That Note Must Be Old

(Friday May 16, 2008)

I just climbed about 3000 feet up to the summit of Mt. Baden-Powell. I saw a sign earlier today that said the trail was snow covered and really windy. I thought to myself, "Please. That note is probably weeks old." It wasn't.

You couldn't even find the trail and eight of us just walked straight up the side of the mountain until we hit the trail again. I fell once and slid down five feet. That was cold.

About 20 minutes ago I was hating life, but now my feet are dry so I'm good again.

Back to the trails boys and girls.

It's a Dry Heat

(Monday May 19, 2008)

I think anytime anyone ever mentions Arizona or New Mexico, the phrase "But it's a dry heat" comes up. And yet I think you'd be hard pressed to find 10 houses without air conditioning in either state. Throw in the desert region of Southern California (where you can currently find yours truly) and you wouldn't stand a chance winning that bet.

Yesterday morning I hiked a ridiculous 17.5 miles in 5 hours and 45 minutes. Somehow I still think I skipped a portion of the trail because people started out before me that I somehow passed but never saw. Either way, I covered some big ground early on.

I stopped for lunch at 11:45am and already it was 90 degrees. Normally I just hang around for an hour or so, but the temperature kept climbing, 91, 92, 93 before topping off at 94.6. A little bit after that I checked the temperature and it "dropped" to 94.4 so I decide to head out figuring that even though it was still hot as a fat man's crack on a humid July afternoon, the worst was over and it was starting to cool down, albeit slowly.

So after my longest mid-day break of the trip (3 hours), I head out with a guy named Sweetfish toward the Robin's Nest RV Park eight miles away.

Little did I consider the 2000 foot elevation drop into an entirely shadeless area as a result of a complete burn out a few years ago.

Now, it's not that I didn't know this part was coming up, I just figured it wouldn't be that bad. As I hit the bottom of Mattox Canyon with 4 miles left until the RV Park and saw the trail winding up hundreds of feet to the ridgeline and then checked my watch once (101), twice (102) three times a lady (103) I uttered my favorite on-trail-and-under-duress phrase - "Fuck the PCT."

At one point I had to just stop in an oasis of shade and sit down because it was so ungodly hot. I had plenty of water, but it aside from hydrating me (as if that's such a horrible thing) it was really warm and was far from refreshing. Just good enough to keep me alive.

Originally I was planning on night hiking to the next town, but when we hit the RV Park, I was done. And by done I mean Well Done. I can't ever remember being that hot before. I was so hot my breath was making me sweat. The air out of my nostrils was dragon-esque.

I stripped down to just shorts and dunked my head under a cold faucet. tided me over for 45 minutes until the pizza arrived and I downed 32 ounces of root beer. And once that cooling effect wore off 20 minutes later, I was back to being basted in hot turkey juices on Thanksgiving.

Thankfully...THANKFULLY there just happened, in this water-starved region, to be a swimming pool. Dear Lord. Rounding the bend and seeing that 300 feet below and seeing it the entire climb down was enough to make me sign away my soul for one 5 minute dip. I think it would have taken me all night to cool off without that small miracle.

And let me just tell you, the pizza we ordered (from The Pizza Place - good name) was about 800 times better than I expected from a random desert town. The root beer was also like feasting with Zeus on Mt. Olympus. I think I'm reacing the conclusion that after a long stretch of hiking, a clean pair of Depends would probably rank on par with finding Aladdin's lamp.

The Yogi Book's description of the park said it was the most depressing place on the trail, but all hiking-induced pizza euphoria aside, it really wasn't that bad. It wasn't Disney World or anything, but far from the horrible place they cast it as.

Except for the one bathroom. Broken urinal, flies buzzing around the toilet. I felt guilty even bringing my toothbrush in there. There was a puddle of something leaking out from the stall pooling under the urinal which made me try to pee outside, but it is a public park, so I went back in and went for it. Unfortunately I mostly added to the devil puddle because standing just outside of the puddle was also just far enough that only the peak pee stream reached the urinal. Oh well. Not like anypne was going to notice with the shape that place was in.

It was a great night for sleep though. Didn't even need my sleeping bag. I did hear something that sounded like two people havng sex being broadcast over a muffled loudspeaker, but nobody I was with knows what I'm talking about.

Even better, I didn't even need an alram this morning. A coyote (which I thought was someone's out of control dog) was howling at 5:00am. Just the time I was planning on getting up anyway (no sarcasm there, I really was getting up at 5:00am to beat the heat. See, I learned my lesson.

Trail Vertigo Part IV

Hitting the pavement, seeing the sign for McDonald's 0.4 miles up the road and then actually turning the corner and seeing those big beautiful golden arches was one the most purely joyous moments of my life. I'd be hard pressed to think of a happier time. OK, I wouldn't be hard pressed, but this was a top ten happiest moments of my life. Stick that in a commercial Ray Kroc!

So after salivating and almost breathlessly ordering a quarter pounder meal, I make a phone call and while I'm talking, just starin into the hypnotically yellow french fries and zombie-like pushing them into my mouth.

"You're stuffing your face aren't you?" asks the voice on the other line.

"Yup," comes the involuntary response. The only thing that snapped me out of my food daze was realizing that I wasn't eating the fries with ketchup, a cardinal sin that I would regret if I got any farther into the mound of potatoes.

This McDonald's even had the nectar of the Pibb family. I drank Mr. Pibb's finest creation until I had a stomach ache.

After using the bathroom to freshen up homeless man style, and possibly making a group of older Australian tourists think I was actually homeless with my dazed wandering around the store (I repeatedly walked back and forth to the garbage can because I kept finding new things to throw out), I went outside to try and find a place to camp.

I searched for 10 minutes in this big dirt lot with parked construction vehicles in it, but couldn't find anything flat or comfortable, so I (in keeping with this homeless theme) found a soft, flat sandy spot in a ditch on the side of the road and set up my sleeping bag.

This after I feared that a real, in-the-flesh homeless person would fid me in the night, beat me senseless and rob me while I was zipped up and defenseless. But the vacant lot next to McDonald's was right on the highway and was surprisingly much louder than my trusty ditch. So the ditch won out despite my fears.

As I lay down, trying to keep my eyelids open for just a bit longer, stomach churning with fast food, the clouds break, and the moon shines down just for me on my sandy oasis on the PCT.

Trail Vertigo Part III

The driving factor behind getting to the interstate was McDonald's. I know you're probably thinking, "You're supposed to be living the trail life and eating trail food not stuff you can get everyday." Well I'm telling you to step off, ho. I wanted some damn fries and an egg mcmuffin.

So I start hauling, broken up occasionally to talk with someone on the trail or take a picture, but for the most part I was trying to keep my pace above 3 mph.

After a short climb around mile 336, I start to notice clouds rolling in again over a far ridge, but one that I'm headed towards. I don't mind because at 338, I'm supposed to pass under some power lines and then it's only four miles and under two hours. Mile 338 came and it was only 6:30 so I'm 20 minutes ahead of schedule and really pumped. Unfortunately that's when things start to go a little screwy.

