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!