Guest Post from a Guest Hiker



This is a guest post of a recent section of Dan's hike chronicling a section hiker joining him from Quincy- LaPorte Road to Burney (about 180 miles).  What a life highlight! I learned a few things myself and him, only some of which I'll share here. I will say to every parent: if you have the chance to experience something special, one on one, with your adult son or daughter for 12 days, or any length of time, DO IT! It is a rich, deeply personal highlight of my life.

A few things I learned about Dan:

He is an incredibly fit, fast hiker.

He thinks alot.

He knows the woods and hiking.

A few things I learned about me:

I am not getting younger.

Toenails are superfluous (relearned lesson from my marathon days).

The old goat still has some gas left in the tank.

A few things Dan taught me.

Soak up the experiences.

Enjoying moments, good or bad, is within your control.

Tomorrow is a long way off - do it today and enjoy it now.

7/6
Flew into Reno, rented a car, supplies purchased and off to Belden Hiker Haven (Big shout out to Brenda Braaten, wonderful hostess!) to drop the resupply box. I stopped and bought beer, root beer, gummi bears, a sandwich and ice from local grocery store. They sat cooling on the floor of the car and on to Quincy-LaPorte Rd. @ MM1235 to see if Dan was there. Came around the corner and saw the familiar, though now dingy, green fishing shirt sitting on a rock. Honked loudly and the green shirt turned with a HUGE smile! Jumped out with the cold beer, a root beer and gummis in hand. Amazingly, he seemed more interested in a giving me a big bear hug than the beer. We sat on a big rock drinking the beer (root beer lost out), eating and catching up. He'd arrived just 15 minutes prior after a 27 mile hump by 2:30 - what timing! We drove down to Reno to visit REI and get him some new shoes, a hotel that had laundry (yes, he was trail perfumed) and dinner at the local brewery. I had lined up a ride from Craig's List the next day.

7/7
The next morning our Craig’s list-arranged ride texted he was bailing and offered some weak apology…a**hole! Somewhat earnestly (desperately?) we searched, called lifelines in Florida and came up with Jerry of Jerry’s Taxi Service (neat, older Navy vet with a bunch of stories about Burning Man and the like) to take us back to MM1235 and off we went arriving about 3. My plan was to hump-out at a screaming pace for the first mile or two to scare the younger one into thinking he couldn’t keep up with me. Ah, the folly of an old man! Tore out for the first half mile when the reality of that folly began to crystalize. I paused to adjust my pack (the trusty, old school Kelty external frame, often regarded with a mix of skepticism and wonderment by other hikers over the next 180 miles) and he looked at me with a sly smile. "You can't keep that up."...... "Did I scare you?" I ask hopefully..... "Nope, I can't keep that pace all day, so I knew you couldn't."

  

Sorry the quality of some of the photos isn't up to par, Dan is a much better photographer than his old man. I've got some better ones for the next post.



The rookie (Mile 0) poses with the veteran (Mile 1235), old school external frame and all.






Hey, just checking my land nav, but are you sure this the way?

10 miles later it was getting dark and we selected a (barely flat) sketchy campsite. Without mosquito nets, we would have needed transfusions. Dan said it was the worst campsite he'd had, period. I wake up several times to the sounds of the woods. Some sounds comfort, some cause aprehension, but I like being out in the open. It feels vulnerable, but right. 

By the way, you can't spit through a mosquito net, trust me on that.

Some small pine cones we ran across.

7/8 and 9

A good day for a hike! The views, the smells, the dirt, the water...I'm in heaven. We talk about things banal as well as deep. My dogs begin to bark, but I don't listen. The trail provides....

Some trail magic.

Blow down obstacle.

No problem,..... well not much anyway.

Wow!

Vista after vista.

Nature's art.

Dan the Man enjoying life.

Magical bounty.

Walking through mule's ear and purple flowers.



Snow!

More trail magic.