I walk into another patch of fog and this time it's wetter, windier and colder than earlier in the day. I stopped to pee and I start walking again and all of a sudden I feel wet on my lower leg.

"Damn! Did I piss all over myself and not know it?"

I look down and I've got wet patches on both legs which are getting larger by the step. The vegetation around the trail is also getting damp so my shoes and around my ankles are getting wet.

Now I start worrying about my camera in my pocket because they're now starting to get a little damp. I didn't feel like wrapping myself back up in my poncho but I figured it would protect my camera well enough. Go to grab my camera and what do I feel but my pocket being held together by maybe three threads and my camera half hanging out the bottom. Lucky save.

Down one pocket, but no less excited to be approaching McD's, I wind down a switch back and work my way around a hill and see some weird formation below me. It looks like a big easter egg shaped road criss crossed with other roads over the middle.

"What the hell..."

And out of the fog like an alien ship over New York City in Independence Day emerges this absolutely massive power line transmission tower.

"Oh. Fuck."

I specifically remember the Data Book description of the landmark as "Road under massive power line tower." I now start cursing the Data Book because the tower I thought was the right one was your average sized tower. This one loomed. It scowled down at you ready to throw lightning bolts like a metal Zeus.

I am half a heartbeat from packing it in and I might have if the sun weren't setting and I wasn't a bit condensationized.

So I start cursing up a storm yet again, mentally pushing my arrival time back with each curse later and later. I literally run down one hill in the hopes of shaving off a minute or two before remembering my climb up the "shortcut" the day before and decide to just walk fast instead of risking injury over a quarter pounder.

I cross under the actually massive tower, walk across a short field along a random fence line and emerge under yet another set of power lines.

Repeat paragraph beginning with "So I start cursing up a storm..." The bitch of it was there was an eagle perched atop this third (although average sized) tower that screeched and took flight as I was walking by.

"Sorry, eagle, no time for a picture. I've got a long fucking way to go."

At that moment I actually remembered the one battle scene from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar where he was being overly obvious with his allusions and had eagles flying over the one army to signal that they were the good guys and were going to win, and ravens and crows over the other to show that they were the losers decided by fate.

So I couldn't decide whether it was a good or bad sign that an eagle flew overhead in my time of despair, but being a major pessimist at that particular moment, I decided that the eagle was abandoning me and I was going to be carried home on my shield.

But what I did notice at that same moment away on the horizon were two cars, one passing the other. But I-15 is from what I read an eight lane highway, and this looked like a four laner at best, so I dashed that glimmer of hope on the rocks of despair.

At the same time, I passed over two dirt roads in quick succesion near the third power line, and the Data Book did mention something about two dirt roads in quick succession around mile 340 or 341.

After the other day I refused to abandon the trail if the landmarks and mileage and all the other wayfinding factors seemed right. No more succumbing to trail vertigo. Not to mention the fact that I had given up on cooking dinner for the night and was determined to eat McDonald's come hell or high water (they told us at the Kick Off not to make hell-or-high-water decisions on the trail, but fuck 'em - I was cold and hungry and that guy was tucked into his warm bed drinking milk and eating Reese's Peanut Butter Cups).

Promisingly I came to a PCT marker just before a set of stone steps that had been cut into an incline leading into a canyon. The Guidebook said that just before hitting the highway, you go through a canyon.

One of the big things causing me to backtrack the day before was that coming around every turn was another mountain, and everytime I would come around one bend, another mountain in a never ending string that refused to open up.

This canyon...same thing. Turn, turn, turn, high canyon walls that don't stop. But I kept telling myself, just keep going, it will open up eventually.

Now, on the trail you hear and see things. One day I swore I saw a man in a blue shirt and white pants ahead of me, rushed to catch him and he never materialized. Then just the other day I definitely heard two people above me, but when I got to the ridge top, I looked over and it was a steep cliff. Nobody there.

So pardon me if I thought I was hearing things when I heard a guy talking over a loud speaker. A train line runs right by the trail and you could hear them going all day, so I convinced myself that if the guy were real it was somehow the echo of the conductor speaking to someone over the train's intercom.

But a minute or two later, I look up and left and see the canyon wall dip lower, meaning that hopefully it was about to open up onto the highway. And a few more seconds later, the white broad side of an eighteen wheeler's trailer.

I cheered non-stop for at least thirty secods and then broke into an impromptu rendition of the first few lines of Shania Twain's Still the One.

"Looks like we made it

Look how far we've come my baby

We might have took the long way

But we knew we'd get there someday..."

Trail Vertigo Part II

So I hike back to the bridge and unbeknownst to me, there's a guy named Cuppa Joe already camped on a sandy beach below the bridge. But in my gotta-make-sure-I'm-not-lost tunnel vision, I didn't even stop to look.

In more good decision making, I decide to hike up a "shortcut" trail to gain some time back in my search. You'll see these shortcut trails from time to time cutting straight down from a higher portion of the trail to a lower, most likely used by people that are tired of switchbacking, or locals just looking to travel more quickly. Unfortunately they only make the journey shorter going down as they are really steep and are made up of loose dirt that causes you (or at least me anyway) to slip and make no progress.

Heart racing and no time saved, I make it back on to the trail a bit higher up and push on for a few minutes before running into Sundown, a guy I met earlier in the day.

He's having the same issues as me and we both start discussing where on the trail we might be. But when I tell him that I've been over the bridge and back, he sounds relieved. "Good. That's only supposed to be a few miles from the hot spring. Let's see if there's anybody there we can ask about the trail."

So we walk down together, he casually spots Cuppa Joe camping in the sand and asks him if we're headed the right way.

"Yeah. Just over the bridge and make a left around that way." He points to where I had come from about 45 minutes earlier.

Sundown and I decided to camp there as the bridge was as far as I was planning on hiking anyway and during my expedition to the right-but-thought-it-was-wrong side of the river, there was no real place to camp anyway.

After burning my tongue eating a rehydrated potato, cabbage and leeks dinner, I got to live out my skinny dipping wishes from earlier in the day, although I worried that hikers would come over the bridge, witness my psuedo bath and laugh at my exposed cheeks. Fortunately no one witnessed me shivering on the bank as I dried off (the wind always seems to kick up when you least want it to out here).

I warmed up pretty quickly because our camping spot was pretty damn sweet. Tucked into a little nook, all of the trees and tall grasses kept the wind out. That and it was a nice, warm night. Barely needed my sleeping bag.

This was my favorite night cowboy camping. It was the first time on the trail that I heard crickets, the moon was bright and full and looked like it was shining just for me. It felt like lying down on a Spring night back home.

I woke up at 5:00am because Cuppa Joe and Sundown said they were getting up early too. Neither were up when I climbed out of my bag. But I didn't curse them for my extra-early start because they were up soon enough, and Cuppa Joe was actually out hiking before I was.

