It’s a very cold, windy, rainy day here in Petaluma (again!), but our packs are loaded, and we are ready to roll!  Bill and I weighed our packs and fannypacks to calculate our “base weight” (no food, water, or other consumables), and found we are at 12 pounds each.   Bill sighed a bit–his base weight when he hikes the John Muir Trail every year in June is only 8 pounds.   But doing the PCT for 4 months or so is WAY different from one week on the JMT.   We will also be carrying enough trail food to get us from Campo all the way to Warner Springs, since we are not resupplying at Mt. Laguna.  My base weight will go up a bit when we reach Warner Springs, since I am adding on an ice axe for the trail above Idylwild, plus the Fuller Ridge.  I have BAAAAAD memories of the icy snow there in 2005.   Bill is not worried about it.   Hope he’s right!

I also managed to dodge between rainshowers and  finish up all the lastminute “garden stuff” (like making sure the automatic sprinklers actually WORK, after being off all winter, and putting props under the fruit trees in anticipation of the summer day when the branches will be heavy with fruit and need some support).  Once he was done with his pack,  Bill spent the morning finessing our resupply boxes so that each one is just the right size.   We kept a wary eye on weather reports–looks like we will be back in sunshine soon.

This afternoon, I go over to set up and decorate everything for Awana Awards Night tonight.  It is really exciting for the kids to get the beautiful ribbons and trophies they have earned by memorizing and studying the Bible.   I personally HATE long, boring, dragged out awards ceremonies where there are too many speeches, too many groups of kids being dragged up front to sing some dumb song  or recite something.   The parents may think it’s cute, but for the kids, it’s torture, and for their little preschool siblings, it’s over-the-top hard to sit so long.   I guess I still have a lot of “kid” in me, so I don’t want to make kids do something they hate.   The result is our ceremony is short, sweet, and to the point.   Then we have an Ice Cream Sundae Feast!   Only this year,  Bill and I will miss the Feast, because we will be on the road, headed for San Diego!

Here’s what to expect from us in the next few days:

We will be at ADZPCTKO on Sat. and Sunday (April 24-25).

Our first set of journal pages gets mailed home from Warner Springs on around April 28.   Our webmaster will put up summaries as soon as possible.  We send more journal pages home from every resupply.

Our first set of PICTURES will not be mailed home until we reach Agua Dulce (around May 20).   So hang in there–we WILL have pictures!   Our webmaster is really good at putting in pictures, unlike me.

Yesterday I mentioned that I’d lost my “master list” of what went where in my pack.  I hunted for it everywhere, and finally had to give up and just turn the problem over to God for Him to take care of.   This morning, I was tidying up an important file of Awana papers, and there it was!   My list!   The Awana papers had been on my desk, along with the pack list, and when I scooped up the Awana paperwork, I guess I scooped the list up, too.   I was most fervently grateful to find it!  And wasted no time in thanking God for helping me out!   I could have managed without it, and been OK (in fact, I was OK all morning putting stuff in my pack and just saying, “Well, hope I’ve got it all!” and not freaking out at all).    But I am grateful I no longer have to think, “Where is Miss Marple when I need her?”

Now all I have to think about is…the fun at ADZPCTKO–the icy snow in the San Jacintos–the beauty of the trail–the hope of making it across Fuller Ridge–and lots more!   Stay tuned, and happy trails to YOU!

Well, TOMORROW we leave for the PCT!  Which is mega-exciting!   But of course, it being our last full day at home, all sorts of stuff had to go haywire.  We had great plans for a half-day hike to the top of Hood Mountain, where we could sign the hiker register with some sort of “hurrah, tomorrow we head for the PCT!” type comment, plus the gorgeous views and a picnic lunch before we headed home and loaded our packs ready to leave tomorrow.   Ah, how romantic!   Of course, it didn’t happen–instead, life happened.

For Bill, most of the day ended up being spent wrassling with our car, which our daughter will be using while we are gone, whenever she goes to San Francisco, since it’s the one that has FastTrak to get across the bridges, and the National Parks Volunteer sticker that gets us free parking at the National Maritime Museum.  The car was making awful noises and desperately needed a new strut up in the right front end.   Bill got it all done in the end, but it took almost all day.   We did manage to get in a one hour walk with packs around the neighborhood, and that was it.   I am very grateful that he managed it–he only had his own improvised setup to work with, and the job actually has a dangerous side to it, since there is a spring with an enormous amount of pressure on it.

