We spent the day yesterday hiking the Bolinas Ridge Trail in Point Reyes National Seashore.  It’s our next-to-last big training hike before we head out for the CDT, and we figured it had at least some CDT features:  cows, mud, big hills, wind and wildflowers.

From what we’ve read of CDT hiker blogs, sounds like cows are everywhere on the CDT–just like on Bolinas Ridge.  The cows on the Ridge are mostly Black Angus, and they are totally blasé about hikers coming by.  “Oh, more hikers…yawn…go back to chewing cud.”  One time we were up there and the cows were hanging out in a large group right on the trail, totally blocking it.  Huddled in a nervous group some distance from them was a group of dayhikers, obviously wanting to follow the trail, but scared of the cows.  Fixit and I pay cows no mind, and we just marched past the trembling dayhikers, right at the cows, who of course politely (only a few tossed heads and snorts) moved out of the way.  Now mind you, if there had been a bull around, we wouldn’t have done that, but there was no bull in sight.  Actually, yesterday, we did see a bull, but he was behind one of the fences.  Whew.  They are big guys and we would not mess with one of THEM.

Mud…the Bolinas Ridge has a number of mudhole stretches, but yesterday they weren’t too bad.  We stopped and looked at one of the biggest puddles and joked, “So that’s what the water looks like on the CDT?  Oh, fun!”    But we are seriously thinking about how to deal with CDT water.  It’s going to be Aqua Mira, but we may need to strain things first.  We are deciding what to bring for that.

Bolinas Ridge is also a great trail for practicing lots of ups and downs.  It’s more ups going out, then more downs coming back, but plenty of rollercoaster inbetween.  Back when we were first training for the PCT in 2005, we found that hills were really rough on our knees.  I’d come home and owww, my knees were sore for a couple of days after a big hill hike.  Once we got ON the PCT, it just got worse.  By Warner Springs, my right knee especially was really hurting.  I mentioned this to Anna, a fellow thruhiker, and she said, “Oh, I can fix that!   Here, you can have one of my patella straps.  I’m actually doing fine–I can manage without it.  You can get your own at Big Bear City, and give me mine back.”  Bingo–with a patella strap in place under my kneecap, the pain vanished.  And yes, I did get my own at Big Bear, and returned Anna’s with much thanks!  Eventually I found that my knees became so strong, I didn’t need the patella strap anymore, and now, though I still have a pair of them, I never use them.  Yesterday even carrying a heavy training pack and doing lots of hills, I was fine.

Wind–from what I hear, the CDT can be very windy.  OK–we had plenty of that yesterday, too–cold, cold wind that was enough to make us stagger a bit.  We were joking about it, “OK, on the scale of PCT winds–would this be Tehachapi Pass level (the worst), or Sonora Pass approach (2nd worst) or Cajon Pass approach (3rd worst) or San Gorgonio Pass (4th worst)?”  We finally decided on Sonora Pass, since the wind there was so COLD, just like the one we were in.  Brrrrr!

Lastly, wildflowers.  Yes!   Up on Bolinas Ridge, since it is very windy, the flowers grow low to the ground, but they were everywhere, like a carpet of green interwoven with yellow, gold, pink, blue…….  And then when we were in the woodsy sections, there were woods wildflowers like douglas iris in the sunnier spots, dainty white milkmaids, trout lily and others.   I am looking forward to seeing what the wildflowers will be on the CDT!

Then we came home, showered, ate and tackled MORE packing of resupply boxes!   The countdown has begun!