Warner Springs, CA (Mile 109)

The first week has been amazing! Our bodies are holding up fairly well. I will say I don't recall being this sore during the first few days of my Appalachian Trail hike. But we are starting to get our "trail legs" and the miles are getting somewhat easier.

The hardest part has been the afternoon heat. We've been waking up at 5AM to hike until around noon and then we have an afternoon ciesta until the temperatures drop. On top of the heat, we've been walking through areas that have had serious fires and all of the vegetation has been burned back taking away any shade. And to go along with the heat you are always dirty--sand/fine dirt is constantly kicked up and there are no streams to clean up in.

We just completed what I think has been the hardest streach, so far, through the San Felipe Hills. There were no natural sources of water and the entire area had a fire last summer. Fortuantely, the area has Trail Angels that stock water caches for the hikers. At one cache there were over 100 gallons of bottle water for PCT hikers.

Southern Terminus (Campo, CA)

Really large Yuca plant

Yuca Flowers

Early morning sunrise

 

First rattlesnake (Norhtern Mohave Rattlersnake)



10 miles outside of Mount Laguna

Nice view of desert floor--we were so happy to be up in the mountains.

There are still flowers in the desert

Trying to find some shade...

Typical trail without any shade and with lots of sun!

Early morning hiking to Scissors Crossing to hitch into Julian for free pie!

First Barrell Cacti

First Horny Toad - so exciting!

 

I took a hour and half ciesta on a pile of rocks - no joke!



Woo Hoo!! We made it through first 100 miles!

 

My feet/legs were completely clean when I started hiking and I was wearing pants!!!

 

Dairy cows heading to the barn early in the morning!

Our hair is caked with sweat, sunscreen, and desert grim. Doesn't it look great?

Eagle Rock, CA

 

Baby Horny Toad

 

A Flurry of Activity

Oh, I was so naive this time last week thinking that we just had a couple of things to pull together. We've been running around non-stop, up until today, getting everything to it's proper place. Maildrops, storing everything we own, returning library items, organizing gear, updating addresses, etc. It feels quite nice to be past that point, but man did it feel overwhelming Wednesday and Thursday.

There's not that much stuff, right?

Right now we are in Corvallis, OR staying with Trail Angels "Wandering Jew" and "Totally Rachel" aka our good friends Ken and Rachel. They'll be babysitting the Corolla for us and sending us new shoes/gear as needed.

After a delicious pancake breakfast, Dustin and I seam sealed our Tarptent. I highly recommend Henry Shires' Tarptents for a 3 Season tent both for the functionality and weight/size (check out the link to the right). The "Double Rainbow" tent, picture below, is a single walled tent that upon purchase you must seal along the sewn seams. Despite previously sealing the tent, the last time we camped in some rain we got a little wet. To beef up the "waterproofed" seams we diluted some silicone with some paint thinner and painted all of the seams. Hopefully, we won't encounter much ran and this will be more useful when we are in South America.

Just a little will do you!

On Monday we will be taking the train up to Portland to stay at Trail Angel "Ler's" house aka my good friend Chandler's house. He's actually the person responsible for introducing Dustin and I. Back in 2009 he invited me to hike a 500 mile section of the Appalachian Trial with him, which led me to Iceman and thru-hiking the entire AT.

Finally on Tuesday we will be flying out to San Diego to start hiking! It will probably be at least a week out before another update. 

It's My Weekend

My start time has been 6AM, whether that was to get ready for work or to get ready to ski, and this past Sunday was the first time I've bucked that trend in a very long time. I did wake up around 6:30AM sans alarm, but I managed to fall back asleep around 8 or so. However, Dustin* decided we needed to get to packing as the clock was approaching 10:30AM. The conversation went as follows:

Dustin: "It's time to start packing. You need to wake up..."
Caroline: "Meh....leave me alone...it's my weekend....I want to sleep-in...."
Dustin: "Baby, it will be your weekend for at least another year..."

I absolutely love this! For those who don't know, my last day of work was this past Friday and Dustin will be finishing up patrolling tomorrow. We've spent the past couple of years saving and planning so that we can take an extended period of time off. On April 16th, that's only a week away, we'll be flying out of Portland to start our PCT (Pacific Crest Trail) thru-hike at the Mexican boarder town of Campo, CA. I've put some links on the sidebar for those who are interested in learning more about the trail.

While one might think cash flow is your biggest concern when taking a long holiday, in actuality there are a lot of logistical issues with just as much weight. I cannot say enough about how much we appreciate all of the support we've received from our friends and family. Whether that's allowing us to store all of our earthly possessions in your bunker, mailing us a new pair of shoes (with some homemade cookies, hint hint), babysitting our car, or just sending an encouraging thought our way.

With a foot of fresh snow on the ground it's hard to imagine we'll be hiking in a boiling hot desert in week! Now it's time to dig out the car so we can start the adventure!!

To appease Dustin's worries regarding this blogs' expectations I've added the following disclaimer. This blog is intended to capture a small portion of our adventure. As time allows, I hope to post photos and a brief synopsis of trail life. Anything beyond that is just icing on the cake.

*Starting April 16th we'll be using our trail names, "Iceman" and "Cattywampus".