The sun is finally shining again today, and the weather reports look promising!   I even checked the 10 day forecast for Lake Morena, and yippee,   ADZPCTKO should have great weather!   We have been to the kickoff twice before, and one time, it basically rained for almost the whole weekend.  On Sunday morning, when the thruhikers were leaving, they were all in raingear, and heading out into the clouds and mist and wet.   I don’t think that will be the case this year.

Before I comment on trail obstacles, I just wanted to say that when I started this blog, I had big ideas about putting pictures on it (yes, we do have pictures!) but I am still basically a technopeasant, and the process of getting pictures onto the blog is such a “big deal” to someone with my limited technosavvy that I just did not have time to do it.  Hopefully our words alone have been helpful.  Once we leave for the PCT, I will be sending home handwritten journals, and our daughter will post a “reader’s digest version” on our blog,  (along with some pictures, hooray!) then when we get back, I will post the FULL journal entries.

Trail obstacles–things that make hikers either tired or scared or both–are a fact of life on the PCT.   Sometimes it’s trying to hike when the trail is full of fallen trees that have not yet been “logged” out of the way,  or trying to hike when the trail is so overgrown that you are literally feeling with your feet for the trail tread because you can’t SEE it,  or hiking through tall, very wet grass/weeds that try their best to tangle up your feet and totally soak your shoes and socks (and fill them with stickers if there are a lot of weeds!).  With all these things,  you have to make the choice to maintain a cheerful attitude.  We have friends who work in emergency medical situations where things are absolutely horrendous, and they tell us that the only way to maintain your own sanity is to joke around and try to be as cheerful as possible.   It SOUNDS callous, but actually it protects you from becoming paralyzed and incapacitated by the grimness of the situation.   Same deal with obstacles on the trail.   We have met hikers who are a walking litany of complaints.  I want to ask them, “Then why are you doing this hike at all?”   Overcoming obstacles is part of the challenge of thruhiking.

But there are a couple of obstacles where it helps to know some coping skills beyond just choosing to be cheerful.   One is big hills.   On the PCT, it’s not unusual to have climbs of 2,000, 4,000 or even 5,000 feet.  Some are on gentle switchbacks.  Some are steeper.  Gentle switchbacks are no problema, but when it gets steeper, it’s harder.  I learned a technique that helps me which I use for steeper climbs (I got it from reading a trail running book)–shorten your stride, and speed it up at the same time.  In other words, instead of the usual longer, loose/relaxed stride I use most of the time when hiking,  I take much shorter steps, but speed up the pace,  while still maintaining the “relaxed” part.  It looks a bit funny, but it really does the job–I arrive at the top of steep hills a lot less huffed ‘n puffed than I did before.   I also change the way I use my trek poles.  Instead of having them alternate which pole is swinging to the front, I treat them like crosscountry ski poles and swing them together to the front, then use my arms and poles together to help “power” me up those steep climbs.

Roaring creek crossings are for me probably the only thing I really do NOT like when it comes to obstacles on the trail.  Part of the reason for this is that I am rather on the petite side, so water that might be just thigh deep on a tall person is up to my waist, AND I don’t have as much weight to help me stay anchored to the bottom of the river in spite of a strong current.   But again, knowing what to do is really helpful.     1) If you have a decent sense of balance, use a log to get across.  This is what Bill does.   He zips across on logs.  I have a decent sense of balance, but I also have had some bad experiences with SLIPPING and falling which make log crossings very scary for me, so if  I use a log, I either scoot across on my rear end, or ask Bill to walk right next to me so I can use him as a “railing”.    I did find in 2005 that by the end of the hike,  even I was getting fairly decent at crossing on logs. Practice DOES make perfect!   But I treat every log crossing with great care.   Hikers have had dreadful injuries from falling off logs crossing a creek.   2) If you must ford the creek,  FACE the current and sidestep your way across.   That way the water cannot “grab” your foot, spin you around and knock you down.  Lean into the current and plant your trek poles firmly.   Then move ONE thing at a time as you cross–either one pole or one foot.   Since Bill is taller and heavier than I am, I cross right behind him so that he takes the brunt of the current,  and I am somewhat protected.    3) Scout your crossing place.  Bill has done the JMT many times and he says that usually the worst places to cross are where the trail crosses the river!    Sometimes the rangers will mark better crossing places.   It is worth it to take the time to scout for the best place to cross.  Avoid deep places,  really fastmoving places, and for sure avoid places where the bottom of the river is smooth, slick rock.  You want to have a rough, gravelly bottom so you won’t slip.  4) Snowmelt river levels are lower early in the morning.   The difference can be a matter of a few inches or of a couple of feet!   In the High Sierras, where it’s basically winter snowpack melting, there was only a bit of difference, but in Oregon and Washington, where rivers are snowmelt coming off glaciers, the difference can be quite enormous.  5) Wear your shoes and socks for river fords.   You cannot see the bottom, and there often are rough sharp rocks.   The water is bitter cold.   Wear your shoes!   (I hope you are not wearing oldfashioned leather hiking boots!   Those you CANNOT wear in rivers!)   The “wear your shoes” idea is also great in places like the PCT going up the Mission Creek canyon in Southern California, where the weather is usually hot.   You have 10 zillion creek crossings to do, and if you have to find a log and teeter across it,  or worse, take off your shoes for every crossing, that will really slow you down.   Just walk right across, shoes and all!   It rinses your socks, cleans your shoes, and ahhhh, it feels good!

