Day 9: Mile 91.2 - 104.9

Today the ankle was feeling pretty good--no outstanding pain--and for that exact, precise reason, I did another short day: less than 15 miles. Did not push either the pace or the mileage. I may try pushing a bit tomorrow, but today, the legs felt good, and I let them have their easy day--in particular, lazy afternoon--in the sun.

I did take a long break in the middle of the day, around noon, because at the Montezuma Valley Road crossing, there was trail magic! A group of folks had headed out to Eagle Rock to clean up trash in the morning, then setup a canopy tent and a bunch of snacks and food for thru-hikers afterwards. They had drinks in coolers, they had bags of chips, cookies, sandwiches, but most importantly for me, fruit! Fruit is very good: I've made sure to get a banana-and-orange combo, let's see, in Mount Laguna, in Julian, now at trail magic. Pretty much anywhere I can get it, I will, regardless of price at this point! 

The trail magic was a nice break, very kind, very generous: one of the folks there, Just Paul, had done the trail back in 2003, so he knows what it's like. To have someone just provide to complete strangers is pretty amazing. And they may have sophisticated reasons for it--I didn't probe--but maybe it's as simple as it's nice to help folks, so if we can, why not? 

As for the trail itself, today it continued north along the spine of a mountain range, sometimes on the east side, sometimes on the west. To the west is desert, but to the east the desert is more green, belaying weather patterns, and even, on the far hillsides, there's a touch of ochre. We speculated those were poppy blooms--certainly they looked similar to the hillsides across Lake Elsinore that year the poppy blooms were mondo-famous and brought excited tourists from all over, so that's what I'm going with! The trail eventually descends down from the spine, heading down the east side into a brief riparian interlude around Montezuma Valley Road, before continuing into rolling pastures on the other side of the road. The cows were out here, and it was quite a change, from the hot and windy desert a day ago, to dry-pasturing cattle today. The pastures came to a stream on the north end, and that's where I ended my day, sitting by the streambed, slightly upstream from where a whole Boy Scout troop had established base camp.

I did talk to a new group of folks today. Spoke some with Truck and Gray Goose, old hands (it seems) at this thru-hiking stuff; I should probably be watching more closely for their best practices. 😋 Bumped into Young and Tom again: they were aiming to finish at Warners later today (that's 4.5 miles further on from where I'm at), and Young had promised his wife he'd be home tonight so I'm pretty sure they made it. Met Wiki and Bloom "Lorax" too. Got a good music recommendation from Wiki: need to check out Brass Band music (she plays the sax in a brass band), which is evidently a combo of big band with New Orleans second line--drawing from those traditions at least--but then made into its own thing. For Bloom, ended up walking a few miles with her. She recently got accepted to a graduate program starting this August, and is debating whether to finish the trail or leave to start that. My immediate two cents was to finish the trail--this seems a momentous uncommon thing, that seems an ordinary thing that will be there next year and the year after that and the year after that--but I'm biased: I quit my job for this, after all! And in retrospect, I was probably too quick to offer advice, probably should have listened more first. Because thinking about it, there's lots of ways to do the trail: cf Young's method of a weekend here, weekend there; cf Masako's method of 3 weeks here, 3 weeks away, then 3 months here; cf Wiki who has it setup with her job so that she takes 6 months off every summer, and so this year PCT or next year PCT is all the same in a way. So who's to say that a hike until August, then coming back to finish it next summer, wouldn't work? (Well, for me, it wouldn't, but mostly because I hate leaving without finishing a project; was one of the reasons I delayed leaving Qualcomm as much as I could, to finish first Titanium, and then Spruce, as much as possible.) Oh, another story: Bloom had originally intended to do the JMT but couldn't get permits, so called the PCTA about getting a permit from them (since there's a lot of overlap between the two). Well, a PCT permit just opened up, they said, you can get a PCT permit. So she did, then called them back to make sure she did it right. Umm, they said, you might want to extend your end date: it's a long trail, and most people take until October to finish. Ok, she said, and then, a mere three weeks later, started the trail. She'll say she had been preparing for the JMT for a year, so was ready to go, in a sense. I'll say that, after going through my whirlwind two weeks pre-PCT trying to get everything ready, a three week turnaround from "ok, let's do the PCT" to "ok, I'm here on the PCT", is pretty incredible!

