who offered their help when I come thru Tehachapi. And on and on...The day was full of great sources of information in the form of lectures, round table discussions, and vendors demonstrations in a beautiful setting with Lake Marina in the background.




We gained more insight regarding desert hiking, cooking and stretching/yoga on the trail, overuse injures, flora and fauna, bears, mountaineering skills, and we learned the latest regarding water sources and snow and trail conditions. The biggest concern this year appears to be the damage done by the strong winds that took down thousands of trees in the Sierras last November. There will be a lot of blow downs to climb over or go around making hiking there very challenging. But I guess that is POTA.
Volunteers made sure we were fed well and there was plenty of great stories shared. I was so happy to see Pockets and his friend trail angel Melissa. He was the only hiker that I have hiked with that came to the KO. I did see many of the hikers that I met in Julian here. I met the infamous trail angels, The Anderson's and witnessed Teri getting a Mohawk.




I had my picture taken with Squatch the author of all the Walking documentaries.




In the evenings we were treated to PCT trail short stories read by the authors and videos of the PCT. Here are some pics from Thursday and Friday.












This is me with Ron. He is hiking the trail in a wedding dress!




Here we are gathering for a group picture of the class of 2012.




This is actually the class of 2011 that came to the KO. Since I am in the class pic of 2012 I couldn't take a picture but it will be posted on the PCTA website soon. I am holding one side of the 2012 banner.
I am eager to get back to the trail. This has been a great rest but too long. I found a ride to my last stopping point on the trail with long time trail angel, Shepherd. I will be leaving tomorrow after breakfast with 2 hikers I met in Julian, Speedbump and Rattlebee. They will get dropped off at Warner Springs and then Shepherd will leave me off where I last stopped on the trail. My next town will be Wrightwood. Until then..happy trails.
Heart

April 25, 26 Julian and The KO

Last night I stayed at the Julian Hotel. One of the oldest hotels in the US and very hiker friendly. I highly recommend it. They offer a great breakfast and a good hiker
discount. I met a lot of hikers in the early phase of their hike. Keala, Walking Stick, and Mariner. We had a delicious dinner at the Julian Grill and shared our hiking stories. Today after breakfast I caught up on correspondence then headed over to Mom's Pies for a free lunch! Mom's offers free sandwiches and pie to all thru hikers. Thanks for the delicious meal! Pinky and Dead Animal were at Scissors Crossing doing some trail magic. I had lunch with a young couple: Old Spice and Lotus who were hiking the trail and looking for a ride back to the Kick Off. Then an older couple approached and offered their services if we needed a ride to the kick off. Turns out they were a couple Mark and I followed last year as they hiked the PCT: Early Girl and Water Boy (Larry and Lucy). This was a real treat for me as their hike was so inspiring--I had to get a picture. They are planning to hike the trail sections they missed last year, after the KO.



Me with Early Girl and Water Boy

A few minutes later Pinky and Dead Animal arrived and an hour later we were headed for Mt Laguna Campground. Old Spice and Lotus joined us. We did some trail magic on the way, handing out fruit and soda to hikers we saw along the trail. By the time we arrived a few other
hikers joined us and we all camped together. We had a nice camp fire, roasted hot dogs and shared stories. At midnight the temperature dropped and a rain storm rolled in. None of us got much sleep and all of us got very wet. Since the weather was not expected to change until late afternoon we packed up in the rain and all headed to. Lake Marina.

April 24 Trail Magic to the Kick Off

Today was my first leisurely day. Pinky and Dead Animal were in no hurry to leave. I said goodbye to my hiking family. I am sure we will cross paths again. They all have plans of taking days off so I think I will eventually catch up to them.




Goodbye to Fidget and Go Fish who I will miss most of all.




A big part of the trail experience is about the people you meet and I am looking forward to meeting a lot more soon.
My morning was spent making some minor repairs and improvements to my gear. I glued a toe flap on my right shoe, and taped up a hole on my left shoe, i added a few tension lines to my tent for additional wind protection and shortened some of my pack straps and my belt. I lost 5 lbs so now my pants are a bit big. My appetite is good but just no way to keep up with the calorie demands. Just before heading out at noon I soaked my bandana in the cool stream and wet my head and upper body, then tied it loosely around my neck. So with my new friends I set off on the trail with Pinky and Dead Animal.
As Burning Daylight would say it's just POTA (part of the adventure). The 6 miles to their vehicle was a pleasant hike except for the heat. We left at noon and got to hwy 173 at 230. Here are some of the views.
