I am not blase about the dangers of creek and river crossings.   As I said, they are my least favorite part of thruhiking.   But once we’ve made it across, (whew!) I always tell God I am VERY grateful for His help in terms of upholding my courage and trust (because courage and trust are  choices I have to make, but once I choose them,  He is right there with the strength to act on them.  I agree with a friend of mine, Captain Barbara Schneider of the Salvation Army, who mentioned to me one day, “As I get older, I am FINALLY figuring it out how much God respects our choices and our free will.  He will never push His agenda on anybody. ” )  I thank Him for guiding my footsteps (literally!  Each sidestep across that river, you don’t know what you are stepping into!).   And actually, even with “easy little rockhop crossings”  I still thank God when I reach the other side,  because I do not want to take ANYTHING for granted, and I really am grateful.   Back when I was an angry, know-it-all  junior higher who said things like “Forget God!   He never does anything for me! ”  I was deliberately ignoring the TONS of stuff God did for me every day.   I don’t ignore them anymore!  

Anyway, at the end of the trail, you can look back at all those steep climbs and river crossings and say, “Wow!   That was some adventure!”    And if you are REALLY crazy, like “White Beard” and I,  you say, “Let’s do it again!”

Bill and I spent (I think) about two hours today going round and round in circles, discussing the topic of “Yikes, should we change our PCT start date plans in view of all the snow piling up in the Sierras?”   In the end, after much weighing of pros and cons and this and that, we ended up back where we started, with “Oh, whatever!   Let’s just keep things as they are, start at ADZPCTKO and see what happens!”

We have been following the CA Dep’t of Water Resources snow reports, which all the way to the beginning of April put snow levels at pretty close to normal.  But just after the final snow survey of the year,  two great big heavy storms arrived, that dumped a whole lot more snow.  One of those storms is just finishing up today, and here in the San Francisco Area, we had two solid days of heavy rain, which is very unusual for this time of year.   Our daughter and I had to drive to San Francisco (we were going to the ballet) in an unbelievable downpour that made it hard to see.

So after much discussion and debate, Bill and I decided that the kickoff was too much fun to miss, and we will just take our time a little more in Southern CA, to (hopefully) give the snow a bit more time to settle down.   And the fact that Bill has hiked the JMT so many times gives us a lot more confidence, since he knows the trail quite well, and has done it early season when there was a lot of snow.   In 2005, neither of us had ever hiked the JMT, and that was one of the factors that led us to skipping the Sierras and coming back to them later in the hike.  Bill is confident that he can figure out where to go even if there is snow, and he also has figured out where the best places are to cross some of those nasty roaring rivers.  The only places that worry even him are the north side of Glen Pass, the south side of Mather Pass, and the crossing of upper Evolution Creek (which is normally done on large, tall steppingstones, but if those are buried in snow, you can’t see them, and if you miss, you could end up dead, like some hikers have–they were pulled under the snow and ice by the current, and drowned).

Personally, I hope that when we get to Kennedy Meadows, we will be able to link up with some other hikers for the trek  through the High Sierras.  I guess I say that because I am a petite person, and the thought of having some more big, strong guys around for breaking trail and creek crossings is a very nice thought!

Well, I can’t believe we’ve finished with filling all our resupply boxes with “stuff”!   Our entire garage is circled with boxes labelled “Pack”, “Box 1”, etc. all the way to “Box 29”.  Each box is full of all sorts of little bags of everything from food to laundry detergent , maps, stamped envelopes for mailing our journals home, and all sorts of other odds ‘n ends.  The last things to go in were little snack bags of vitamins.

It is interesting how different thruhikers are about their approach to resupply.  Bill “White Beard”, left to his own devices, would probably just do like he does on the John Muir Trail and live on peanut butter, cheese and jerky.  Me, the hobbit, I like to eat FOOD.  And I don’t like just throwing a bunch of food in a bag and then trying to guess along the trail how much to take from it each day.   So as a result, all the food got measured, put in little baggies and vacuum sealed.  That’s a LOT of little baggies!

