Happy Birthday Arij! - ??? to Campo

Arij’s birthday was today! We had a nice dinner at the Ajax Café in Port Hadlock where we wore funny hats (the tradition at the Ajax), followed by Cake and presents at home.

Wonderful time!

Escape! - ~2330mi to campo

Well, we hiked out today, via the old and underused Fog trail. Descend on the trail for a while before losing it in the snow, then had to resort to following game trails to make our way down the rest of the moderately steep slope to get the an old logging road that would dump us out on Hwy 410. There was, on the map, a campground there called Morse Creek Campground, at which I figured we'd be able to get a phone call made, or at the very least pick up some water. It turns out that campground is gone - doesn't appear to exist anymore! So we started hiking up the highway, towards Chinook Pass about 8 miles away. The blazing sun overhead certainly didn't help. Strangely enough, we couldn't pay someone to pick us up. Hitchhiking attempts for 2 hours resulted in nothing more than stares as we plugged our way uphill. It's wierd, we're out in the middle of nowhere, 50 miles from the closest town, and nobody would stop to help. Wouldn't you stop to help two nice looking hikers on the side of the road? I started to joke that maybe Arij should lie down on the ground and I'd start performing CPR... maybe somebody would stop. Scarily enough, I wouldn't be surprised if people drove right on by. FINALLY, somebody did stop. Arij will point out that they did because they were military - a guy and his wife from Ft Lewis stopped and picked us up. We were sooo grateful to finally get picked up. They drove us up to the pass, but there were no phones there. They were looking for a gas station anyways, so they just took us with them to the little town of Greenwater (could a backwater town name be any more obvious?). We placed a few strategic phone calls and arranged for our rescue. After looking online tonight it appears that there's a major fire closure along the PCT where it starts at the Washington-Oregon border, so we may have to skip all the way ahead to Timberline Lodge, Mt Hood, Oregon. That would be section 4, so we'd be cutting out segments 2 and 3 (and about 200 miles). Not too bad, I suppose.

We learned a few things in this section. Most importantly, that we can definately do this. Even with dealing with major routefinding issues and snowy trails, we managed to pull off 17 mile days. Imagine how fast we would have been going on clear trail! We're going to get to campo.

Oh noes! Snow! - 2339.2mi to campo

Today started out great. Bit of a long stretch between water, but the spring at Big Crow Basin was fantastically clear and cold. Had lunch there - our first soup lunch day! Mmmmmmmmmmm. Potato soup! It was soooo good. Scout pass was the high point of the day, shortly after, up at 6530', but it wasn't too bad. However, we quickly ran into more problems. The trail between Bullion Pass and Blue Bell Pass was a nightmare. It turned from hiking over snow to climbing over snow. We had to traverse 45degree snow slopes - in our tennis shoes and trekking poles! Lots of slow and ponderous step kicking ensued to guarantee our safe travel, but made it excruciatingly slow. 45 degree snow slopes are no joke, especially when you've got a bad runout. It reminded me more of spring mountaineering trips than summer hiking! We managed to perservere to the trail junction just south of Crown Point, only to see that the trial only got worse after that. So it was with heavy hearts that we opted to hike down tomorrow to Hwy 410 and hitchhike to the nearest phone. Looks like we're going to have to skip Washington and start in Oregon.

Mailing Addresses for Patrick & Arij

Patrick wanted me to post the addresses where you can send mail (or treats!). I've included stops approximately every 2 weeks so you can have your pick. Please note that the date shown is the day they they INTEND to pick up their mail. So, if you mail something to them you should send it at least 1 week ahead of their arrival date. Or if you are the safe and cautious type, make it 2 weeks. Also, be sure to put on the letter or box the following: "HOLD FOR PCT HIKER - ARRIVAL ON (the date I've listed below).

1. July 6
Timberline Ski Area
Wy'East Store
Timberline Lodge, OR 97028
Phone: (503) 272-3311 x426

2. July 19
Crater Lake National Park Post Office
Crater Lake, OR 97604

3. August 3
Post Office
20115 Castle Creek Road
Castella, CA 96017
Phone: (530) 235-4413

4. August 14
General Delivery
Belden, CA 95915
Phone: (530) 283-0951

5. August 31
Tuolumne Meadows Station
Yosemite National Park, CA 95389
Phone: (209) 372-0263

6. September 14
Kennedy Meadows General Store
PO Box 3A5
Inyokern, CA 93527

7. September 30
Post Office
1440 Highway 2
Wrightwood, CA 92397
Phone: (760) 249-8882

8. October 11
Post Office
31650 Highway 79
Warner Springs, CA 92086
Phone: (760) 782-3166

Rolling along - 2352.7mi to Campo

Two 17+ mile days in a row - woohoo! We continue to run into navigation problems (lots of snow), but we just are getting faster at dealing with them. Came across a huge burn area today called "Fall Creek Burn". 1989, 3000+ acres, courtesy of loggers. :( Also came across a great place called Camp Urich at Government Meadows, nice cabin, beautiful meadows, gorgeous creek. We also weathered through our first "water alert" ; 14.6 mi without a water source. The spring at the end of the dry spell was picturesque - water never looked better.

