More First Week News

4/12/13
Mile 101. Made it the first 100 miles! I pretty much have the first section done. Did some more good miles today so I could take it super easy tomorrow. It's Friday today and Greg is gonna meet me in Warner Springs Sunday which is 10 miles away. There's a road right by me and 4 miles down the road there's a general store. Oh, Warner Springs is shut down so there's nothing going on there. Looking forward to taking it easy the next day and a half. No major things went wrong the first 100 which is good. No blisters. My left knee got kinky while descending so hopefully this time off will allow it to recover. It's something I remember from baseball and its very minor in terms of feeling/pain. Kinda like a not so sore muscle. Also, I ended early today near a spring and got time to clean off and make a great dinner. I was getting kinda dirty those last couple miles(the dirtiest I have even been and that's saying a lot). I should have taken a picture of my cardboard shirt before I washed it. The picture is my dinner. Couscous with a packet of gravy mix and about 2 ounces of olive oil in a burrito lined with sardines. 5 of them haha. Its sooooo good. Whoever thought I ate a lot before I'm gonna blow your mind when you see how much I eat now. I'll do a play by play of what I ate one of these days. 

4/12/13
Today I wanted to push myself and see how far I could go so I woke up at 5am and was out by 5:30. My shoes and socks started off not wet but not dry, but after plowing through some bushes they were soaked. I made it to a trail angels house that has water and likes having people over for food/and drink, but it was so cold I got my water, knocked a few times, walked around the yard, and left. I later found out the 2 guys that were ahead of me stayed there last night, had a few beers by the fire, and a nice dinner. They were all sleeping in and they got breakfast burritos in the morning. He lives out in the middle of nowhere. I made it further and at about 11am when the sun came out my shoes and socks were off and drying within a minute. After that break I kept thinking I could do anything with dry shoes. Everything is so much easier. Got to a water cache with a bunch of 5 gallon jugs at about 4pm and decided it was super meal time so I made couscous with a packet of gravy mix a bunch of olive oil and a pepperoni meat log. After that I practically ran the last 6-7 miles. Total miles was about 26-29 and with that being said tomorrow will be an easy one and good night.

4/13/13

Lazy Saturday for me. Got up late. About 7am I think and didn't get going too fast. Did about 10 miles to get to Warner Springs. They had a community center set up with showers laundry and a burger. I only needed the burger. I had just cleaned all my clothes and washed myself nice and good at the first clean creek of the pct. So, I have figured out a lot about what I need while hiking. I have a few things I can get rid of. I can drop my bath towel and when I find another bandanna then I can have 2 bandannas. 1 clean stuff and 1 dirty stuff. I can drop the soap. It's too hard to use soap out here. I end up feeling worse when I use it because I can't get it all off. And when there is a stream or creek you can't use it in the crik. I've got some good advice from a fellow hiker, Charles "tracks". He also said since my knee is already having a weird feeling to get hiker poles. He said you're a big guy in the hiker world and walking a lot puts a lot of stress on your knees. Especially descending. So get hiker poles and thank me later. So Greg is gonna bring me some tomorrow. I can bring less food. I didn't eat certain things. Oatmeal. I didn't ever cook in the morn. 1 cooked meal a day is good.

4/14/13

Thanks for coming out and dropping off stuff for me, Greg. Those poles are great. When I got in a good rhythm it made a huge difference. My body feels less sore especially in the knees and legs. The pizza was delicious too. Even though its only been a week it's always nice to see a familiar face. Especially my bro and Natalie. It was pretty hot for the hour or so that they were hiking with me. We saw a rattler too. A big one. Right after I was saying I haven't seen any I almost walked into it. The rest of the hike was good. Got pretty foggy. I'm at about mile 122-4.
Thanks again for coming out, Greg.

4/15/13

I made it from a couple miles before the hwy to mile 166. About an 18 mile day. I woke up late and was taking it easy all day and called it early because bad weather looked like it was coming and I would rather be at 6000 feet in a valley than 7500 on the ridge. About 20 miles to Idylwild tomorrow so I have to push it. It's either that or be at 9000 feet in snow with little food for a night. I'll have a good meal to look forward to. And a warm bed if its not too expensive. Hopefully I can find some people that want to share a room. All the hikers I was with today said they stayed there last night because they didn't want to get caught in the bad weather above 6000 feet. So they aren't going back.


Guess which way the wind is blowing. And do you think it's is cold? 

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

[Doug is in Idlywild.)