PCT Field Notes

A Social Change My legs and feet are still feeling a bit uncertain. My toes are getting progressively more numb with times of feeling like they are on fire, and what feels like being shocked on the outsides of my calves. Oh, how I hope I haven’t made a mistake with my shoes. The trail is low and easy, there’s very little climbing relative to NorCal. I come across Pippa, a girl I had met while in Pinecrest. It is always funny who you may come across. She’s headed south, doing some patchwork hiking. There are a few blowdowns but also, nothing compared to NorCal. But as I hop over this one log, I look down to see a natural basket of hornets that had made their nest right where I was hopping over. “Oooooooh shit!”, I yell as I speed past the log while I have a swarm of hornets buzz around me. Somehow I’m unscathed. Just up ahead is a canal, but the smell is horrid, so I continue 50 meters to see. Large group of people getting water at a spring. The canal, we assess, has sewage in it. Justi...

Grinding Down Stone I feel I am starting to really grind through Northern California. Small things are changing and my body remains responsive to the great ups and downs of the trail. I finish up my time in the Trinity Alps Wilderness and skip going down to Etna. I hear it’s a great place, but it will be too much time for me right now. I cruise along the day. I hear a strange noise as I come around hill. Music? No, bells. There are cows with bells all along the hills, very Swiss-like. They don’t seem to mind me much. I continue on through the Russian Wilderness. I see my first grouse of many, something I failed to do in the Sierras when they gave off their booming calls. White Marble Mountain At night I head all sorts of critters around. I’m not concerned about bears at all anymore, it’s the damn deer. They make a racket at night and don’t mind coming right up to the tent. I hear something rummaging around my bag late in the night and shoo it off. I find in the morning one of my gaiter...

Making my way Downtown Today I don’t have to make too many miles, which is great as my assumption the mosquitoes would not be as bad at night next to the road was wrong. I feel tired, but it’s all downhill, literally, from here on down to I-5. I got a surprise a few days ago that prompted me to move a bit faster, completing about 28 miles the day before. The Kababik Family would be here a day before I thought they would be getting to Mount Shasta. Meeting with the Hickeys was a moving target, but I had this date with the Kababiks for a while now, which really was perfect, I could use all the comforts in NorCal. Who are the Kababiks? Garrett, Kaia, and the three rascals. I had lived on their property, Ahu Lani, on Hawaii Island, for years. We had developed a close relationship, and it was a relationship I made sure to keep after leaving Hawaii, they’re family. So, Garrett, the kids, and one of Garrett’s close friends whom I had met before, Tamlorn, picked me up off of I-5. We immediatel...