So let's take a toll of my afflictions... I have one sunbruned hand from the trekking pole. I swallowed 2 bugs from talking while hiking. I have 6 blisters. Patrick says I should name them. I think that would give them a sense of permanance and I want them to go away, ASAP. The pain was really bad at one point so I ended up hiking in my flip flops for about 5 mi. Lastly, I have between 12-14 mosquito bites. All and all I am having the time of my life. Oh yeah, the food cravings have already started. When we were at the idyllic little spring I started to imagine it was flowing blue cheese dressing. Sounds yucky to you I am sure, but it was a GREAT fantasy!

SNOW! - 2387mi to Campo

Today was excruciating. Our first 7 hours we managed to travel all of about 4 miles. TONS of snow. Major route finding difficulties. Talus scrambling. Frozen lakes. I suffered flashbacks to guiding on Mt Rainier and tried climbing straight over a pass before taking a bearing. I really didn't expect to find much snow at 3500-4000' in the cascades in late June, but oh boy is it there. The only tracks I saw today were from snowshoers, maybe a week old. At least we managed to find a nice campsite for the night.

Our morning started out wonderful, good breakfast, high spirits, sunshine....what could go wrong, right? Well a whole lot of things, SNOW. I learned quickly about snow travel in tennis shoes. Falling hurts, the bruise from slamming into a log on my leg still smarts. The route finding took valuable time and energy, in the end though we saw many sights we may not have seen because we found our own way. The frozen lake (Tinkham Lakes) were actually 200' above our actual trail, a gem we would have missed. It was interesting day, spent in snow and then in extremely hot clear cut. I can not decide which one I don't like more. Soon we will be out of clear cutting though and I will look forward to that!

First Night - 2397.6mi to Campo

Well, it's our first night out on the trail. We didn't get started until about 3:45pm today. Bus out of Bellingham was 30 minutes late, then we had our last "civilized" lunch - burritos at Chipotle in Bellevue. We only hiked for about 5 miles today, but it was great to start out slow. Ran into a little snow, but nothing too bad. Our little wood stove works great! We had dinner at this creek around 6pm before hiking a couple miles to find a suitable camp site. All in all, a fantastic day.

All we can talk about is WoW. I wonder when that topic will be exhausted. Patrick is already trying to hog our tent, but I know his weakness. I think it is somewhere between his 8th and 9th rib, hehe. We had our first map fiasco and had to backtrack about .6 miles, so that was a lesson. Our guide book is written south to north so it confused us. I think we learned a valuable lesson, don't unerringly trust Patrick, nah just kidding. It was a joint decision. Well I am loaded up on Ibuprofen and hope to sleep well.

Posting Voice

Just wanted to have a short post up here about the voice in these posts. All the posts will pretty much be typed up by Patrick's dad, Jim. He's also going to be posting the pictures we send back. But, the words in the posts are written by Arij and Patrick. Patrick's entries are in plain text, Arij's are in italics.

Hitting the trail!

We start hiking today!

It's going to be quite a fun trip. I cut my hair extra short for the journey. :) Look forward to reading everyone's comments when we can!

See everyone in 4 1/2 months!

Last minute advice....

So I have been calling all of my family in recent days just to say goodbye and let them know when we are starting out. I have come across oodles of advice, I thought it would be interesting if any of you had any last minute advice.

Patrick's Father Jim asked if I had a knife to fend Patrick off if he went after my food. My Father was very concerned about our batteries so we can take lot's of pictures, (actually this was very good advice and taken to heart). My Grandmother was very concerned about us sleeping and getting swept away by snow. She was very adamant that we be careful, and adhere to Mother Nature. The standing joke in the family is that she is Mother Nature. When I asked if she couldn't just help us out herself, she informed me, "I am a very small Mother Nature." (I am still hoping her radius is most of Washington, I don't want to get rained on.)

