Always expect the unexpected

It may have become obvious that this post was coming. About a week ago the Pacific Crest Trail Association (The group who issued me my PCT permits) sent out an email. The email told people not to hike the PCT this year, and if they were already on the trail, they should stop immediately. The arguments were reasonable and things I had already been thinking about. Some of the stretches of the PCT are quite remote and there is very little water in the desert sections. If you were to contract COVID-19 at a resupply point, or from other hikers, it could require emergency resources to get you back to civilization and be extremely dangerous. Emergency resources I believe will be valuable to people not walking the PCT over the coming months.

So next year? Maybe. This was an incredibly perfect chance to do the hike for a couple of life reasons. Next year may be much harder to put everything on hold for 4 months. Until then we’ll just have to wait and see.

To all of you out there dealing with the current uncertainty; good luck, stay safe, and wash your hands!

Mostly a success

Monday I pulled together my gear, enough food for roughly two days, and drove to Henry W. Coe state park. This is the park from my first post and in a funny turn of events I walked by where Craig and I has hunkered down for the night under emergency blankets. By 11am I started out on the 13.8 mile journey to my campsite. Two hours into my walk at 7.6 miles I was feeling great. I started to believe that 20 miles a day wouldn’t be to bad. Then at mile 11 the blisters started. I've never gotten blisters backpacking or with the type of shoes I was wearing. Even more odd was that all of them were on my left foot toes. By mile 13 I hit Kelly Lake and instead of continuing the last 0.8 miles to Coit Lake I set up camp and called it a day. The next morning the walk back became progressively more painful as one blister grew to the size of half my big toe, and despite the extra layers of socks and bandaids, popped. The last 2.2 miles were a pathetic hobble. It immediately became clear that if this was to happen on the the PCT I would have to wait days to recover or call it off all together. This is great information to have and in my next outing I’ll be using liner toe socks and maybe a size larger shoe.

While the blisters were the fail part of the hike, they were eclipsed by the win of having no knee pain. Reducing my pack weight to under 20 pounds including food and water did the trick for me knees. I walked 26 miles in two days and other than some calve and hip soreness everything was fine. I’ll be back to Henry W. Coe in a couple weeks to try a three day trip with a total of over 30 miles. Hopefully by then I’ll have the blisters issue under better control.

Robert’s wildlife extravaganza:

• Bobcat (Watched me from the side of the road then slunk off into the underbrush)
• Rabbits
• Desiccated salamander corpses (A ton were strewn throughout the trail)
• Recently deceased Turkey Vulture (I’d never seen one up close before)
• Deer
• Cattle (Ran away from me faster than the Bobcat)
• Ducks
• Frogs
• Hawks from afar (I used to play bass for Hawks From Afar)
• Coastal Cutthroat Trout
• Lizards
• Turkeys

Every ounce counts?

My knees are not what they used to be (said in a comedic-ally old voice). When I run, after about the 3 mile mark, they begin to hurt and that pain can last for days when I walk. This started after a trail Marathon I ran in 2010 from Tilden park to Hayward and has sadly only gotten worse over the last decade.

A couple of years ago when I was fly fishing in the Sierras I walked about 14.8 miles. At the end of that day my knees began to hurt so badly that I was forced to hitch hike the last mile back to my campsite. For a couple of days after that I was limping. This is the most worrying experience in my history of hiking/backpacking. Due to my other ongoing knee issues I accepted this as the new norm of aging.

Then in an unrelated experience an ENT put me on Prednisone for an extremely bad Chronic Sinus Infection and every knee ache and issue I have experienced since that Marathon was immediately gone. My knees felt like they were 20 again. A quick internet search clearly linked Prednisone to helping joint pain related to Arthritis. After seeing multiple doctors the answer was I might have Osteoarthritis but the x-rays, tests, etc. were inconclusive. Whatever the case is, it does seem like at 40 I have knee limits, which will ultimately dictate how much of this trek I can do. This is why every once may matter.