Since I did not know when he’d be done,  I kept working on “short stuff” that I could drop at any time to go for our “last practice hike”, plus went to visit two of my junior high Awana kids who were trying to finish their study books before our big Awards Ceremony tomorrow.   And then I discovered that my precious “master list” of everything that goes in my pack, which I guarded assiduously and always kept safe in a file folder, had gone missing.   I still have not found it, and can only hope and pray that I do!

I also carefully studied the Snow and Water Report to see what we’re in for between Campo and Agua Dulce.  Sounds like the stretch up above Idylwild is as nasty and icy as it was when we crossed in 2005.    We didn’t even try to do the Fuller Ridge that year–we went down to Idylwild, then hitched a ride to Black Mountain Road and walked back up to the PCT.   This year, we really want to try to go through.   We hiked Fuller Ridge in July to familiarize ourselves with the route.

The Report gave us a VITAL heads-up, though, that Paradise Cafe is closed.  We’d planned to send a fairly hefty resupply box there!   Whew!   So now we will have to go straight from Warner Springs all the way to Big Bear.   Heeeeeavy packs!  Oh fun!

So we are trying to stay cool, man, REAL cool, and not worry or freak out about any of this stuff.   And I am still praying to find my master list for my pack…..

In case any of y’all who read our blog want to find us at ADZPCTKO,  we will be at campsite 82.   Here’s how we plan to get there:

Drive rental car to San Diego, and drop it off downtown.

Take Orange Line trolley to El Cajon Transit center.  Take bus to Campo, arriving late afternoon.  Camp somewhere at Campo.  Leave early in the morning from PCT border monument, and get to ADZPCTKO sometime Friday afternoon.   I admit I am kinda hoping to make it in time for Switchback’s superlight gear seminar.  And the “One Pan Wonders” cooking thing sounds fun.

Saturday, I was thinking of entering something in the gear contest, as long as I don’t have to drop it off, since it involves my umbrella and my entire pack!  And of course the 1:30 pm Water & Snow report is a “must do.”   Inbetween, you’ll probably find me volunteering somewhere. 

Sunday morning, we begin our updated plan of not being on a tear to get to Kennedy Meadows.   Instead of heading out right after breakfast, we are going into Lake Morena town and going to church.  THEN we start.  We figure we can put a dent in the miles to Mt. Laguna before making camp for the night.

So if you are at ADZPCTKO, look us up!

I seem to spend a fair amount of time lately answering FAQ’s from friends who have finally realized, “Oh my!  You guys are leaving this week to do your hike!”  Here are some of them:

     “Do you hike from hut to hut like in Europe?”   Nope, we hike from sunup to sundown and make camp anyplace that’s reasonably flat and off the trail.  

    “Do you have a cell phone to call for help?”   Nope.  We figure there’s no cell phone coverage out in the middle of nowhere, and besides that, we don’t even own a cell phone, anyway.   We just carry a calling card. 

    “Do you bring a GPS?”  Nope.  Then we’d have to drag along a solar recharger, plus the weight of the GPS.   A good ol’ compass does the job.

    “Are you hiking with a group?”    Nope.  It’s just us, but there are plenty of other hikers out there along the trail.  If we run into trouble, eventually somebody will come along.   In 2005, we WERE the “somebody who just came along” a couple of times, and were able to help other hikers.

I ended up getting a LOT of suchlike questions after church on Sunday, because (unknown to me!) the church secretary put into the announcements that Bill and I were heading out this Wednesday.  So we were thoroughly prayed for, and we are grateful for that, VERY grateful!   Even the hymn we sang at the beginning of the service was one I often hummed to myself when we were on the PCT in 2005, which has the line, “the shadow of a mighty rock within a weary land, a home within the wilderness,  a rest upon the way, from the burning of the noontide heat, and the burden of the day.”   

Weatherwise, today was hardly “burning heat.”  It was gorgeous.  This afternoon, I headed for San Francisco to attend the ballet.  It was the last performance for the oldest ballerina in the company,  Katita Waldo.  She is a wonderful dancer (even though she is now over 40 years old), but what’s most impressive about her is that she started as just a lowly apprentice, then got into the corps de ballet, finally soloist, and eventually “principal.”  She is a very modest person, who loves helping the other dancers.  Usually when a ballerina retires, the ballet company has a big “gala” in her (or his, if it’s a guy) honor.  But Katita didn’t want that, which is typical for her.  Her only request for her last performance was that she could have Damian Smith as her partner (he is the oldest of the men “principals.”  

