The doctor sent Bill to a specialist, and the conclusion was that yes,  his problem was due to giardia.   Just to make absolutely sure, though, they want Bill to have a colonoscopy.  Yuck.   Bill is NOT a happy camper at the prospect, but he will go through with it (on Tuesday).

All that aside, though, we are both feeling MUCH better now.   We still feel tired more easily, but we are going hiking every day around our area, including climbing hills.   Yesterday, I put my pack on with a bit of weight in it, and had no problem going for a 2 hour hike.   We are talking about when to return to the trail, and it’s looking like we’ll probably head back to Tehachapi just after the middle of June.  Weather reports on the Sierras sound like the snow is melting OK now.

Reading other hikers’ journals is an option now that we are home, and I discovered that a number of other thruhikers ALSO arrived in Tehachapi sick with giardia-type symptoms.   Many of them just holed up in Tehachapi to wait till they felt better.  We were very blessed to have the Rosander family’s help, plus the option of going home to rest for a couple of weeks.   We have been trying to figure out where we might have picked up “bad water” and the conclusion is it had to be on the detour before Tehachapi.   I suspect it was Aliso Creek, myself.   Some of the hikers were baffled as to how they could have gotten sick.   “I filtered every drop of water I drank,” was one guy’s comment.  

The only frustration I have right now is I have not been able to find a trail journal from a hiker who has RECENTLY made it even as far as Forester Pass.  Bill hikes the John Muir Trail every year in mid-late June and he figures all will be doable, but cautious me, I would like to have a better idea what conditions might be like.  Our plan right now is to take 9 days of food (which is the most we can comfortably carry) and go as far as we can,  hopefully Muir Trail Ranch, anyway.   We are prepared to do as some hikers did in 2005, which is to come into MTR “on fumes”, without having anything to eat for a day or so before they got there.   In 2005, somebody (I think it was MTR) put out a FOOD cache on the PCT about a day or so’s hike before MTR so desperate hikers could have something to eat.   It was a godsend to the early season thruhikers that year.

I (Monty) am feeling much better this morning–stronger and a lot closer to “normal.”   I went for a walk after breakfast and could walk at a normal pace instead of walking like a snail.   Bill is still having problems, though, including some bleeding.   When I realized how bad it was,  I more or less put my foot down and told him  “You are going to the doctor TODAY!” got the phone,  dialed the number, and handed it to him.  

We will see what the doctor has to say–probably he’ll order tests, and then we wait some more.

In a very unexpected turn of  events, we are back home in Petaluma for a couple of weeks, trying to recover from what appears to be some sort of giardia/whatever that we must have picked up from a contaminated water source  back before Agua Dulce somewhere.    Neither of us are what you would call horrendously sick, but we both were feeling nauseous, with no appetite and losing strength.    Not a good combination for taking on the big snows of the High Sierra this year!  Nor did we want to risk spreading the whatever-it-is to other hikers.

We are over-the-top grateful for the AWESOME  love ‘n care we received from the Rosander family, trail angels in Tehachapi, with whom we’d been staying for the past several days,  as we tried to figure out what was wrong with us and decide what to do.   On Sunday,  Christy Rosander basically gave up most of her day to drive us to an urgent care place in Bakersfield, then to a pharmacy for medicine.  

We are definitely on the mend now!   Both appetite and strength are returning. 

And when we return to the PCT (soon, we hope!) we will (sigh) be toting a water filter!

Bill and I had planned to be happily headed back to the PCT this morning,  with a “Kennedy Meadows, here we come” cheer.   But instead, what we had to deal with was continuing to feel weak and not hungry (though a bit better than yesterday).  We sat down with Christy Rosander, and decided the best thing to do was just go home for a couple of weeks.   A quick computer check of different transportation options showed that renting a car was the best thing,  so we scrambled to toss our stuff into our packs, and Christy drove us to Enterprise where a little red Kia was waiting for us.   She even gave us a bagful of water and snacks to eat on the way!   We owe the Rosanders a HUGE debt of gratefulness for all they have done for us!

The trip home was uneventful.   Both of us are still pretty wasted, so we took turns driving.   It was very, very weird to be heading HOME instead of into the Sierras.   But we looked back over the trail so far, and saw how many, many times God was preparing the way for us, working things out, and watching over us, so we figured He must have a plan for us in this, too.   Even getting sick.    “If we were not sick, we would for sure have headed into the Sierras today,” we said to each other.   “The only thing that stopped us was this waterbug.   So God must have some reason either for wanting us home awhile OR maybe He doesn’t want us going into the Sierras yet.”

At 5:30 am, I woke Bill up so we could both take our “waterbug medicine,”  and I was very happy to find that I was feeling much better already.   The nausea was minimal, and I felt stronger.   I actually managed to eat breakfast–very slowly, and in little nibbles, but I could eat again!  Hooray!

Bill and I spent the morning resting, drinking water, nibbling at food, and reading.  The Rosanders have an awesome collection of hiking books,  thanks to Christy’s enthusiasm for backpacking.   And the weather report contained an advisory for rapidly rising rivers–the snow is melting fast!   Very good news!   

 On the sobering side, though, reports from the PCT did not sound encouraging.   Forester Pass “needs mountaineering skills and ice axe to traverse” right now.    We talked about what to do.   Neither of us are in any kind of shape right now to tackle that, much less the climb from Tehachapi Pass up into the Sierras.   It is beginning to look like we may need to go home for a little bit to get well again, then come back.   We are definitely getting better, but still nowhere near as strong as we were when we first got here to Tehachapi.