Mount Shasta!

I am at mile 1510! Over half way now and only a few hundred left in Cali! I should be in Oregon in 10 days. Well, after a whirlwind trip back to Florida: 2 days of flying, 2 days of hitch-hiking, and 5 days in FL (wedding, work, baby sighting-Calina) I got back on the trail exhausted. I ended up with giardia, a parasite that lives in your intestines and causes the evacuation of everything, and had to obtain antibiotics to get rid of it (thanks JT). All better now but hiking on antibiotics was not fun. I am stepping up the mileages now to average 25 per day. The terrain has levelled out but the heat has picked up, but nothing compared to FL. I did take a short greyhound ride that was one of the worst experiences of my life. The only seat was in the rear of a packed bus. Unfortunately the bathroom door would never close, and seems to have not been cleaned in a month. The hitches were great, a farmer, construction worker, an ex-con, a not-for-profit manager, and logger. Amazingly a quarter of my hitches have been from firefighters.

Last week I had to night hike to make it to a post office in a small town called Old Station. About midnight my headlamp flashed some gold eyes, turns out it was a bear!! A few loud noises with my trekking pole scared him off. I was on my toes after that, and in the days since I have spotted 2 more. In that same town is a trail angel named Gorgi. She is an older woman who takes in hikers and cooks breakfast and dinner for them. So I stayed the night and hiked out the next morning. 5 miles later I was at a restaurant eating my second breakfast-best on the trail-breakfast burrito covered in country gravy! Another mile later I was in a cave formed by an old lava tube. In this cave the temp was 60 degrees while outside it was 100! I and another hiker spent 4 hours in there wasting the afternoon away. This cave had a parking lot for tourists, so we went to solicit a ride back to town to eat lunch! By 4 pm, and being awake since 5:30 am, we had made it 5 miles!! And been to the same town 3 times in 1 day. Sometimes you just follow your stomach.

And I wanted to thank my crew at station 1A for their warm welcome and intriguing sense of humor! One word, demented!

On that note, off to dinner for beer and burgers...

Peace!!!

The snow has subsided!!

Hello all! With the continuation of long days and lack of computer access, blogging was nearly impossible. A lot of hikers have smart phones and will write their journals at night on them, then once they reach town will turn them on and download their entries. I am not so lucky.

I am officially at mile 1293, in Quincy, CA. The snow has almost ended, so the miles will start melting away. The last time I wrote I was half way through the Sierras. I left Bishop, CA with 6 other hikers, then 3 of us split off to go on our own. It becomes a little difficult to make decisions with that large of a group when navigating. We had purchased extra detailed maps for this section since the guidebook only provides a quick reference.

Snow stories:

1. We camped above 10,000 feet on a cold night and woke up with frozen shoes! They would not bend in any direction and I could not put them on. So I had to pour a pint of water on each shoe to loosen them up! Who needs coffee when putting on frozen shoes in the snow.

2. Every day I acquired a memory of the trail, through scrapes and cuts. Everyday I would have some accident to cause some small wound. I once post-holed in the snow and racked my knee on a rock. It gave me a wound like a baseball raspberry from sliding in to a base.

3. One night we came upon a river that we were supposed to ford (cross) by wading. If we had crossed where the trail went, we would have been chest high. Once the water gets over your stomach (center of gravity) it becomes very difficult to stay on your feet. We decided to wait until morning when the river would be lower. So, we hiked up the shoreline to find a better place to cross, tried two or three places without luck, and came to a tributary creek. This side creek was as deep and wide as the main river! We were stuck! We either turn back a and look for another way, or we swim across. One of the hikers I was with had an inflatable sleeping pad called a Neoair. He blew it up and one by one we swam across fully submerged, but our packs stayed above the water. Did I mention this was at 6am, the water was in the 30's F with the air in the 40's F. All made it safely and we warmed up after 2 hours of hiking!

Toilette Humor

If you do not want to hear stories of human waste, please skip this section.

1. One of the hikers ended up with fecal matter on their shorts. But they could not figure out whether they did it with their shorts on or while performing the evacuating deed.

2. One day I had horrible, horrible flatulence. I farted so hard that I pissed myself a little.

3. I was using an outhouse at a public campground. I tend to visually inspect the receptacle prior to sitting, this time was no different. As I peeked in I saw the bottom about 8 feet a way, great! As I proceeded to sit and evacuate, the first drop produced a back splash so high that I became wet where I was once dry! First thing in the morning I had a wet ass!! My co-hikers only heard profanities coming from the tiny building and then me kicking open the door in disgust (after I cleaned up). I was scarred after that one.

4. At another out house I was having a movement and sneezed at the same time. The discovery I made was the back pressure created sped up the evacuation process.

Over the last week I was pushing hard on my own to get to Quincy to catch my flight. I left my buddies behind in South Lake Tahoe to do long miles. My first day out was 10, but I had started at 4pm. Then the next 3 days were 30 milers. I hiked 5 miles into town and took the rest of the day off in Sierra City. Then repeated three 30 milers into Quincy. I was whooped!! There was still snow for 40-50% of the trail, and I was hiking from 5 am til 8 pm. Along the way though I saw a yellow bellied marmot and her 2 pups, a barred owl and her two fledgelings, and a mama bear and her two cubs (one was climbing down a tree). It was a good challenge but I look forward to getting back and doing 20 to 25's at a relaxed pace. I'll be at the official half way point my second day back on the trail. I am in Florida now. Just went to my sister's wedding, hanging out with a few friends, will work Monday, and fly out Tuesday, July 13.

One last story that I keep forgetting to write, is about food. A hiker had bought a soup mix for dinner out on the trail. She made it and couldn't finish so offered me the rest. I should have been suspect since she has never offered before. It tasted like a bullion cube! She didn't reed the large print on the front of the package that said makes 5 quarts. She had only used 16 ounces of water, 1/2 quart! She had a pulse of 140 before going to sleep, had some chest pain, but it all subsided the next day.

Peace out!!