Some thruhikers buy all their food as they go along–not me!   When I am at a resupply, I want to at least take a nero and REST, not run around grocery shopping.  Maybe it’s because I’m 62 and Bill is 70.  We NEED our rest!   In 2005,  we just tossed all the baggies in the resupply boxes, and I had to do a lot of sorting instead of resting.   Not this time–everything is presorted.   All we have to do is put it in our food bags and we’re done!

Today, for the first time, I used my PCT pack for our 3 hour training hike.   The pack I had been using all this time was really too big for me and with more and more weight in it, was increasingly uncomfortable.   When I put on my PCT pack this morning, with 22 pounds in it, I felt like it was my good ‘ol buddy, familiar and comfortable on my back.    The weather was cloudy, with occasional light rain and gusty wind.  A group was out for a guided wildflower walk, and they were doing a lot of grumping about the weather.   Bill and I have gotten used to this hiking in cold, rain and wind business….but we ARE hoping we won’t have too much of it on the PCT.  We will see!   I checked the weather report for Tehachapi today, hoping to hear “sunshine, 80 degrees”, but no, it was just like here–cloudy, drippy and temps in the 50’s.   That doesn’t bode well for snow levels in the Sierras when we get there in late May or early June.  We may have to take some zeros and revise our schedule, but at this point, we are still determined to stick to our plan.

I spent the afternoon sewing, but not for the PCT.   I was making an “Isadora Duncan dance dress” for our daughter, who will be portraying Isadora at a “chautaqua” in June at the National Maritime Museum in San Francisco.  She and I volunteer with the living history program there, and have a wonderful time every second Saturday of the month,  reliving 1901 San Francisco aboard the several awesome old ships in the Museum.  Each month, we try to recreate something that actually happened in San Francisco in that month in 1901, or if nothing noteworthy happened, we just demonstrate activities that people of all different social classes might have done at that time.   (I didn’t go today, even though it was living history day, because I needed to finish so many things for the Awana Club and the PCT.)   Our daughter portrays a very upperclass young lady from a wealthy family, while I vary between middle class ferry passenger, or upper middleclass lady, or on occasion, a maid.    Bill comes only once a year, to play a night watchman on the pier for our “Christmas at Sea” program in December.   It is a lot of fun, and especially for us, because we really enjoy history!  When we are on the PCT, the official guidebook has tidbits of history in it that are fun to read and think about as we hike along.  History is NOT boring!

Well, we feel as if the countdown for the PCT has begun.  Today we did a challenging hike with heavy packs in Annadel State Park.  Many of the trails there are very rough & rocky (just like the PCT!) and there are plenty of hills, plus some creeks to rockhop across.  As we were on the homestretch, I was thinking, “Wow, this will be the LAST time we hike at Annadel.  We only have one more “big” hiking day till we leave for ADZPCTKO.” 

It was a spectacular day–clear air, clear blue skies, cool breeze, lots of wildflowers, and the hillsides covered with the artist’s palette of greens and red/orange as the oak trees are leafing out.  The leaves are so new that they are still shiny, and it makes the trees have a bit of a shimmering look.  The wild turkeys were gobbling about everywhere we went, and the birds were busy doing their spring thing.  I had to look at this beauty out of the corner of my eye, because the trails are so rough that you really have to watch your step.  Once in awhile when the trail smoothed out, I could hike on “cruise control” and just soak in the scenery.  Carrying such a heavy pack meant we were both really tired by the time we finished, but we know that this will help us be ready for the PCT!   In 2005, as I have mentioned before, we thought “mileage is everything”.   Nope.  It helps, but WEIGHT is what counts.

Among the many wild furry creatures we saw today, there were squirrels (scolding at us as we walked under “their” tree!) and lots of signs of ground squirrels, gophers, etc.   Actually, when we are backpacking, we worry FAR MORE about these sharptoothed, hungry little furry critters that scurry about than we ever do about bears, rattlesnakes, mountain lions or ticks.   Those cute furry rascals can easily chew right through your pack to get at the goodies inside.   We learned the hard way that we needed to HANG our food at night to keep it safe from the mice, ground squirrels, chipmunks, etc. that live up in the mountains.  The only time we didn’t hang our food to keep it safe from these little guys was when we were more worried about protecting the food from bears.  There is no way we will hang our food in say, Yosemite.   We either have it in a bear box, a bear can, or right next to us, with trek poles and rocks at the ready for whomping any bear that tries to take it.

When we were on the PCT in 2005, in the Desolation Wilderness near Lake Tahoe, the nerve of the ground squirrels was unbelievable.   We could not even sit and eat lunch in peace, with our packs right next to us!  That night, we seriously hung our food so that no ground squirrel had a chance to get at it.  

