Crow called me (her son, Laen) tonight from mile 906, Red’s Meadow.
She said that the Sierras kicked her ass, but she kicked it right back. When she has cell service, she’ll send in some updates. She got sunburned really badly, and the snow went up to her waist at times.
She’s in good spirits now, and looking forward to the rest of her hike!
The trail has been hot and ridiculously dry. We are humans not camels.
I made it in and out of Kennedy Meadows in just over an hour. That’s a record for me. I planned it that way because I was afraid that the herd would be there, but all was tranquil and I wished I could have stayed loner.
I hiked down trail pass last night and caught a ride in to Lone Pine from 2005 hiker, Apple, this morning.
Hitching has been really hard lately. I don’t know how I’ll get out of this town. I have the phone number of a guy who will give me a ride for 40 dollars.
I’m thinking, buying a new shirt might help me get a ride. My current shirt is a torn and stained once white eco-mesh Rail Riders shirt with not one useful pocket on it.
To get in and out of Tehachapi, I tried to hitch in the blazing sun till the police came by and gave me a ride–that happened both ways.
I better go now and finish up my town chores.
The guy at Hiker Town let me take a shower and wash my clothes. Now I’m using his computer. I’m grateful for a place to sit out the hot time of day before I head out on the LA aqua duct. The trail is hot and waterless but lots of pretty flowers. There is another hiker here who also is hiking this trail for the 3rd time.
I’ve been doing great staying out of towns.
My feet are doing better.
I’m still in town because if there is one thing I learned from hiking with Thirsty Boots is: don’t leave town without eating breakfast. Breakfast doesn’t happen here till 7:30. All my stuff is dry and I’m ready to hit the trail.
I checked the forecast over at postholer’s site and it calls for snow! Those mountains above Idylwild are sometimes a little hard to navigate even without snow and even if you did have a pair of reading glasses so you could read the map. Might be that area is still closed because of fire. That’s hard to believe, but over at Postholer’s site it says it’s still closed.
Hey, I’m writing this from Warners Springs. I hadn’t planned to stop here but I’m cold and wet. That’s right the broiling Southern California desert is cold, windy, and wet. I just crossed the San Felipie Hills wearing a down vest, a fleece balaclva, and a rain coat.
I can’t Twitter because I have lost my reading glasses, again. They don’t sell them in this town but I’m sure Idywild will have some. I should be there in three days or so.
I have only met one thru- hiker and that was in Lake Morena. I haven’t seen him since. Pretty much the whole trail is mine.
It’s cool and the desert is in bloom. So, the only draw back to starting late has been that I have to kick out the miles. I have committed to 25 miles a day with no days off which has been a little hard to start out with, but I think I’m adjusting.
If you are waiting to learn to spell as a form of protest until English spelling makes sense, instead of the random use of letters and sounds that require a person to clutter up their mind with memorizing each word, I applaud your noble cause.
If between now and that glorious day when the letter “C” will be stricken from the alphabet (because if you have a “k” and a “s” you do not need a letter “c”) and when we have a phonic based language, you might find a spell checker handy.
I have Tiny Spell on my computer. It runs constantly in the background, beeping everytime I misspell a word in any application, and does an excellent job of guessing what word I’m trying to spell. It’s a free down-loadable program and is one of the handiest programs on my computer.
I have packed up, cleaned up, drained my generator and chainsaw of gas, and picked a bouquet of sage and sunflowers for the cabin guarding spirits. This show is moving to the big city.
Through no fault of my own, I am acquiring a free blackberry phone, via my son’s account. And since hiking doesn’t pay and I have had more than enough Internet in my life lately, I don’t think I’ll be spending the 30 bucks to turn the data plan on. Rather, I’m thinking of doing a Trail Twitter with the free unlimited text messaging feature. This phone also comes with a built in spell checker.
Tom of “Two-Heeled drive” is big on this Twitter thing; that’s where I heard about it.
Might be stupid, might not be. Word press will post a blog entry once a day from them. The direct link to my twitter is http://twitter.com/sistercrow
I found a national forest that I can walk to from my cabin. So, now my training hikes are a 19.5 mile loop that includes lunch and a nap in the forest. I carry all my gear, a bunch of water and
some random cans of food for added weight. I was carrying a big 55 lb load that included two packs, firewood, a bear canister filled with canned food, and some water jugs. But I like having my gear with me, because I can imagine just continuing on forever and carrying a 55lb pack isn’t that much fun.
I believe the Pacific Crest Trail goes through this forest. Even though I see the Cascades looming in the distance every day on my walks, the trail seems like a long way away.
There are these signs up that say it is an old growth forest. It’s not a very impressive forest, I have much bigger trees on my property, which I think might be their point–that if you don’t thin, the trees stay small and crowded. I think it may be fire suppression that causes the crowded forest but maybe it’s the way it’s supposed to look.
One day, on my hike, I passed by a man’s house. He said, “You look like a traveler. Can I offer you some water.” I had to tell him I was only a pretend traveler, right now, and that thanks, but my load held lots of water. He looked confused. I’m excited to begin my travels for real and stop being a pretend traveler.
This is the best yogurt– Brown Cow maple. The cream is on top so you need to stir it. I discovered it 3 years ago at the food coop. It says it’s made in California so it’s probably sold all over.
WARNING: If you stick a spoon it it, you will eat it all.