Lucky for me because a few miles after the bridge you come to this useless dam that holds back no water. I come down the one side and start climbing up the other when I hear a voice calling my name from somewhere below me.

"God? Is that you? Have you finally decided to single me out for a religious mission?"

"Brad! You're going the wrong way!" Cuppa Joe calls to me from some tall grassses next to the mighty waters of the crossable-on-a-log creek that the dam struggles against daily.

Cuppa Joe directed me back to the trail and also to the logs to cross the creek that he didn't see until after he had already gotten wet fording it. Score one for me.

A few hours later we hit a real dam that held Silverwood Lake and me and a couple other people ate lunch there. The picnic area was really nice, except for the bathroom which nobody who's not hiking would have used, but let's just say that I had to go.

Skinny dipping incident number two also ocurred at lunch and I've come to realize that any swimming in the high altitudes in May is probably going to be cold. Also, the spot I put my clothes down on was an ant hot spot. Very fun cleaning them off.

The weather at the lake was not the greatest. Really windy, blowing stuff everywhere, including my toilet paper and maps which I had to fish out of the bushes. Clouds came over the ridge across from the one that the PCT climbs and soon the trail was covered in fog. I was getting wet, my poncho was impossible to keep covering me because the wind was blowing so hard and I started worrying that I'd have to make my first camp i the rain.

But after practically sprinting over the top of the ridge, the trail dropped down in elevation, the clouds disappeared and a rainbow came out across the valley. Couldn't take a picture of course because I stuffed my camera in a plastic bag, but still.

Now, here comes the fateful decision. It's about 4:20 when I hit mile 331.8. Interstate 15 is at 342. I think the fastest I've hiked so far on the trail is nine miles in two hours and 45 minutes, so I figure I can do 10 in three and a half.

Do I go for it or camp early and make I-15 in the morning? You know which way I went.

Trail Vertigo

(Tuesday May 13, 2008)

I left Big Bear the other day hiking from Highway 18 and after a ways I get to a trail detour up some forest service roads because of a fire last year.

There wasn't much dager of a flare up, but they wanted people out because of falling limbs from dead trees.

Originally I had just planned on hiking through it anyway, but it was about 3:45pm when I got there so I wouldn't have made it all the way through before I would have to camp.

So no big deal. I hike on the Forest Service road detour (by the way PCT Guidebook, your Forest Service roads are not accurate and sometimes not even on the map so thanks for your help!) until about 7:00pm when I decide to pack it in and camp next to this giant mound of rocks.

I picked that spot because the detour, while trying to protect us from falling dead trees, took us right through a massive burned out area with nothing but dead trees in every direction. Good planning guys.

So now I'm paranoid that trees are going to fall on me so I figured this massive jumble of rocks would protect me from any crashing pines or firs or hickories.

Problem was that there wasn't a single area that could be made flat except next to one on the outside of the group that wanted to play just the tip. But in this version of everybody's favorite game, the tip of a really tall tree would be the only thing that would break off upon hitting the rock, leaving the rest of the thicker, lower portions to crush me. I figured it was better than nothing and held out hope that the rock would also perform some sort of deflectionary duty and the tree would break at the top and roll away, at the very worst ruining my tent.

Tree falling death scenarios aside, my biggest real concern was with maroon beetles and the most awful sounding bird alive.

I'm guessing that these beetles are one of those harbingers of a burned out forest's recovery because I haven't seen them anywhere else on the trail and they were everywhere in the detour. They wopuldn't do anything to you, just fly on you and sit. But even though I am one with nature right now so to speak, I didn't want these bastards flying all over me for any reason.

So I set up my tent, which I wasn't originally planning on doing, but they forced me to and I climb inside, get myself situated and start writing when I hear this sound like an animal being strangled to death.

I have no clue what it could be and hoped that whatever it was would be satisfed with the meal it had just made for itself and wouldn't come looking for larger prey.

Then I hear it again, higher up in a tree...and again...and again. The most annoying bird ever created. It's not even like it's an eagle or hawk. At least when they screech, hey're probably about to capture a squirrel or mouse. This thing on the other hand is a small bird and should be singing sweet sounds to lull you to sleep. Instead we get the victims of a roving strangler.

i wonder who it was that woke me up at 5:00am? Ugly bastard.

So...the hiking continues and after a few hours, I make it around to mile 291 where the detour rejoins with the trail. I can't say where exactly I started, but I'd been going for around two and a half hours or so. The same time later on, I make it to a bridge at 297, so I figure I went about the same distance in the morning.

I decide at lunch to head for the Deep Creek ford at mile 312. That's 15 on top of the 12 or so in the morning, but it was only about 1:00pm when I set out for the afternoon and the sun hadn't started setting until well after 7:00pm, so I figured I had plenty of time.

Fast forward four hours and I haven't seen a single person since lunch or a single marker indicating that I'm on the PCT. It's easy to mindlessly wander because for the most part, there's nowhere else to go on the PCT. Occasionally it will cross a jeep road or meet up with another trail, but most of the time you're walking on a two foot wide trail on the side of a mountain with nowhere to go but forward. And so I had been walking forward for four hours without thinking.

So I decide to check the map. Down to my left are a bunch of people hangig out at a camp near the river. The map says that should be the Holcomb Trail Camp and if it is, there should be a hot spring nearby. The description in the Guidebook says to look out for skinny dippers. Two heavyset naked guys are standing facing away from me. Ok then.

So I'm in the right place, and if I keep going, I should hit what the Guidebook describes as a 90 foot steel and wood arch bridge. I figure I'll get there about 6:00pm, but winding down the switchbacks, I hit it at 5:15pm. It's a little early, but the bridge is in fact about 90 feet as good as I can guess from looking and its made of steel and wood and in the shape of an arch.

I am worried because I got there way early, but again I check the Guidebook description and it says that after you cross the bridge you head west along an old aqeduct wall, and the creek will drop about 150 feet below you with cottonwoods and alders on its banks.

I check my compass. I'm heading in a westerly direction. I saw the aqeduct wall when I was coming down to the bridge and now I'm walking alongside it. The creek looks about 150 feet down and there are trees along it's banks.

I check my altimeter and it's supposed to read somewhere between 3200 and 3800 feet. It pauses, the displays 3400 feet.

And last but not least, the Guidebook says to be on the lookout for something below near the creek that the Forest Service is planning to convert into an equestrian camp. After a few minutes, there is some kind of shack down near the creek. I'm no equestrianologist, but it's close enough for me.

Except that for some reason, I decide to check the map one more time to see what side of the river I'm supposed to be on and look knowingly at the wrong map. I knew I was past that map and yet I looked at it and it said I was supposed to be left of the river while I'm standing up on the right. So I panic.

Even though my altitude was right, even though I saw the naked dudes at the hot spring, even though I passed over the steel and wood arch bridge heading west along the aqueduct wall past what could possibly be a horse related shack, I looked at a map that I knew was for a part of the trail I had already passed and decided to ignore every landmark in favor of freaking out and turning around to hike back until I found another hiker who would tell me I was on the right path.