I hope that as Bill “White Beard” and I hike the PCT this year, we can be as much of a help and encouragement to other hikers as Katita has been at San Francisco Ballet.

I very much enjoyed the drive to San Francisco–it’s about 45 minutes from our house to the Golden Gate Bridge, and then on into the City.  It was a sunny, golden, warm, breezy, beautiful day.  There were lots of sailboats out on the Bay, and the bridge was crowded with tourists.   What a contrast to only one week ago, when it was POURING rain, cold, windy, not a sailboat or tourist in sight!

After a soup ‘n bread supper, I spent the rest of the evening collating the stuff to put in my pack.   I have everything I need now!  I will put the stuff INTO my pack once we are done with our last “practice hike” on Tuesday.  The countdown stands at “Only 2 more days till we head out!”

Today, Bill and I went for our last (!!) all day hike before we head for ADZPCTKO.  We headed to Point Reyes Nat’l Seashore and did what we call “The Southern Lakes Loop”, about 22 miles of fantastic trail, with a start and finish at the Bear Valley trailhead.  There was a fair amount of mud and some fallen trees because of the two recent big rains, but  it was perfect hiking weather and the wildflowers were fantastic.  The sea was so calm that it looked like a big pond, and the air was so clear that we could easily see the Farallones Islands.  We ate lunch at Bass Lake (the largest of the “ocean lakes”) and brought a bottle of Martinelli’s cider along to celebrate.

Another great thing that happened was a problem I’d been having seems to be fixed!   For the last few months, on every hike we take, I have been carrying steadily increasing packweight.  But since I didn’t want to put any extra wear ‘n tear on my beloved PCT pack, I borrowed one of Bill’s old packs.   It was WAY too big for me, but I figured, “No problem–I can handle this!”  So I kept loading it heavier and heavier, and ignoring the fact that its hard plastic frame had a corner that was constantly bumping and rubbing on the backside of my hip.  When it started to hurt, I simply put a pad under it and kept on going.  But two weeks ago,  on a hike out at Point Reyes, by the time we got back to car, I was in serious pain.   So I took a “vitamin I” and figured “I’ll be fine in the morning.”   Nope.  It still hurt.  And it kept on hurting, no matter what I did, till I was seriously worried.   Never ever in my entire life had I experienced anything like this.   I could actually feel a little sort of “knot” back where the pack had been rubbing, and ow!  did it hurt!   So I switched to using my PCT pack, and that did help some, but even just walking around the house, I was limping a bit.   Not good.  

But our hike today at Point Reyes seems to have “worked out the kinks”, and I am feeling almost 100% OK.    Whew!   I was still achy and sore when we started, but by the end of the day today,   I was tired but no longer sore.  So hopefully, all is well. 

Meanwhile, people have been asking how we communicate with home,  get a blog post up, etc. while we are on the trail.   Well, it’s a curious mixture of “dinosaur days” and modern tech.    Here’s how it works:

1) Each night on the trail, after I put on my nice clean, warm sleeping clothes and crawl into my sleeping bag (man, does that feel good!), I turn on the headlamp and write in my journal.   In 2005,  I just scribbled notes at night, then at each resupply, I copied them over neatly and sent them to our webmaster daughter to type in and post online.   THIS TIME,  I will begin each journal entry with a neatly written “Reader’s Digest version” of the day, then the rest will be my scribbles.  

2) At each resupply, I will mail home the journal pages as is, with no “copying over.”   Sometimes I’ll send home a camera card full of pictures, also.  And if there is a phone available, we call home and tell the very latest news. Our webmaster then puts up the Reader’s Digest entries, along with any “breaking news”, plus pictures she likes, plus her own comments. (Note:  we don’t carry a cell phone on the trail.   It is so seldom used that it is not worth the extra weight.   We just bring a “calling card” and use it with whatever telephone we can find).

3)  When we get back from the PCT, I will go to the blog and post the FULL journals with a lot more detail, and hopefully, more pictures.

And again, I apologize for the fact that I have not put up any pictures of our preparations.   I know this sounds (and IS) pretty pathetic, but for me to post a picture is a “big deal” and a lot of work.   I don’t know how to do it quickly.   So stay tuned!  Once we hit the trail, there will eventually be pictures.   We plan to send the first camera card home when we reach Big Bear City!