Your well-intentioned handouts could do more harm than good. Some hikers quickly become dependent on outside help, leaving them vulnerable when help isn’t there.
Long distance hikers need to be developing skills, attitudes, and techniques that are necessary when you won’t be around. By reliably supplying bailouts, water, rides, shelter and other hand-holding, you deny hikers the opportunities to learn self-reliance and the skills they may need to complete a long trail.
I found big tufts of fur laying close to my cabin. I followed the tufts of fur until I found this skeleton. I never did find the head. I don’t know if the coyotes or a mountain lion did it.
Sometimes the coyotes will move close to my cabin with their “Yaaaa Hoooo! Yip yip yip yiping.” Once when they where really close, I went outside and yelled, “Quiet!” But they kept on yipping. So I stood on the hill and imitated them and they stopped. The next night they moved farther away. Up close they sound like a bunch of drunk red necks.
Trying to figure out a mailing schedule. I don’t need mail drops for food but I have a load of supplements and the guide books and data is a lot to carry plus there is the whole ice ax and bear canister thing.
Last year I just threw everything into a big box and kept mailing it along every 500 miles. It worked, but post office hours sometimes dictated my hike.
My sister said she would be willing to mail out some stuff for me. I don’t like saddling someone with sending my stuff. I’m off having a great summer and I don’t think it’s right to be adding to others burdens just because it’s easier for me, so I’m not sure I will take her up on the offer.
Another thing I have to look at is avoiding crowds. Crowds make me tired, irritated, and sad. In order to avoid them I have to predict where most of the hikers will be and make sure I’m not there; that further dwindles down my choices for receiving and sending on my box.
I keep thinking there is a perfect way to do it… but there might not be.
Maybe you read, “A Walk in the Woods”, and when Katz throws his food over the mountain, thought, “What an idiot to not realize that he is jeopardizing the safety of animals and other hikers.” Well, apparently some people thought “A Walk in the Woods” was not a comical tale of two inexperienced hikers stumbling down the trail, but rather a manual on how to hike, and filed that bit of information away under, “Tips for when your pack is too heavy.”
As a PSA, I would like to emphasize that when you are out backpacking, it is not okay to fling your English muffins off the mountainside because you don’t want to carry them.
“The California Department of Fish and Game (DFG) cautions everyone that feeding wildlife, whether directly or indirectly, is never a good idea. Problems from wildlife often increase with the availability of food, and feeding could result in an attack, damaged property, and often the death of the animal. “
Yeah, I’ve been reading trail journals….sad, sad, sad…..
In 2001 when I first hiked the Pacific Crest Trail, almost immediately, I had terrible pain in the balls of my feet.
By 78 miles I had already taken the bus to a nearby town to buy new shoes. The next section was the San Felipe Hills which got a lot of ink as being torturously hot and without water. I started hiking it at 5pm when the bus dropped me back at the trail. The new shoes didn’t help, maybe even made things worse. I hiked until 10pm and had to stop for the night, not because I was tired but because of my feet. I lay down, just off the trail, and the pain started shooting through my feet and would make my whole body shudder. I was worried that my feet wouldn’t get me out of The Hills before the sun got high in the sky. I said, “Please feet, get me out of here and I will take two days off and give you anything you want” Pretty much the whole trail went like that— bargaining with my feet.
Last year they did pretty well, as long as I carried two pairs of shoes, kept the callouses down, grease them up with Carmex, Super-Glued the cracks together, massaged them, and kept them elevated while on breaks and while sleeping. I had some problems but a good improvement.
This year, for the past few months, I have had a new foot problem. At first I thought something was broken . Now, from reading stuff on the Internet, I think a hammer toe is the problem. I have been taping it down, splinting it to an adjacent toe with a rubber band and wrapping in an ace bandage. I think it’s getting better, but today I purchased a gel hammer toe straightener, hopping that I might experience a quicker recovery. If it doesn’t work I might seek out a foot doctor.
Already the bargaining has begun. Hiking with my feet is like hiking with a whining 5 year old.
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Okay, I filed my taxes. Not that I made any money but some how, and this isn’t the first time it has happen to me, I have capital gains from mutual funds that I didn’t sell. So if anyone tells you that you don’t pay capital gains on mutual funds till you sell them, they are wrong.
I was able to use Turbo-Tax and e-file for free. There are a list of sites that have free preparation software at: http://www.irs.gov/app/freeFile/jsp/index.jsp?ck I clicked on “Turbo-Tax FREEdom edition” from the list. If you want an exercise in patience and some time to reflect on how the requirements of society are ruining your life, I suggest you try it with a dial-up connection.
There are also programs where you bring your paper work in to a live person and they enter everything for you for free. For more information and to find a site near you, go to this easy to remember URL: http://www.irs.gov/individuals/article/0,,id=107626,00.html or call 1-800-829-1040 My sister volunteers at one of those places to do taxes for free. That says something about the vast differences between us: she volunteers to do peoples taxes and I was questioning, “Is life really worth living?” just doing my own.
This year the government has decided to shower free money on people, but if you–say–spent the whole year hiking and hanging out at your cabin, instead of working, don’t get your hopes up.
Every year when tax time rolls around and I am forced to do paper work and remember PINs and passwords, and my small cabin becomes cluttered with paper work, I think, “This is not the life I want”. I start thinking I should just walk away and live the life of a wandering nun, with robes and a bowl.
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