Hmm, there's a lesson there too: you'll meet some pretty incredible people out here! (Actually, the real lesson is you'll meet some pretty incredible people everywhere, it's just being out here happens to draw that incredible-ness in sharp relief.)

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Some notes:

-- I figure today's as good a day for an assessment--it's the one week mark (roughly), I passed the 100-mile trail marker, and I've gotten to learn from some travails--so here goes.

-- First and foremost, I've been incredibly lucky. The weather--the least controllable thing--has been gorgeous, the ridiculous winds around Scissor's Crossing notwithstanding. I hike around SoCal all the time, and if I could get this weather--sunny, but not yet hot, with breezes still cool--I'd take it in a heartbeat. It may be different for those not used to SoCal, but this weather has been ideal.

-- Second, for me, it's been about a week before I start to see the body making adjustments. Hunger is starting to rear its head, sleep cycles are improving, even the bathroom is becoming more regular. There's still lots of adjustments to make, but the body is starting to realize what it's getting into, and starting to make the appropriate changes.

-- Third, the legs have been holding up well, knock on wood. Except for the ankle tendonitis a couple days ago, the legs haven't been that sore, haven't been exhausted. (Knock on wood again.) I think to do a hike like this I have to pay. And I can pay on the trail and suffer the soreness and stiffness and ricketty-ness out here now, or I can have paid bit-by-bit, hike-by-hike, every Saturday for the last few years. The latter was my plan, and man, do I still remember some of those payments! But hopefully my credit is still good--I'm looking to make a pretty big withdrawal!--and holds up for, oh, another 2550 miles or so! 😋

-- (To be fair, the "you gotta pay to play" concept isn't just mine: Captain Sully of "landing a plane on the Hudson" fame explained his feat in very similar terms.)

-- I have a new sleeping bag technique! In the ads they always show the people in the bags with their faces framed by the face opening at the top, and that's what I tried at first but my nose kept freezing off. So I took a page from some cowboy campers I saw a few nights ago. They stuffed themselves completely into their bags: looked like little brightly colored cocoons, complete with the odd shapes (where they bent their knees, say). So now I sleep as *low* in the bag as possible, so that the top of my head just makes the face opening. I keep the bag slightly unzipped, so if I want to poke my face out I can pull down the flap and do so, but if I want to bury my head and get out of the cold, can do that too.

--  Oh, and maybe this exposes my soCal naivete, but when sleeping in a bag--even a warm bag like the one I have--there are going to be cold spots. Especially when I move, I'll likely find one. The question isn't whether they exist, the question is whether they can be subsequently warmed up if I lay in them a while. Once i got used to this idea--yeah, I'll be cold, but it'll pass and warm up--I slept better.

-- Yesterday I tried the Tom-and-Hottashaw method of making dinner: put up tent, make dinner, then blow up air mattress while waiting for dinner to soak. It worked well! Did a version of it today, worked well again.

-- Today I tried the Ismael method of getting going early, then eating breakfast on the trail. Partially this was just because I woke at 4am and couldn't go back to sleep, so what the heck, might as well get moving. I had camped at Third Gate, though, a popular spot with other hikers encamped nearby, so was afraid of making too much noise breking camp, but I see the appeal of Ismael's method. I'll need to refine it some for my tastes, but the bones are worth exploring more.

-- And Ismael, if you're reading this, you need to get out here! It's amazing! I'm not sure what Vivian will say after going through that AT experience, maybe section hike it or something, but: you need to get out here!