Just Get a Nicer Boss

(Thursday, May 15, 2008)

My horoscope for May 15, 2008 in the Daily Press - "You can improve your job this year by getting a different job, improving your duties or having a nicer boss. Something for the better is going to happen!"

You know what? I will get a nicer boss.

"Hey Boss, you're fired and I'm replacing you with someone nicer!"

Oh wait, that didn't work and now I'm fired and have to get a new job.

Hey, I have a nicer boss at this new job and my duties are much improved.

Thanks, horoscope. Things for the better really are happening!

Big Bear Woman

(Sunday May 12, 2008)

My efforts to go skinny dipping have failed. I'm under the Deep Creek Bridge and as the name implies, you can go swimming in the river. No one was around when I got here so I decided after lunch I was going to go for a swim. Then when I was finishing off the last of my cheddar slices, a couple I passed before came down off the path and started fishing on the other bank...Damn.

Speaking of nakedness, I was in K-Mart the other day looking for fuel for my stove. I had already been to two grocery stores and Rite Aid, and the couple offering me a ride to the trailhead from Big Bear were waiting, so I walked in and went right for the first employee I saw, which was a woman working the jewelery counter.

"Excuse me, ma'am? I was wondering if you could tell me where the sporting goods department is."

She starts answering without looking and I notice my pants are a little loose, so I go to adjust the belt and a finger slips into my wide open fly. Now this normally wouldn't be a big deal, but since I hike sans underwear, I didn't want to offend Gladys' delicate sensibilities. So before she directs her full attention, I break the world record for zipper closing and she's never the wiser.

Speaking of being exposed, I was walking around Big Bear Lake the day before I left, checking out the food and shops, and I decided to go into this one called Rejoyce.

It was a women's store, but I figured I might find something to send someone as a gift, so I wandered around, smelled some soaps and candles, thought about grabbing an old cigarette case that someone could use as a wallet, and then chatted up the saleswoman who suggested a real wallet and talked to me about real estate prices (affordable area, great place to live, lots to do and see, so if you're in the mood for a change of scenery, Big Bear is for you).

I went to pay with my credit card, but this ws one of the five places in America that actually tries to protect its customers' cards from fraudulent use, and I had hapened to forget mine at the hostel. I told her I'd be right back and left to get it.

I walk into the store, ID in hand and up to the register, but no one's there. I turn around to scan the store and directly to my left is an open dressing room and a hefty denizen of Big Bear standing topless trying on a shirt.
But right then, all I saw were the outer edges of two sagging breasts and some pale rolls poking out from behind the saleswoman who thankfully blocked my view while trying to help the woman out.

I turned on my heel immediately and said "Sorry!" while the saleswoman, in a Sherlockian bit of deduction, yelled "Oh! There's customers in the store!" I guess she forgot that even though the store was empty, it was still open for business.

As I was paying, the woman in the dressing room walks out. "I don't like the shirt. It doesn't look good. It's too small."

Lady, you don't have to tell us twice.

Big News in Cali

Finally Lars and I can make it official!

Pics Posted

I posted the pictures I've taken so far on Webshots. Here's the URL - http://community.webshots.com/user/jimmymango?vhost=community

Sorry for the delay with that, but this is the first time I've had the opportunity to sit down and upload them. Also, because this is a community computer - and a dinosaur on top of that - at a hostel (not hospital), it took me all day just to get them up there, so I didn't have a chance to rotate all of the vertical ones so they look normal. I'll fix that when I can. But now I just need to go to sleep because it's way past hiker bedtime.

Hope you enjoy.

Where, Oh Where, Has My Water Gone?

(Thursday May 8, 2008)
Last night I slept at the Heart Bar campground which was a ways off the PCT down a California Hiking and Riding trail. Problem was, after walking for about a half hour down the trail, there was no campground and the spring that was supposed to be a half mile down in case you didn't want to walk all the way to the campground, was either dry or I'm blind. Probably blind, but either way I didn't see it.

So after a 24 mile day, I was ready to settle in, but unfortunately there was no campground at the end of the line, so I just parked it in a flat spot and sat down to rest.

Scratch that. I never really sat down until I climbed in my sleeping bag because it was after 7:00 and I was somewhere around 8000 feet which means that when the sun starts to go down the temperature doesn't linger for even a second at anything close to comfortable. It's warm until it's not. Then it's freezing.

Adding to the problem was my sweat-soaked clothing and empty stomach, so when I found the flat spot to camp, it was like a grenade went off inside my pack.

Stuff went everywhere. Clothes, bags, equipment strewn about this tiny area while I "made" dinner, which consisted of me eating a piece of cold pre-cooked chicken breast and a bag of Pop Tarts.

Then because I saw a spider on my bag, I figured ants couldn't be far away (how I reasoned that one is beyond me) so instead of packing away my garbage, I strategically placed it at points a good bit away from my stuff to lure the ants away from me (again, the basis for this reasoning is slightly less than sound).

So after crawling into my bag (completely ignoring my pre-sleep trail cleanliness regimen) I realize that by not packing the stuff away, I could be attracting animals that otherwise wouldn't smell the garbage in the first place...then I decided it was too cold to get out of my bag and went to sleep. Luckily no animals appeared, at least that I know of.

Morning wasn't much better. I decided to eat the Pop Tarts with dinner because I thought I had two packages left. Well, my last package was devoured as the side to my chicken à la antarctica, so wouldn't ou know I had dinner for breakfast. Except this time it was pieces of chicken instead of a whole breast - pieces in icy cold broth that I was fishing out with my finger because I was too lazy to get out my spork. The whole experience was enough to make me want to vomit the entire meal despite being very hungry. Weirdly enough I would have been happy in a way if that happened, but quickly enough there were other things coming up to distract and anger me (of course based on my excellent planning skills).

Because of a lack of campground or spring the night before, I was down to one and a half liters of water to start the next day. It really wasn't too big of a deal because Coon Creek was 4 miles away and I could get some from there.

Fast forward to 8:30 and I start loking for some water flow. I head down the jeep road which is supposed to intersect with the creek, and pissed off and tired, I return waterless at 9:50.

So now I've got just over a liter and 9 miles to go before the next definite water source. After that experience, I think I have a small inkling of what it might be like to be an addict.

Because I'll be in Big Bear City Friday morning, I knew I would be able to get whatever I wanted to drink short of absinthe, so I was fixated on anything cold. Ice water, milk, apple juice, beer, Gatorade, you name it - I was ready to sell my soul to quench my thirst. I vowed that the second I got into Big Bear, I'd head to the first restaurant I could find and order a large glass of milk, apple juice, a pitcher of ice water and tell the waitress to keep them coming.

It was taking every ounce of mental strength not to down every bit of water that I had, to sip slowly and in small gulps. Absolutely tortuous. Like being stranded at sea. Water, water everywhere and none to drink. Even a bear wasn't enough to distract me.