One time we did a backpacking trip into Lassen National Park, and camped at Drakesbad for the night before leaving early the next morning.   Our food bags were in a wooden “cupboard” in the campground.  During the night, some little furry critter squiggled in and raided our granola.  When we got up in the early morning to hit the trail (planning to eat breakfast once the air warmed up), we discovered the damage.  Sigh.  We didn’t want to drive all the way back to Chester to buy more granola, so we decided to just make do with “short rations”. 

You have to take those sharptoothed little guys seriously!

A lot of times when people find out that Bill and I hiked the PCT in 2005,  the ladies ask me, “Weren’t you scared of the rattlesnakes?”   Let’s put it this way:  I am VERY polite to rattlesnakes, and find that almost all of them are equally polite to me.  Sometimes I call them “the gentlemen of the trail”,  because they BUZZ to let you know you are too close and they are getting nervous.  Most of them, after giving you a buzz, head away as fast as they can, while  we do the same!   While I am running fast to get by them, they are slithering equally fast in the opposite direction!

OK, there are exceptions–we have met a few very determined rattlesnakes– but I’ve noticed that they always have a good reason for their determination.  Usually that reason is they’ve found a really “cushy” spot where they are very comfortable, and they don’t want to leave.  They would rather YOU go away, so they can rest in comfort.  Can’t say I blame them–if I were a rattlesnake on a 100 degree-plus day, and I’d found the perfect spot under a bush, and a hiker came along, I know I wouldn’t want to move, either!  I’d rather let that hiker know, “I got here first, and you look scary.  Go away!”

On the PCT, we met many rattlesnakes.  The first one was on our second day, climbing up into the Laguna Mountains.  It was late in the afternoon, which is when the snakes start to come out.  He buzzed nicely, I ran a little bit, and we were both fine.   Probably the MOST DETERMINED rattlesnake we met on our entire trip was heading down toward Scissors Crossing.  Again, it was late afternoon of a very hot day.  He was right in the middle of the trail, and there was no way he was going to move over for us, even when Bill nailed him right in the nose with a small rock.  So we had to go offtrail and go around him.  Sigh.   As to the part of the PCT with the MOST rattlesnakes, I would give that “prize” to the stretch between Burney Falls State Park and Castella.  It’s shady there–lots of big trees–and also very hot.   Perfect rattlesnake country, and man, were there a lot of them.   All very polite, however.

Personally, as I said, I have great respect for rattlesnakes,  but I am not freaked out by them.  A rattlesnake bite will NOT kill you.  

Bill and I were out on one of our short (2 1/2 hours) hikes today.  After two days of rain, it was glorious to be in sunshine again, with the hills intensely green and lots of wildflowers out.   It was not a good day for seeing rattlesnakes!   They don’t like it in the cool, wet, damp springtime.   Normally around here, you don’t see them till it’s well and truly summertime, and usually we only spot them in the late afternoon when the ground is thoroughly warmed up by a hot sun.

This past weekend, we had a wonderful Easter, with very moving and solemn services on Good Friday, and then Easter morning, we were up at 4:30 am to drive into the mountains for an Easter Sunrise service at a place called Mt. Gilead.  It’s in the redwoods out near Russian River.  You park your car in a deep, dark redwood valley, then begin your hike up a fire road to the top of the mountain.  It’s very dark in the valley, and even darker as you begin your climb.  We never bring a flashlight.  Making your way up in the darkness is part of the experience (We think so, anyway!  Other people bring flashlights).  After quite a climb, you are finally on top, the trees thin out, and for awhile (till the clouds moved in) we could see the moon.  Very beautiful.    The service begins in darkness, then as the sun comes up, it gets brighter and brighter.   The birds begin to sing.   Because of the thick clouds (which turned into pouring rain a few hours later) we never got to see the sunrise this year, but that’s OK–it’s still gorgeous to watch the brightness building up.   We got to do a lot of singing (it was cold enough to see your breath!) and shout with joy, “The Lord is risen!  He is risen indeed!” 

Then Bill and I trotted down the mountain, watching the kids “kamikaze” down the really steep parts, and had the most awesome breakfast ever, a breakfast worthy of a thruhiker with a major case of “hiker hunger”, before heading for “regular” church services back home.  It is a day to enjoy!   In the evening, in our family, we have what we call a “Resurrection feast”, all of food which Jesus and his disciples might have had at a feast in their time, and we watch the “Jesus” film made many years ago by Warner Brothers and Campus Crusade. 

The next day (yesterday), Bill and I spent several hours carefully checking all the food in our resupply boxes to make sure that everything was there.  Yup, all is well.  Now we start adding the NON-food items, like maps and replacement shoes and stuff like that.  Bill lined up a rental car for us to drive from Petaluma to San Diego.   I finished making a new “town” shirt to carry in my pack. It was a good, busy day of “PCT Prep”.