So here is the current breakdown minus food and water. My ideal weight would be under 14 pounds but it is currently at 15.8:

1. Very light warm jacket
2. Fleece top (Will probably choose a lighter option)
3. Trekking poles (Double as tent poles)
4. Dungeons & Dragons dice (Priorities)
5. Chap stick with Sunblock
6. Cold Soak container (The crazy alternative to a stove. Eat everything cold after you’ve soaked it for a couple of hours in water)
7. Very light backpack and rain cover
8. Smart water bottles (Durable and ultralight. The standard for PCT hikers)
9. Toiletries (Toothbrush, toothpaste, floss, first aid, etc.)
10. Mini towel
11. Light neck scarf (Surprisingly warm, protects again the sun, etc.)
12. Long sleeve shirt (Considered to be SPF 50)
13. Fold-able Bluetooth keyboard (For blogging on the trail. Not sure if it’s worth it. It’s under 4 ounces, the battery lasts for 42 hours of continuous use, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
14. A pouch that attaches to my backpack for my phone and MP3 player
15. Very small MP3 player (The reason for this is I didn’t want to wear my phone battery down listening to music. The MP3 player is half an ounce, lasts 25 hours, and holds 128gbs of music so it seems worth it)
16. Headlamp
17. Lightweight battery pack (Multiple PCT hikers recommended this over a solar panel. Fully charges my phone 1.5 times. In airplane mode enough for about 10 days of use for pictures, GPS maps, etc.)
18. Mosquito net
19. Micro leatherman
20. Rain poncho
21. Inflatable pad (Insulated for using a quilt and very comfortable. I could go with something much less nice and lighter but this is one of the places I’m really not willing to skimp on)
22. My tent. So much to say here. This tent is 2.2 pounds and cost about 100 dollars. For 600 dollars I could get a one person tent that weighs 0.9 pounds. This is the biggest decision I’m currently faced with in saving weight. I think I can possibly resew some of my cheap tent and get it down to roughly 1.2 pounds but it may be worth it to just pay the money and immediately drop 1.3 pounds. Again, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
23. Inflatable pillow (Super light and worth the comfort)
24. Sleeping quilt (All the rage now. Somewhere between a blanket and a sleeping bag. Very lightweight.)
25. Shorts
26. Thermal Underwear (Lightweight silk type)
27. Water Slippers (Lighter sandal alternatives)
28. Trowel and bidet cap (If you really want to know I’ll tell you what a bidet cap is)
29. Beanie
30. 3 x Socks (2 ankle height for hiking and one long pair for sleeping)
31. Booties for sleeping (This was recommended. I haven’t tried them yet but they are so light and cheap that they seem potentially worth it in colder areas)
32. Ventilated sun hat
33. A t-shirt, 3 pairs of underwear, and a handkerchief.
34. Gloves
35. Water filter (Another potential weight saving area. The filter I have is nice because it can pull water out of very shallow puddles, which could be important in the desert. The standard for PCT hikers is the lighter sawyer water filter. I'm weighing my options here)
36. Not shown is my fly fishing gear that is under 5 ounces. To get the weight that low I will be fishing without a reel. Fly fishing really doesn’t require a reel for smaller fish. If I catch a fish in the Sierras over 12 inches it’s considered a monster. Hopefully eating fish will sometimes help with getting calories and protein. I have dehydrated powdered lemon, which I will attempt to use to make Cerviche with the fish. If I was carrying a stove I would just cook it but this will be the cold soak alternative

Have I gone a little crazy about weight? The answer is yes. That said I feel like I have a good reason. If having the lightest pack means I can walk 15 miles a day instead of 10 without knee pain, that will add 665 miles on to my trip before I have to get off the trail in September. So, to go as far as possible, in the allotted time, with the least negative impact on my knees, I’ll be trying to shave off every possible ounce that I can until I hit the trail on May 25th.

Change of plans

As many of you may know, my wife and I were planning a trip to Europe. We had been pretty excited, seeing that we haven’t had the chance to travel together (except for a short honeymoon) due to life busy-ness and health issues. Needless to say after 9 years of being together we were pretty excited… but sometimes the universe is sending you messages. Sometimes you ignore these messages as long as you can until there is a pile of them visibly blocking your doorway. Well, there has been a lot going on in Europe recently, not just involving COVID-19. We had been planning to go to Turkey and possibly the Greek Islands, which seem to be in an unfortunate escalation with Syria. Also, Tessa threw her back out, and while she has recovered quite a bit in the last two days, sitting up is still painful. A 12 hour plane ride could in fact be agony. It just seems like it’s time to put this trip off until we can there are fewer obstacles and unknowns.

This is extremely disappointing but it does add an extra month of backpacking to test gear and gauge what I can physically handle. We may try the trip at the end of my PCT adventure depending on when I get off the trail but it’s unclear seeing that we don’t want to miss the election in November or even the time leading up to it.