I'm walking around mile 249 and all of a sudden I hear this noise that sounded like the noise Barry White would make if he were a massive yawning dog.

I thought to myself, that kind of sounded like a lion or a bear. And it went on for like 30 seconds, but because I didn't want it to be a bear, I convinced myself it was someone starting up their weird sounding dirt bike.

But, lo and behold, I come to a jeep road and I look up and see a woman hosing off a bear in a cage. Talk about your surreal sights. Apparently there is a ranch there in the middle of the woods with - pardon the overused phrase - lions and tigers and bears (you probably said "Oh my!" on your own, so I didn't write it).

I don't know what they do with these animals, but there were cages with massive bears in them. Unfortunately I didn't get to see my 2nd favorite animal and former school mascot the tiger, but I guess I could always go back if I wanted to. That or India. Or Africa. Or a zoo. Whichever way.

So of course the woman was hosing the bear down and I thought for some time whether she would do the same for me if I asked her, but decided to just keep trudging on.

And let me tell you that a mile later, I literally gasped and let out some other weird noise before quietly exclaiming "Water!" to myself as 50 feet in front of me was a water cache left courtesy of the Nature's Inn and Big Bear Hostel. A shrewd tactic, but effective nonetheless as my current residence is in fact the Big Bear Hostel (sorry Nature's Inn, this place was cheaper and closer to the action).

I only took a liter from the cache (so much for my endless flow of drinks for breakfast on Friday), but after fillig the bottle with Gatorade powder, it felt like I had just been put through my first orgy. Overly satisfied, slightly damp, unsure how I got there, and thanking the Big Bear Hostel and Nature's Inn for their gift from heaven. Although I think after (and probably during) an orgy people thank God and not independent California hoteliers, but then again, what do I know about orgies?

Walking Through a Wind Farm

(Wednesday May 7, 2008)
The toughest day followed by the most annoying day.

After walking 15 miles to the nearest water source (while at the same time descending around 4000 feet, which is hard on the knees), I get lost for 15 minutes walking along a road which the trail clearly crosses over and continues Northwest, a fact which I chose to acknowledge via map and then still ignore.

One of the problems with getting lost for 15 minutes on this part of the trail is that it is an area on which a rather large wind farm was built, meaning - you guessed it - it was fucking windy.

Walking through the massive open field between Snow Creek, CA and I-10 is probably the closest thing you'll ever experience to a low grade hurricane, but without the risk of death.

Some of the gusts were so strong that they stood you up and you couldn't move. Very fun when you're trying to walk 4 miles across.

The best part is that because the winds are so strong, there is no actual trail because the wind would just keep shifting the sands and erasing it. So while trying not to get blown over, you have to scan your surroundings and look for the next five foot high post with a PCT marker on it (some of which, of course, have been blown over). Also a very fun task.

(By the way, two dragonflies just landed on a stick in front of me and are now mating...finally some action on this trip!)

Luckily once I crossed under the highway, the wind started to blow at my back, so going up some hills, it literally carried me up. While a welcome change, it also forced me to run on the downhills or fall on my face or off the side of the trail. Yay nature!

So after miles and more miles, I start to get hungry (this is around 5:00) and I start to look for a good campsite. But this being the PCT, there was absolutely no place to camp until 7:00 unless I wanted to take my chances with a steep hill, or sleep directly on the rocky uneven trail.

Luckily I was able to camp at the Whitewater Preserve, which sits along Whitewater Creek around mile 219. It had picnic tables and bathrooms, which was very nice, but because there is such an abundance of water unlike everywhere else in the desert, they also have sprinklers to water the grass and trees.

So wouldn't you know I wake up to find my sleeping bag covered in little beads of water, which had soaked into the down feathers of my bag. Also my shirt, which had been hanging in a tree, fell off the branch and was a soaking mess when I went to put it on. Yay abundance of water!

Earlier today, Squatch, a guy who makes PCT documentaries stopped and chatted with me and asked if I had anything interesting to say for an interview. My response: "Eh...I got nothing."

Slipping and Sliding

(Monday May 5, 2008)
Snow on the trail is not fun. I was hiking with a guy named oPa and both of us fell off the trail and started sliding doewn the mountain. YEE HAW!

I probably should have been more scared but then I remembered I own this bitch. Ok,not really, but I'm definitely buying an ice axe before I hit the Sierras.

I Love Idyllwild...and So Should You

(Sunday May 4, 2008)
I'm only a week or so in, but this trip keeps surprising me. From the moment I set foot on the trail, the scenery and mountain vistas were much more amazing and beautiful than I expected, and it all came much sooner than I imagined.

I expected that it would be "Eh" with a couple of Ooos and Ahhs mixed in until I started climbing into the Sierras and then I figured it would get real spectacular.

But every day I'm surprised by what I see, so much so that I've almost gotten used to it. That really isn't true at all, but I've stopped taking so many pictures because 1) I'll run out of memory and 2) even though it's all extremely beautiful and worthy of an depression-abating cubicle nature poster, it can all start looking the same after a while. And that's the real beauty. It rarely ever stops (okay, maybe in the godforsaken desert).

You get these uninterrupted views that go for miles and miles, 180 degrees or more and the mountains stand before you one clear range, one hazy range beyond that, another one still more vague and finally the tallest one above all the rest only a shadowy outline.

Everything is green, even the desert to a great extent. But its all a deceiving green. Except for a few stretches, much of what you think is forest covering the landscape is what's called chaparral. Chaparral is what sprouts up after a forest fire - of which there have been many in the last decade - and while pretty from a distance, up close it's dense, short and sharp.

And so if you can get past what can be sometimes ugly and oftentimes annoying when it starts crowding the trail, you see things at every turn that you've probably never seen before in your life.

Hiking the PCT has been what I expected, and like nothing I imagined. I'm meeting great people, seeing wildlife, experiencing awesome towns which I might never have known about without the hike.

Idyllwild is one of those towns. Real quaint, a big fish in a small pond (population 3500 surrounded by towns with less than 500 a piece), but someplace you'd love to have as your summer home if you had the money.

You're right in the middle of a state park, so it's nice and quiet, there's a good downtown area with a bunch of bars and restaurants, a movie theater, homegrown shops, pretty much everything you could need in a little self contained community.

You wouldn't need AC because the nights are cold and even on the hottest days you'd just sit in the shade and it will be 30 degrees cooler than in the sun because there's no humidity.

There's a sign as you walk (I should say "I" because you'd most likely drive) into town that says "Idyllwild - Entrance to America's Cleanest Forest" and they mean it. The place is clean in every sense of the word.

People always say "I'm going to get some fresh air" but this is the only place I've ever been where I can truly say that. The air is so fresh and clean up here it's hard to describe. It's like that frigid January morning when you go out to warm up your car and the world hasn't started moving yet, that refreshing inhale before you open the door and turn the key. It feels almost delicious to breathe.

