7/14

Today the Germans and I hiked 30 miles which sets us up nicely to enter town tomorrow on a 23.5 mile day. The water sources varied greatly today and the final source before camp was completely dry. I am camping tonight with only a quarter liter but it should be okay as there is water in 1.5 miles. 

The highlight of my day was our dinner spot looking over a very expansive valley to the North.

 

How it's done

I think there is a big difference between the first and second half of a through hike.

I'm going to write this in second person but be aware this is a generalization from my experiences.

During the first half of a thru hike your body is falling apart in a different way each week. Your feet are sore each morning, afternoon and night, and each step is sharp with the pain of agitated blisters. Breaks are needed each hour due to pain and exhaustion. In this way, 20 miles feels like a very very long day in the office.

Let's fast forward 14 hundred miles or so -- to this morning. I woke up at 5:30 am, which was typical at the beginning but is now somewhat early as I have become more lazy in some ways. I left camp by 6 am determined to reach my daily goal of 10 miles by 10 am. From 6 until 10 I did not stop walking. At 10 I took a break to rest my feet and eat some foods not easily eaten while walking. I do everything while walking if I can. With my first goal of 10 by 10 met I moved on to the second goal of 15 by noon. This was accomplished and I had 20 miles done by 2 pm where I stopped at dead fall lake for a swim and lunch break. From here the day felt a little monotonous. I don't have a lot of pain each day anymore. 

Today I fought boredom more than pain. It was the monotony of needing to attain a certain number of miles in order to reach a goal as I have been doing every single day for the last three months. 

I hope this will fade. I read somewhere before my hike that a thru-hike is 90% mental and 10% physical. At the beginning it was 90% mental because you had to use that much mental power to overcome your physical pain. Now it is a mental struggle of perseverance; the miles come easily enough.

 

7/12

Tonight I am camped with Sasquatch and Autobahn. We have a view of Mt. Shasta and the Castle Crags from our spot on the ridge. It's really one of the best camping spots ever.

We left Dunsmuir at noon and still managed to get 18 miles in despite a 3000 foot or so climb. Really a great day.

Going to go enjoy the view.

-Luke

 

Woohoo

I've been hiking very fast ever since leaving Chester. It's been making it hard to keep the blog up to date.

Hooligans boots made it over 1000 miles before being ditched trail side!

This water cache was really special along the 30 mile dry stretch known as hat creek rim.

Hanging with new and old friends just out from Burney State Park. Burney had one of the least hiker friendly stores I have been to, but the unassociated visitors center helped me mail out the package that the store was unwilling to help with. Thanks Steve!

Shasta is big on the Horizon coming into Dunsmuir.

Watch out for poison oak!! Not the best toilet paper material :)

 My feet started hurting after wearing these Brooks Cascadia 7's for 500 miles. Left them on top of the trash can and someone stole the shoe laces!!

The shoes were gone shortly after.

I am now hiking with a couple Germans. Team Lone Pine, or the Zen Lunatics, or the Dharma Bums or whatever people wanted to call us have now disbanded and the hike has evolved into a new form. Feeling good!

-Luke

 
 

 

 

The Misguided Youth

4th of July went like this: drank from 12:01 to 3:00 am and then slept. Woke up at 8:00 am and ran the 5k. Came in 36th place. Went back to camp and changed into Salvation Army clothes specially picked for the festivities. Then we hit the town.

4th of July was wild, but the 3rd takes the cake in my heart.

The 3rd of July, 2013 was made special by these people: the Dentist Dr. Webb for the meals and beer, the Tooth Fairy and her husband Ron for tequila, tacos and a ride to the trail, Ro for more tequila, and the countless unknown saints from the bar down the street who bought us drinks... The adults of Chester may have been some of the most kind humans we have met on the trail, however, the youth of Chester seem a tad misguided.

One girl lied to me. Said her name was Trisha Webb -- the daughter of the dentist who paid for our food-- and drinks were on me!! I was paying for her apple cider when I exclaimed to the bartender that this girl, at this very bar, was Webb's daughter. She gave the girl a sideways glance from a ways down the bar and sternly told me, "No she ain't." That bartender was top dog in that joint and wouldn't let any shit go down; from the locals or nobody.

Trisha, this imposter, this local hooligan playing one over on a poor group of innocent thru-hikers. So what if men want to buy us drinks because we're awesome? Was she jealous? ... My internal dialogue was on fire as I hiked over to her and snatched the cider from her stubby hand. "You lied!" I was yelling in an attempt to amp up the hilarity of the scene for her very cute musician friend Allie... If that was even her real name... Bunch of tricksters in the bar that night.

But Allie told me about the 5k the next day. That turned out to be a real thing. Wow. I'm not sure if I'm more surprised that I was told the truth by a Chester youth or that I got up and actually ran the race. Killer couple days.

Sierra City to Belden to Chester

It has been on the radar for a while but our hiking friend Wabosh is leaving the trail for 2 weeks to be the best man at his brother's wedding.

Here is Wabosh showing some attitude.

After slack packing into Sierra City my dad picked us up and we headed to Downieville where my cousin Matt was also taking a zero day (though he is further south). He cooked us burgers and my Aunt was there to keep us happy and serve us pie and ice cream. Amazing night after a long 36 mile day.

The next day, Wabosh wanted to push a pretty ridiculous pace to have a good shot at finishing when he got back and the rest of us decided to try and keep up. It wasn't easy! We hiked 18 out of Sierra City and then hiked 35 miles the next day followed by another 30 mile day. The next day we popped down into Belden, where the drug/rave scene is sadly apparent in the quality of the restaurant service, and then climbed 5000 feet up and out the same day. That was something like 26 miles. Anyways we made it to Chester today, and I finally got to catch up on my blog. 

Tomorrow is 4th of July and we hit the thrift store to party down on our zero mile day tomorrow. 

The dentist office in town is amazing! It gives hikers free 20 dollar vouchers to a local pizza place. That's the last spot we were with Wabosh. He left to go back to the trail and push 170 miles in 6 days. It wasn't worth it to us to go that fast so we let him go. 

From left to right: hike-a-while, me (Lorax), Zen, and Wabosh.

Tonight we are staying in a local RV park as all the motels are booked. The dentists office paid for our night. Wow. 

Also I woke up to this!

And I saw my first bear of the trip yesterday. Awesome. My dad called it too saying bears would be around the Oroville area. He grew up there.

Oh yeah!! The PCT mid point was this morning! That's 1,325 miles down and the same to go! 

I feel like I'm so dialed in to my hiking that the second half will fly by far faster than the first half. That's assuming we beat the rain in Washington, though. The rain really gets to me. 

Oh, a note on my charity over at http://hike4hope.org - the goal has been raised from 2,650 dollars to 5,000. We reached our original goal before halfway so we decided to raise it. Thanks so much for reading.

Take Care,

Luke

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Slack Pack

The next three days were totally catered by my Dad. He put up the whole group of us for four nights including one zero mile day to wait out the storm and two slack pack days where we didn't carry all of our gear. On those days we hiked 26 miles and then 36 miles to pretty much catch up to our pre storm pace.

Abby, a friend of Colin's joined us for the 26 mile day.

Before I forget I should probably mention that during the zero day I took everyone's money in poker. :)

Dad saves the day!