They had cold drinks and fruit waiting at the truck, a welcomed site. They refilled the cooler for future hikers coming thru and we headed for Julian. Tomorrow we will drive to Laguna to do more trail magic in-route to the kick off.
Heart

April 23 Deep Creek Hot Springs

We got an early start and hiked 22 miles from Little Bear Springs
Camp to Deep Ceek Hot Springs mile 307.8. To mark the 300th mile Burning Daylight And I wrote it in stones. I hiked in sandals part of the day to cool my feet.




The Orange Ranger worked on the part of the trail that was detoured last year so we were not surprised when we did not see a detour sign. The trail was great with a lot of interesting scenery. Especially this bridge.








Wild flowers like these lined the trail.
I got to camp at 530. Most of my group had already taken their swims and were setting up camp. There were a lot of day hikers there. We were the only thru (and clothed) hikers. It took 58 years for me to get to my first nude beach. The most entertaining were the nude hikers wearing backpacks! What a hoot.
Here are some pics of the hot springs. I had to wait until the next morning to take these pics as the springs were full of nude bathers in very clear water- I know some of you will be disappointed - just another reason to start walking!








You can see some of the springs pooled in many areas.
While chatting with others in the pool I met Pinky and Dead Animal. They are trail angels here doing some trail magic. They left drinks and fruit 6 miles from here for thru hikers. They are also on their way to the kick off and offered me a ride. So tomorrow we will hike. 6 miles out to their vehicle then in route to the kick off will stop in various places to do trail magic. Pinky hiked the trail last year. She called her group the Leisure Set since it was more about the journey than the destination. She got as far as Washington by November 7th and had to quit the trail due to weather conditions. Dead Animal hiked until Big Bear and had to get off the trail but is planning to thru hike it this year and will leave after the kick-off. Pinky offered to take me to the kick off so I will be leaving with them tomorrow. What a lucky break. There is just so much magic on the trail!




Dead Animal and Pinky

April 22 Continued...

My last entry ended with Gene dropping us off at HWY 18. Before we left we all went to breakfast. From left to right its Gene, me, Mile a Minute (formerly Ice Ass), Slim, Orange Ranger, and Burning Daylight.




Then we packed up and said goodbye to the Big Bear Hostel




Here we are before taking off. From left to right Flapjack, Mile a Minute, Fidget and Go Fish (behind me). Ranger and Burning Daylight stayed behind to get groceries and catch a later ride.




We hiked 20 miles to Little Bear Springs Trail Camp. I hiked alone most of the day behind the pack. Here are some of the views. It was a pleasant hike with a lot of variety and even though we got a late start we all made it to the campsite by 7pm. 30 minutes later Burning Daylight and The Orange Ranger showed up. It was great to have the whole pack
back together.








Some of the tread was very rocky












View of Big Bear Lake




We had a nice big campsite and our first campfire.




Happy Trails!
Heart

Mindy in the Laguna Mountains via StickPic

Mindy's First Two Weeks on the PCT

This selection of photos come from the Nikon 100 SD card Mindy sent home for inclusion on her adventure. Mark & Stef

April 20 and 21, Mile 235 to 266

April 20, A much better day than yesterday. Long and tiring but hiked all day with Go Fish and Fidget. Again no pics :(. We ended up at a great camp reunited with The Orange Ranger. The only snag - we hiked 12 hours, 21 miles and 30 minutes after setting up camp were joined by a troup of boy scouts on their first camping trip - oh boy.
April 21 was an easy day hiking into Big Bear. We got a hitch to the Big Bear Hostel by Chad. He graciously piled all 4 of us plus our gear in his SUV and would not accept any compensation. We entertained him with our hiker stories in return. Thanks Chad for the trail magic! My boxes were at the hostel -yeah and also friends Ice Ass (who is now Mile a Minute) and Burning Daylight. We got some much needed R and R. Flapjack (Steve), fixed my iphone so i can now send out emails and he reorganized my GPS. Here are pics of the area. More to come. I had to decide what to do next. I am here 5 days ahead of schedule. The kick off is not until Apr 27 so I don't want to hang around here until then. I decided to leave with the group and hike toward Wrightwood. I may be able to hitch a ride at the McDonalds and highway 15. I should be there by Wednesday late afternoon. I posted my request so am hoping for a call or email for a ride either Wed or Thurs.
Gene joined us for breakfast and arranged a ride to the trail head. He works at the hostel but this was not part of his job. Thanks Gene.