The descent into Belden is brutal. Steep, hot, dry, poison oak everywhere and so much overgrowth you can’t see the trail or your feet much of the time. And ever so relentlessly down. The trail gives up about 4000 feet of elevation in just over 3 miles. I am slow. I should have gotten the size 14 shoes as my feet swelled and the 13’s suddenly fit perfectly. Except perfectly means my toes hit the front of the shoe wall on any descent. Each step is a pain challenge. Walking backwards helps, but I seldom am able due to the risk of falling….it is a long way down. Did I mention the relentlessness of descent?
We can see the river below. It invites, but remains distant despite my efforts to reel her in. Blisters are raging, I know my toenails aren’t long for the world. Dan is fit and well-experienced. He hides his frustration at my slow-paced hobbling fairly well. He sits and watches me hobble ahead down the switchbacks. A few times he stops and takes pictures, checks the maps/Yogi notes, dawdles. He easily catches up. I’m not terribly happy; sweaty, thirsty and I stink. I bark a bit. We continue and he puts up with me.
I am acutely aware of the gap between our hiking fitness levels. He’s a remarkable hiker. I’m impressed by him. I am slow and feeling it. Am I still tough enough? I know only that I will not stop. I just hope I can hike fast enough in the coming days for him not to regret having me along. Flat terrain finally arrives and we cross the railroad tracks to a road above the river. I want to take a swim, but my feet and toes dissuade me due to the descent required to get to the river (only about 20 feet, but steep.) That and the call of the café.

I have my first ‘trail-qualified’ town meal….what else but a big, fat, deliciously greasy burger and Fat Tire drafts….sitting outside watching the cool river. Bliss. No really, bliss. A Navy bath in the restroom, outside on a deck over the river, tired, the promise of a shower at the hostel, and sharing an earned meal/beer with my son.

Belden comes with a map/notes warning that it is weird. Can’t explain why, but I get it. Different vibe in that town: not at the Braatens, just the town.

A quick call to the Braatens and Brenda arrives to take us to Hiker Haven. She is an angel! We camp outside because it is full. I shower. My feet are a mess. I get my first extended time in the company of through hikers. They are by and large a crunchy, bulgar wheat sort. But physically tough, driven and goal-oriented. The contrast surprises me. Definitely not main-stream and different than the AT hikers I’m accustomed to.

7/10

We hike 1/2 mile to the Caribou Crossroads to wash clothes and get a good breakfast The sign boasted the best shakes on the PCT, I'm a believer. Never had breakfast with a really great boysenberry milkshake before, or any boysenberry shake at all. Back at the Braaten’s, I get out my old running shoes I’d packed as backup/camp shoes and cut holes for my toes. They feel good. My light-weight hikers are reduced to dead weight in the pack. Dan can't believe I packed extra shoes and is bewlidered I am keeping the ones that caused the toe injuries in the pack. One of many head shakes directed my way.

We unpack the supplies I’d dropped off 3 days earlier. We have too much and decide to mail a package ahead. I call the Post Office and verify they are open till 5. We create a box with about 10 lbs of food and gear. I sneak the heavy peanut butter and Nutella jars out of Dan's pack in my pack. My pack weighs significantly more than Dan’s. The Braaten’s scale says 35 lbs. Without water.
I discard several foolishly included items like deodorant. I begin to embrace my hikerness a bit. We finish packing and walk 1.5 miles down the road, dodging speeding logging trucks by stepping over the rail. My “At least it is on the road…” is met by Dan stating road hiking isn't easier than the trail or fun. He is right. He carries the box first. I take it, insisting on carrying it the rest of the way. Dan sees through me, shakes his head and tells me to quit try to prove I’m tough. I don’t give it back to him.

My feet feel much better in my new ‘old’ shoes. The post office finally appears up a hill. Closed. It is only 2PM and the sign says closed. I hit redial on my phone and a lady answers "Quincy Post Office, I how may I help you?" I realize I’d dialed Quincy instead of Belden. We face a 7 mile climb with 5000 feet of elevation gain to start today. A wildfire a few years back removed any shade. We have too much food and weight. We take the good stuff from our box, add it to our packs and add to a small pile of food some other hiker began before us. He discovers I’ve taken the PB and Nutella. Several times over the trip we each try to sneakily carry them.  We leave a lot, but ultimately, our packs still weigh more. My mistake has cost us. It is not grave, but backpacking doesn’t have a great margin for error. I knew this, but have learned it again.

We begin the ascent. I am so much better going up. My energy tank full, I yearn for all elevation gain with no descent. The trail beckons...more to come.

Pictures from last post

Having trouble with updating this stupid thing from my phone. The last post got chopped off including all the pictures.