The hike is hard, no doubt about that. Since the trail is closed for almost 30 miles, a group of us hiked like the world was on fire to Idyllwild along roads. My feet and knees are beat to shit right now, but the experience of the ups and downs, good and bad have made the trip worth it already, even if I've only been here a short time.

Remind me of this post in a couple weeks when I claim that I'd rather be at home lying naked watching Disney movies with Cheetos residue covering my lips and fingers...actually I would rather be doing that right now. Well, remind me if I start to wish for anything other than nude Disney Cheetos afternoons.

I Love Idyllwild...and So Should You

(Sunday May 4, 2008)
I'm only a week or so in, but this trip keeps surprising me. From the moment I set foot on the trail, the scenery and mountain vistas were much more amazing and beautiful than I expected, and it all came much sooner than I imagined.

I expected that it would be "Eh" with a couple of Ooos and Ahhs mixed in until I started climbing into the Sierras and then I figured it would get real spectacular.

But every day I'm surprised by what I see, so much so that I've almost gotten used to it. That really isn't true at all, but I've stopped taking so many pictures because 1) I'll run out of memory and 2) even though it's all extremely beautiful and worthy of an depression-abating cubicle nature poster, it can all start looking the same after a while. And that's the real beauty. It rarely ever stops (okay, maybe in the godforsaken desert).

You get these uninterrupted views that go for miles and miles, 180 degrees or more and the mountains stand before you one clear range, one hazy range beyond that, another one still more vague and finally the tallest one above all the rest only a shadowy outline.

Everything is green, even the desert to a great extent. But its all a deceiving green. Except for a few stretches, much of what you think is forest covering the landscape is what's called chaparral. Chaparral is what sprouts up after a forest fire - of which there have been many in the last decade - and while pretty from a distance, up close it's dense, short and sharp.

And so if you can get past what can be sometimes ugly and oftentimes annoying when it starts crowding the trail, you see things at every turn that you've probably never seen before in your life.

Hiking the PCT has been what I expected, and like nothing I imagined. I'm meeting great people, seeing wildlife, experiencing awesome towns which I might never have known about without the hike.

Idyllwild is one of those towns. Real quaint, a big fish in a small pond (population 3500 surrounded by towns with less than 500 a piece), but someplace you'd love to have as your summer home if you had the money.

You're right in the middle of a state park, so it's nice and quiet, there's a good downtown area with a bunch of bars and restaurants, a movie theater, homegrown shops, pretty much everything you could need in a little self contained community.

You wouldn't need AC because the nights are cold and even on the hottest days you'd just sit in the shade and it will be 30 degrees cooler than in the sun because there's no humidity.

There's a sign as you walk (I should say "I" because you'd most likely drive) into town that says "Idyllwild - Entrance to America's Cleanest Forest" and they mean it. The place is clean in every sense of the word.

People always say "I'm going to get some fresh air" but this is the only place I've ever been where I can truly say that. The air is so fresh and clean up here it's hard to describe. It's like that frigid January morning when you go out to warm up your car and the world hasn't started moving yet, that refreshing inhale before you open the door and turn the key. It feels almost delicious to breathe.

The hike is hard, no doubt about that. Since the trail is closed for almost 30 miles, a group of us hiked like the world was on fire to Idyllwild along roads. My feet and knees are beat to shit right now, but the experience of the ups and downs, good and bad have made the trip worth it already, even if I've only been here a short time.

Remind me of this post in a couple weeks when I claim that I'd rather be at home lying naked watching Disney movies with Cheetos residue covering my lips and fingers...actually I would rather be doing that right now. Well, remind me if I start to wish for anything other than nude Disney Cheetos afternoons.

The Desert Sucks

(Saturday May 3, 2008 - 3:53pm)
The desert is hot as balls. No shade. Cool wind occasionally. Rattlesnakes, lizards, an extremely blue bird and some groundhog looking thing are all the animal life I've seen. Even the desert crows sound pretty crappy compared to the ones back home. Like they've been chain smoking for 30 years or have too much dust on their caw-ing muscles. Needless to say I don't like the desert much.

No Mountain Partying for Me

(Saturday May 3, 2008 - 1:00pm)
Last night I camped at a guy named Mike's house. He's someone who's known as a trail angel and although it sounds vaguely pornographic, it's just someone who helps hikers out.

The guy wasn't even there when we rolled in around 7:30pm and actually never showed up during the entire time I was there.

But who did show up was a truck full of Spanish-speaking guys who started unloading stuff from the truck that I couldn't see.

I of course start fearing for my life, picturing myself in the wrong place during some kind of drug or contraband exchange that was about to go horribly wrong. But I just fell back asleep hoping I wouldn't wake up with a black bag over my head chained to a wall.

As it turns out, they were Mike's friends coming in with beer and 100 lbs. of chicken for a Cinco de Mayo party that they were throwing tonight.

The guys were really nice and good hosts while Mike was away, offering us coffee and a home cooked breakfast. And if these guys were secretly the bad men I had originally suspected, they were the nicest bad men I ever met in my life. The type of bad man I one day aspire to be.

But unfortunately, I did not stick around for what I'm sure will be a night filled with debauchery and exposed flesh.

If I hadn't just stayed two nights in Warner Springs maybe, but I had to get moving or I'd never make it out of Southern California.

So tonight it's another 10 miles, then a ride into Idyllwild, then I get to figure out what to do about the trail and the fire closures.

Not as exciting as getting hammered at a cabin in the middle of nowhere, but what can you do?

No Mountain Partying for Me

(Saturday May 3, 2008 - 1:00pm)
Last night I camped at a guy named Mike's house. He's someone who's known as a trail angel and although it sounds vaguely pornographic, it's just someone who helps hikers out.

The guy wasn't even there when we rolled in around 7:30pm and actually never showed up during the entire time I was there.

But who did show up was a truck full of Spanish-speaking guys who started unloading stuff from the truck that I couldn't see.

I of course start fearing for my life, picturing myself in the wrong place during some kind of drug or contraband exchange that was about to go horribly wrong. But I just fell back asleep hoping I wouldn't wake up with a black bag over my head chained to a wall.

As it turns out, they were Mike's friends coming in with beer and 100 lbs. of chicken for a Cinco de Mayo party that they were throwing tonight.

The guys were really nice and good hosts while Mike was away, offering us coffee and a home cooked breakfast. And if these guys were secretly the bad men I had originally suspected, they were the nicest bad men I ever met in my life. The type of bad man I one day aspire to be.

But unfortunately, I did not stick around for what I'm sure will be a night filled with debauchery and exposed flesh.

If I hadn't just stayed two nights in Warner Springs maybe, but I had to get moving or I'd never make it out of Southern California.

So tonight it's another 10 miles, then a ride into Idyllwild, then I get to figure out what to do about the trail and the fire closures.

Not as exciting as getting hammered at a cabin in the middle of nowhere, but what can you do?