Slim (scott) came in last night. He has hiked the PCT many times and had some great stories to share. Here we are at breakfast before heading out on the trail.


Happy Trails
Heart

Loosing Heart on April 19

I really questioned my wisdom today to attempt this PCT challenge. What was I thinking? I love my job, I love my life back home, I miss my family,  so if I could have beamed myself home today I would have. I could have found another way to encourage people to exercise, like maybe a nice 5 mile hike on the Lone Star Trail, with a 15lb pack and a nice heart healthy lunch packed in it. But no, I chose to navigate from Mexico to Canada instead, all while knowing navigation is my weakest link. So now that I have you attention I will tell you about my grueling day and because all went wrong there are no pictures since the day started with a dead battery on my phone and charges that did not work. My intentions were good, I would be up first, ready to leave at first light with The Orange Ranger - he knew the trail and wanted to get an early start. I could not tell where to pick up the trail as there was no defined trail, just one of those direction things called a finger - you just go through that gorge ahead, wind around the canyon and you pick up the trail a mile or so ahead. OK, sure, if your a ranger, which I am not, not even close. So I am up to follow the Ranger. It all started out good, I was waiting for him, but he camped on the other side of the creek and as he crossed over to my side, I lost sight of him through all the boulders. I hurried along the boulders praying the rattlers would remain asleep for a few hours more. There I spotted the orange shirt and Ranger pointed in the direction to head to find the first marker. OK I saw it and sighed with relief. Now on the trail, lost in Rangers dust I proceeded alone. Fidget and Go Fish were slightly behind. Then I missed a switchback and walked on a ridge for about 15 minutes before realizing what I did. I figured Fidget and Go Fish passed me while I was off trail, so proceeded alone.
Now in Section C of the trail, from mile 209 to mile 342 there is an elevation gain of 19,462, an elevation loss of 17,808. And all that up and down only amounts to 1,654" of elevation gain. My legs and back may give way but my heart will be ticking long after I am gone. I noted my heart rate was 200 during most of the climbs with a resting heart rate of 54. But I digress - back to the trail. So 6 strenuous miles later I get to Mission Creek.
Mission Creek's narrow gorge, incised in tortured granite gneisses, leaves little room for a trail, so washouts are frequent. Why someone would plan to have hikers cross this creek, no less that 20 times must have been the work of a practical jouster. Well I did not find it the least bit funny. The path is often vague through the boulder fields with jungles of baccharis, alder, willow and cottonwoods. And to further quote the guide book "Rattlesnakes,  inhabit the grassy stream margins as do garter snakes, racers, horned lizards, antelope ground squirrels, summer tanagers and bobcats, so keep an eye open..." .  If it were not for my GPS I would still be wandering around out there. But even with the GPS the trail is washed away and you are forced to scramble over fallen trees, through poodle brush and boulders. Certainly this is not the intended path, so much for GPS, I thought. So I followed my instincts and ahhh I see a marker, there is the trail, yes it was - right were I started!! I just spent 20 minutes of hell going in a circle.  Twice I fell, once dropping my GPS from my pocket in a crevice of  rocks. Now what to do?? Drop my pack and crawl beneath, using my trekking pole to fend off any rattlesnake that tries to eat me. If Scotty was here I would surely have asked to be beamed up - and back to safety in Texas. But as prayers were answered a voice said follow the GPS anyway. So I did and low and behold came to the trail ahead. Discouraged but glad to be alive I hike the rest of the day, negotiating the creek in the same way again and again (with my GPS in hand). 11 hours later I had reached the camp by the creek where we were all planning to stop. 11 hours of hiking just 15 miles!! But the worse part - no one was at the camp. They must have arrived so early in the day they decided to go on to the next camp - 5 miles away. Now at 530pm I would not, could not begin to consider trying to make it so I set up my lone camp and cried in my soup (almost). At 745 I was almost asleep when I heard hikers coming up the trail so I poked my head out of my tent and what a pleasant surprise to see Go Fish and Fidget!! They had had a similar day and as they say, misery loves company so I was cheered up and all was well.
Almost but Never Lost Heart...