Ben (Hammerton/Incognito) said....

Have a lot of fun guys, good luck with the whole getting used to the real world/outdoors again! Its been a fun year or so playing together, and hopefully we will see you back for the Burning Crusade. Go the Coldness!
I've prepared some tips for ya, based on my extensive tramping experience (does day dreaming count as experience?)
1. Be careful of strange beasts (mobs)
2. If you see a teenager or college kid (low level/nub) don't be afraid to rough them up (gank), its the only way they will learn (just so there are no hard feelings whisper "Lrn2Play" in their ear as you leave)
3. Set out the Loot Rules BEFORE you leave home. I don't think you guys can /leave in this situation easily (carry one of those crazy 30 side dice)
4. Make sure your mods or macros work well offline - /shield /hearth /cry doesn't work so well when being chased by a bear IRL.
5. Drinking Rum makes you stronger and able to jump of higher cliffs.
6. If you want to interact with someone, don't forget to indicate your interest by 'tagging' them. I suggest a gentle slap on the back of the head for starters.

I would love to hear everyone's last minute advice =P. Please post with what you think we might have forgotten, don't be shy it might really be important.

Last minute preparations

Today I dug through rock. No, really, rock. I'd take some pictures but I'm afraid that my hands won't really operate a camera at the moment (never mind the fact that I'm typing). Anyways, we built a kennel for Timber today at my parents place. It just so happens that their property is located right on top of a basalt lava flow. This puts the bedrock about 6 inches below the dirt. Well, you can't really call it dirt either. It's more like a bunch of rocks with a little dust in between them all.

We got it set up pretty nicely though, about a 30'x21' enclosure, with a large area that is covered to give him some shelter from the wind/rain/sun. Of course, he's not too fond of it, but he never does like being locked in. :)

Final prep is pretty much done. We've got to rip apart the guide books and add the sections to all our boxes, but once that's done, we're ready to go. We're thinking now that the summer solstice is on wednesday, and that might be a auspiscious day to start.

Itinerary

For those of you interested, here's our starting itinerary. This is a list of points along the trail where we'll be exiting/stopping to resupply and refresh (hot showers woot!).

Snoqualmie Pass, WA - 6/19
White Pass, WA - 6/25
Cascade Locks, OR - 7/03
Timberline Lodge, OR - 7/06
Ollallie Lake Guard Station, OR - 7/08
Big Lake Youth Camp, OR - 7/11
Cascade Summit, OR - 7/15
Crater Lake Post Office, OR - 7/19
Hyatt Lake Resort, OR - 7/23
Seiad Valley, CA - 7/27
Castella, CA - 8/03
Burney Falls State Park, CA - 8/08
Old Station, CA - 8/10
Belden, CA - 8/14
Soda Springs, CA - 8/20
Echo Lake Resort, CA - 8/23
Tuolumne Meadows, CA - 8/31
Red's Meadow, CA - 9/03
Vermillion Valley Resort, CA - 9/06
Kennedy Meadows, CA - 9/14
Tehachapi, CA - 9/21
Agua Dulce, CA - 9/25
Wrightwood, CA - 9/30
Big Bear City, CA - 10/03
Idylwild, CA - 10/08
Warner Springs, CA - 10/11
Campo, US/Mexico Border - 10/14

Final prep

Well, it's T-3 days now, and it's getting down to the wire. We've got over 23 boxes to package and ship. Planning food, toiletries, clothing, shoes, and everything else you can possibly think of for 5 months is a pretty immense undertaking.

We just finished with all the packages yesterday, and keep finding other things we've forgotten. Like lighters. And we've made so many trips to costco and REI that employees there are starting to recognize us.

All in all, pretty exciting. This weekend I'm headed out to my folks place to build a kennel for the dog, since they'll be keeping him while we're away. Monday is the day we're supposed to start on the trail, but it could be Tuesday.

The start

This blog is hopefully going to serve as a live journal of our hike along the PCT this year. Hopefully it will get updated about once a week, but there's no guarantee. In anycase, here's the scoop:

Patrick(myself) and Arij are going to hike the PCT from canada to mexico. Yes, we're hiking it north to south. And to perfectly honest, because of heavy snow this winter, and the absence of key bridges in the northernmost sections, we're dropping the first few sections of the PCT and starting at Snoqualmie Pass in Washington. We should hit the trail June 19th and finish up on about October 15th.

The plan is to send pictures and notes on the PCT back to my dad, who will hopefully get the chance to update this journal about once a week, maybe every other week. Well, we'll see how it goes.