Love and Steven Segal

(Saturday May 3, 2008 - 12:49pm)
The other night when I was up writing in a towel and snow hat, i was probably the only awake person out and about. There were no hikers or other non-hiking guests, no employees, no one. Just me and a raccoon that I initially thought was a cat.

So I come out of the resort's computer room and I hear this cheesy music playing over the loudspeakers in the lodge. It was that Kenny G-type elevator jazz saxophone playing wordless pop hits. I think the tune I heard then was Mariah Carey or Whitney Houston.

Then I remembered that this was the same music that was playing down at the hot spring when all of the hikers were there swimming and drinking.

I remember walking in, and I see a quiet pool with steam coming off, surrounded by soft lighting, people swimming slowly back and forth to the shitty music. The whole scene made me feel like I was an extra in what was about to be a Steven Segal love scene.

But aside from that, if you ever have a chance to do a southern California road trip, make the Warner Springs Ranch one of your stops. Someone's bound to leave there pregnant.

Back to It

(Friday May 2, 2008)
Finally hit the trail again after two nights in Warner Springs. Wasn't planning on one night's stay let alone two, but fire has a way of changing plans.

Now I'll still end up in Idyllwild on Sunday, but it will most likely be the afternoon instead of the evening like I had originally hoped. Hopefully the Mt. San Jacinto campground is open because I heard the entire town was flooded with hikers either trying to wait out the fire or get alternate hiking plans set.

I just don't feel like spending money on a hotel room after two unbudgeted days in Warner Springs. The campground is only $2 a night so that would be clutch.

I heard that the town was swamped with hikers while I was at the cantina getting drunk with about 50 other hikers.

An old guy with about three teeth says that the fire was messing with his funds which were waiting for him in Idyllwild. So he asks me to buy him a drink and I oblige. Anything to help out a fellow hiker.

We all sit back down at our table and he comes over with us, sits in an empty seat and starts picking through our eaten baskets of food for leftover fries.

He was digging through chicken bones and greasy wax paper, gobbling up every last one. I wished I hadn't bought him the drink and got him some food instead so I didn't have to witness what was ocurring in front of me.

"Ohhh! A pickle!"

I look over and there he is, caught a gerkin on the end of his line, head tilted back mouth open, pickle going in...appetizing!

Watching him try to eat the pickle with his one sharp incisor at least made up for all the rest.

Speaking of food, I'm done with my lunch now, just waiting for my socks and shoes to dry out as I just had to cross a river with no rocks to hop on.

But I don't know how much longer I want to wait because these two flies won't stop bothering me. Probably because I killed their one friend and now they're his avenging angels.

Either way, I'm out until I'm back in. Hasta luego.

If It's the Wrong Decison, I'll Make It

(Friday April 25, 2008)
I got in on Thursday and managed to make two screw ups in two days. At this rate it will be 140 for the trip.

I got into San Diego and I have no food, which in and of itself isn't a bad thing but when you haven't thought out what exactly you're going to eat each day, then your situation's not so hot.

So instead of thinking about what I want for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks for the five days its going to take me to get to Warner Springs, I just decided, "Oh this looks good. Mmm, I'd like to eat that. Can't wait to eat these!"

And that's how I ended up carrying $250 worth of food three quarters of a mile back to the house I was staying at.

Originally I was just going to take a cart, bring the food to the house, then cart the food I was mailing to myself (that was part of the $250 too) to the post office and then return the cart to the store. Sounds logical, no? And it was which was why I didn't do it.

So there I am walking two blocks with what felt like 75 pounds of food in ten plastic bags. Then my arms started getting tired so it became a block. Then the bags started ripping. Then I heard a car full of girls drive by and laugh.

Eventually I would just kneel on the ground like I was genuflecting to the hiking gods and then spring up and walk as fast as I could to whatever landmark I picked out. By the end my face looked like I was getting an enema of fire. Good times.

That turned out to be a great plan because I showed up with my packages at the post office 15 minutes before they closed, with only one of my two packages in a box and no tape. In what turned out to be a post office miracle, someone had left a roll of tape there earlier and I was able to use that to seal up my bounce box. I was the last customer served and they had to unlock the doors to let me leave.

In hiking foolishness, I of course got lost during my first day on the trail, which wouldn't have been a big deal if I decided to wait for someone to help me out.
Instead, when faced with the choice of three trail directions, I decided to go with my gut and picked two wrong choices before finally waiting for someone who pointed out an arrow made of sticks that someone had left to guide unsure hikers on the right path.

Pissed that I wasted an hour or more of time that could have been spent heading to Lake Morena, I hightailed it down the trail, not making my usual stops for water and snacks. By the time I got to the campground, I was covered in salt, the sun was setting, dinner was finished being served and I couldn't get my tent set up correctly.

After taking an absolutely freezing shower and eating cold chicken out of a foil packet, I climbed into my tent, which sagged onto my face because it I set it up wrong.

Before I passed out, I cursed the Pacific Crest Trail and vowed to quit the next day.

But thankfully a night of uncomfortable sleep and waking up with condensation all over my sleeping bag was enough to calm me down and give it another shot.

So I'm sitting in a grove of trees making PB&J and doing some writing. My feet hurt and my shoulder is sore, but I must admit as hard as long distance hiking is (it's pretty fucking hard) the trail is a nice place to be.

The Fruit of Schmidt

(Sunday April 27, 2008)
Hiking may be hard but it's more dirty than anything. This will be my third day not showering and it feels like the 50th.

Dust really has a way of getting into everything, even the far corners of deeply packed compartments. You'd be amazed when you take out a jacket or shirt and you see a thin film of trail dust on something that hasn't been out of your bag all day.

What you wouldn't be amazed at is the dirt that's everywhere else, all over your hands, shirt, coating your legs, caking into cement under your finger and toe nails. It is pretty damn disgusting.

The worst part is putting on your sleeping clothes, which are for the most part clean because all you do is sleep in them, and climbing into your bag for what you think will be a peaceful sleep, but your dirty skin rubbing together makes you feel like you're covered in pond scum.
In other news, I smell fantastic.

At first it smelled somewhat fragrant, to the point that I thought it was some weird smelling PCT plant that I kept passing. It wasn't a great smell, but if it was B.O., then it was a desirable B.O.

I was starting to call it the Fruit of Schmidt, but then day three rolled around and it was just plain evil.

Hiking last night up onto the top of some mountain (it's windy up on top of mountains by the way) I soaked my shirt because it was a hard climb and I was trying to make it to a clear spot before the sun went down.

The next day, despite having left it out all night, the thing hadn't dried out at all and I tried putting it on, but at 5:15am, it was too cold and a little too disgusting even for PCT hiking.

Luckily today fog rolled in from the ocean and brought with it freezing cold air so when I eventually had to put the gross long sleeve on, it dried out from the 60 mph winds. Like I said, it's windy on top of mountains.