April 18

Today was a challenging day mixed with a lot of trail angel blessings.We (Ice Ass, Fidget, Go Fish and I) left from the base of the San Jacinto Mountains at 630am. and headed 17 miles to Whitewater Creek where we planned to camp. We were just 4 miles from Ziggy and the Bear so we stopped in there for some trail magic. Thank you both. We were treated to a nice place in the shade, fresh fruit and cold drinks.



Ziggy, Heart, Bear

Then we headed towards the wind farm. in route we crossed under a bridge at I 10. There we found a cooler left by trail angels with cold drinks, a welcome sight, especially since the temperatures were now in the 90's with NO shade to be had. I slowed down and lost the group but knew where they were all headed.




A pleasant surprise came from behind - someone called out my name and I turned to see Pockets. He had caught up with our group and was really putting in the miles after a visit with his family.  We came to a sign on a post that said "shade and water" with an arrow. So we followed it to the maintenance building at the wind farm. What a surprise to find, shade, water, bathrooms, and microwavable meals. Well back on the trail I said good-bye to Pockets as he burned up the miles and left me in his dust. I took pictures of the scenery and the flowers and paced myself in the heat.




I looked below and saw a river basin but my far sight is poor and to me it all looked dried up, just a mass of gray rock. I guess the creek was dry. Where would we get our water?





Just as the temperature was unbearable I came around a corner at 330pm and saw my group, frolicking in Whitewater Creek - I pinched myself to see if it was a mirage, it was raging, just like it said in the data book. So I dropped my pack and joined them. So refreshing and a great way to end the day.

April 17 23iles

Today was a grueling 23 miles to the bottom of the San Jacinto Mts. I am at mile 206. The 6 of us got a ride to Black Mountain Rd then started our climb 8 miles up. After about 2 miles we were in snow.




Then at 9 miles up we hit the PCT And the rest was switchbacks down into the valley.
Here are some pics from today.




















And at the bottom a welcomed site

Day 12 April 16 Idyllwild

Yesterday we hiked 25 miles to the Paradise Cafe. All but Bird and Freebird headed out at 5:15am. Thanks to Mike and his generosity we all survived and had more than enough water to get us to Idyllwild. If you are reading this Mike and are ever in Texas look me up and you will have a place to stay. Everyone was christened a trail name while at Mike's (we had a lot of time on our hands and got know each other pretty well). Jeremy is now Ice Ass because he came with a quilt instead of a sleeping bag, and was always complaining of his ass being cold at night, Lee Ann became Go Fish due to winning so many hands of this challenging card game, Seth became JetBoil cuz he talked about how much he wanted one ever since he saw me eating 10 minutes before his water was even simmering, Niko became Fidget since he never sits still and me I remain heart - and sometimes " Mom" Heart - and if you know me you know why. We hiked 25 miles of ups and downs but made it to the Cafe by 4pm. The sitting down and eating was Paradise. The getting up and walking after, not so great. Every bone and muscle ached. Burning Daylight's son lived nearby and came to pick-up his dad and left with 6 additional hikers and their gear along with his own family of 4. Believe it or not the vehicle was NOT a van. I still don't know how we fit everyone but luckily we only had 15 miles to go. I would have taken a picture but I couldn't move to get my camera and the retired cop with us would have destroyed the evidence.




The good news is my camera is working fine now- yahoo! Here I am at the cabin in Idyllwild.






The six of us rented this cabin for just $20 each. We spent the day preparing for the next leg of our hike. We washed gear, bought groceries, aired out our tents, caught up on correspondence some sat and watched movies and some of us went into the local gifts shops and boutiques (I'm not mentioning any names).



Go Fish is a professional chef, and treated us to a great lasagna dinner. I was her official sous chef and learned a trick or two. Thanks Go fish!



From left to right: The Orange Ranger, Ice Ass, Burning Daylight, Fidget, and Go Fish.
Pockets, JetBoil and Twist, took a day off to be with their families.
I should reach Big Bear (100 plus miles away) in a week or so and will blog any time I get a signal. I am having trouble sending emails. I am getting everyone's emails but when I reply they just remain in my outbox. So far no one has been able to figure it out. I just want all of you to know I enjoy reading your emails and will reply as soon as I fix the problem.
Heart