Tahoe update

<p>Hiked into the infamous Donner pass last night and stayed in the wonderful tinkers station hostel (if they only had laundry it would be one of the best trail stops). I'm not too familiar with the Donner party story other than that they ate eachother but all things considered this is the most gentle crossing over the sierra I've seen in a while. The hiking is still gorgeous by most standards but its hard to compete with the incredible beauty of the high sierra I'm leaving. Mentally I'm slowly sailing into the norcal doldrums, I still have 500 of relatively unsenic miles to make it out of California. <br>
Getting back on the trail in Yosemite after 9 days off was much tougher than I had anticipated. I didn't make it any easier by trying to do 5 straight 30 mile days in new shoes on what I later found out is the toughest section on the entire trail. Needles to say my feet quickly transformed into open sore covered instruments of torture and are just now beginning to recover thanks to a new duct taping method I discovered. One nice thing about getting back on after the extended time off is the newness of everything again. The vulnerable feeling of sleeping alone among the nightly noises of the woods without the comfort of a tent, the feeling of accomplishment at the top of a long climb, and the simplicity of dunking a water bottle in an icy mountian stream and gulping down fresh sensations once again. <br>
I also had the best swim yet on the trail. Right at the top of a pass sat a gorgeous glacial lake with a large sunny rock. After a convincing myself I could afford a break and still make my mileage I quickly changed into my birthday suit and dove deep and wide into the crystal blue water. After a few laps I climbed out and dried out on the sunny rock. The light breeze was enough to keep the mosquitos at bay and it was truly one of the best trail experiences so far.
A few nasty trail days remained between me and the buffets of Tahoe. They included tough, windy, and epic ridge walk into sonora pass where a trail angel awaited with cookies and soda =). My

Who likes rocks? (Yosemite Update)

 Hiking into Yosemite was a fun, easy little section. Mosquito swarms are blooming everywhere with all the snowmelt and warm temperatures.  It doesn't take more than 30 seconds for over two dozen to sink and feast in many places. Another annoying swarm on the trail near and in Yosemite is the crowds of people everywhere, I must have seen 5 times as many people from Mammoth to the end of the Muir Trail in Yosemite Valley as I have on the entire hike combined. One place I was able to avoid the crowds fortunately was climbing Half-Dome. Normally the is the most crowded trail in the park, but I went up only a few hours before sunset and saw only a handful of people the entire climb. I got up to the top around 6 and decided to stay for sunset the only three people I met who going up were nice enough to take a few pics for me but left within thirty minutes. They didn't want to come down in the dark. The sunset was beautiful but mostly it was nice having such a dramatic and beautiful place all to myself for a few hours. All I'll say about coming down in the dark is its a hell of a lot harder than going up in good light.

San Francisco, 3am sitting in the hostel lounge.

As I polish of my Anchor Steam, a decent enough "local" brew, I try to savor the last hours of my retreat in the horn of plenty filled with beer, hobos, ungodly amounts of food, girls, beaches, and productive members of society known as San Francisco. I mistakenly fooled myself into thinking I would be able to carve out enough time to write some crazy amount of posts to actually get the blog to the content level I originally planned for. So, I'll work backwards and hope I get far.

The city here hasn't quite won me over this time but it certainly has grown on me. After doing all the touristy things the first couple days, I ventured off on my own to run some errands and was able to walk a good bit of some more 'authentic' parts city. It sucks to have to walk on days I'm not hiking, especially several miles on cement sidewalks, but I was able to get a feel for San Francisco beyond Union Square, Chinatown, The Wharf, etc...  We were also able to run into some better nightlife places the last few nights as well. My biggest beef with this city is the 2am closing time for bars and how the place turns into a ghost town quickly after.

Lonely Pier 39 Sea Lion

Alcatraz

Coastal Redwoods hiking around Mount Tamalpais in SF.

View from the top of Mount Tamalpais

High Sierra In a Photo-Packed Nutshell

Updating from the very cool town of Mammoth Lakes after a few weeks immersed in the most beautiful backcountry I have been in to date.  If there I have a place of worship, places like this are my holy grounds.  If you need a nudge to remind you how incredibly beautiful the Earth is come to the High Sierra and its beauty will punch you in the face.
Enough about that though and more about me. I left Kennedy Meadows, the unofficial start of the Sierra on the PCT, a little bored and tired of the routine nature of thru-hiking.  I tried to make things interesting though the desert by catching my own food one night, making several stops looking around old Native American camps marked by chips of obsidian, and an unscheduled trip to Lake Isabella for cheeseburgers but somehow ended up in the Kernville Brewery three towns away; but I was getting burnt out.

The first couple days out of Kennedy Meadows didn't help much either, the trail is like walking on a beach up hill the whole time. But I finally made it to the High Sierra. I'll let the pictures do the talking for now. I'll be taking a few days off to tear down San Francisco with my brother and will try to fill in the volumes of missing stories on the journey there.

Well posting this took way to long even with the lack of narrative. Blogging sucks! Hope you guys are enjoying it. I'm off to try a burger challenge (eat it all and its free!)