I thought the second day coming out of Lake Morena was bad with wind, but today I at two separate times thought I was going to be blown off the mountain as the wind was pushing me sideways on a two and a half foot wide path on the side of a cliff.

Go figure my camera battery died today so I couldn't take a picture of the clouds coming in over the other mountains across the valley. Just use this description to get a mental picture - clouds. Pretty sweet looking isn't it?

Alright lords and ladies, lunch is finito and I'm back to hiking. Yahtzee!

Trail Idiot

(Saturday April 26, 2008)
When I was sitting in the grove of trees yesterday writing and relaxing, I overheard this conversation:

Idiot: So do you have cell phone service here?
No Service: No.
Idiot: What do you use? Verizon?
No Service: No. Sprint.
Idiot: I thought it didn't matter what provider you had as long as you had roaming.

I shook my head then and I'm shaking it now thinking about it.

No, Idiot, that is not the definition of roaming. Despite the fact that you are "roaming" along the PCT, you do not have cell phone service at all times.

In other news, I hike a lot faster than I thought. I started at Burnt Rancheria (mile 41) today and the next water stops were at 47, 48 and 52. So I figure it will take me 4 hours or so with breaks to get to mile 47. I started at 6:45am so I figured I'd be there around 11:00.

So 11:30 rolls around and I'm not seeing the campground at mile 47. Then all of a sudden I walk into the Pioneer Mail Picnic Area at mile 52.

I passed the campground two hours before and even stopped there to take a picture without knowing it. Good times.

I was actually worried that I wouldn't be able to get water at Pioneer Mail because two people who were leaving as I got there told me there were dead rats in or near the water.

An older hiker named Lucky went up there and came back down to tell me that those people were full of shit. And they were. The water came out of a spigot crysal clear.

Nature calls and then it's back to the trail.

Late Night

Did you ever notice how soft mineral hot springs make your skin feel? Neither did I until just now.

First of all, these things reek of sulfur, meaning that in some small capacity they have something in common with feces, but really the comparisons end there. Whereas jumping into a pool of feces would probably make you want to die if the toxins didn't kill you first, on a cold night such as tonight, jumping into mineral hot springs was like heaven incarnate.

You're probably asking, "I thought this buffoon was on a hike?" And you'd be right, I am. But every hiker needs a break now and then, so here I am taking one. But that doesn't really explain it adequately. Yesterday, there was a cold front coming in off the Pacific (at this point I'd like to mention that Pocketmail - the device that I'm using to send emails from the trail when I don't have Internet access - doesn't work through Verizon. And of course I have Verizon, so any posts I make must be made from a land line and the resort that I'm at has neither room phones or televisions, so I'm still trying to work that out. So if I mention anything here and then again in a subsequent post, now you know why. Anyway, back to the story) and it brought to the PCT cold ass high speed winds. This is quite the change from slight breezes and oppressive heat, so without sweating your *insert dirty body part* off for 10 hours per day, you have a lot more energy to devote to walking. Thus, I got to where I expected to camp for the night at 3:30pm.

I got to talking with some people and the possibility of hiking to Warner Springs (the town I expected to reach the next day) came up. And so I decided not to waste the daylight and get my ass there. So me and three other guys hauled ourselves eight miles in three hours and got ourselves rooms for the night.

Let me tell you that after not showering for four days and sleeping in a tent for six, getting a hotel room is slightly more than enticing.

I get into the bathroom and I turn on the water, dreaming of a hot shower and all that it could possibly be, but the water keeps getting colder and colder, and I keep opening up the Hot knob more and more, but nothing's happening. Quickly I begin cursing my luck as the worst in the world, blaming God for having me hike 28 miles in one day only to be greeted by an arctic shower, and then I decide to just open up the Cold knob and wouldn't you know out comes the Hot water. Oh those jokers over at the Warner Springs Ranch. They got me.

Orgasmic. Hot water and soap never felt so good. I honestly could have died at that moment and I would not have cared. No kids, no fame or fortune, no execution of the soon-to-be-infamous bank heist that I've been planning...nothing. I would not have cared. It was a beautiful thing.

So anyway, this pornography has gone on for to long. So fast forward to 4:00pm today. Warner Springs lets you do an extended check out, which basically means that if you ask to stay past the 10:00am checkout, they'll let you stay until 4:00pm for free. Fine by me.

But the problem with that is that staying in this lovely place with its beer and food and bed and hot showers and pools and hot springs is just so tempting. I hung around and waited for the cleaning ladies to come and kick me out, but 4:00pm became 5:00pm and one beer became another and then I just said, "Fuck it!" and enjoyed the camaraderie of all of the other hikers pouring into the resort to avoid the forest fire.

Oh yeah. Sorry, forgot to mention that one. A burning stump started a forest fire that closed down the PCT for quite a ways and messed up more than a few hikers' plans, myself included. So it was either leave town this afternoon and hike a few miles, haul ass to get a 25+ mile day in Friday so that I have enough time to make it into Idyllwild on Saturday between 1:00pm and 3:00pm when their post office is open (I'm expecting packages there). Also, there's no outgoing mail from that post office on Saturday so I would also have to hike two miles to the next town to mail food ahead to myself at the next town stop. That or I could stay another night and take some easy days on the trail and get to Idyllwild on Sunday night or Monday morning.

So here I sit, having just taken a shower to wash the sulfur smell of the mineral hot springs off of me, blogging to you, my minions. I didn't even use soap because I had my shorts in there to clean them off as well, and I was smelling them, you know to do a check as to the effectiveness of my work, and the smell was out. So I smelled myself, and aside from my right armpit which is like genetically predisposed to stink for no reason and before any other part of my body even begins the process of starting to emit pungent odors, I didn't smell either.

Now, it's could be the 1/4 Black portion of my blood, it could be the part of me that descends from the British Isles, but whatever it is, my skin gets dry as hell. So it's nothing new to me to get out of the shower and immediately reach for the lotion (By the way, Warner Springs Ranch has soap, lotion and shampoo made exclusively for it and the stuff smells pretty good. I don't know if you can order it, but you should try to get some. I'm not stealing any for anyone you bunch of dirtbags so don't ask). But as I'm drying off, I notice that my skin is as smooth as if I already put some lotion on. Then I look in the mirror, because the face is the real test, and wouldn't you know, instead of crusty whiteness around my nose and on my forehead, I'm just a baby's behind all over.

So I thought to myself, I've got to blog about it. So I walked over to the computer room wearing a towel, a yellow short sleeve dry fit shirt and my red St. Joe's winter hat. No shoes. I look stunning. But I did it for you my minions, so that you would know the hardships that I go through for you.

Right now, I'm going back to my room, going to grab Pocketmail and try to use one of the resort's phones now that the restaurant desk is unattended. So you'll have my blogs from the 27th and 28th. I swore I had more, but that's all that are in there. Maybe I accidentally deleted them.

Alright, I'm off to send the Pocketmails, then sleep, then back to making the magic happen so I can report it for your entertainment.

And don't forget - Don't get high off your own supply.