Monday, July 16, 2012

Day 87: more beauty...and lots of walking

Saturday 7/14/12
Miles 1035.5-1062.5 (27 miles)
Elevation 7,904'

It's really pretty out here. Interesting how the terrain goes back and forth between dry, barren, exposed hillside to lush forest, to a field of wildflowers. The plethora of water is so nice. I can practically go through most of this section with just a straw. Lol.

I met a family today, they had a super cute puppy with them who had saddlebags on. I took a pic of their dog. Lol. One of the sons somehow accidentally got a fishhook stuck in him. Yikes!! Hope he is ok. The mom gave me some awesome intel about a bicycle race going on today called the "death ride". It's a 135 mile bike race over 5 mountain passes. It is insane. Anyhow, at Ebetts Pass, where the PCT crosses hwy 4, there was supposedly an aid station. She said maybe I can score some food from them. Stoked!!

I got to the aid station around 3pm just as they were packing up. Yay!! :D I got some bagels and cream cheese, tons of mini clif bars, some licorice, and an orange. Thanks, death ride volunteers! I took a pic of some of the cyclists that were there. They looked tired. Oh my gosh I was looking at the elevation chart for this race and my eyeballs were like this --> O.O. It was nuts!! No wonder they called it the death ride!! They go over ebbets pass twice and monitor pass twice. That sucks, because then while you're going downhill all you think about is the fact that you gotta ride back up. UGH! Lol. For those of you that don't cycle, it is *way* harder to ride uphill than it is to walk uphill! I took a pic of the race course map and elevation chart. Much respect to the riders. <3 Holy crap! Lol.

At some point through the day I ran into a PCTA (pacific crest trail association, www.pcta.org) trail crew. Thanks for clearing the trail guys! :) they also insisted that I took a pic with their banner. Lol. Although technically I was around mile 1050ish when I took that photo :)

Yeah, we did 27 miles today. Holy crap I'm tired :) so, a few days ago at Sonora Pass, Kyle left his trekking pole at the trailhead when we hitched into town. By the time we returned, they were gone :(. So, if anyone lives around Sonora pass and has seen some Black Diamond carbon fiber trekking poles lying around, please let me know. They are super expensive and just recently bought :(

So, in place of the poles Kyle is now using a wooden wizard staff. Not quite ultra-light, but makes up for that in badassness. :D. I think he's going to try and rig some led lights to it too. Oh! I dont remember if I mentioned Squizzle. He's my new fuzzy squirrel hiking buddy! There's a pic of him on my pack. That squirrel came from Wrightwood where me and Siddartha went zip lining. Our guide bought the squirrel for Siddartha, he dropped him 10 miles south of Sonora pass, Snow White found him and named him Squizzle, I recognized him on her pack.

Anyhow, I was thinking we should put Squizzle on the top of Kyle's wizard stick and rig red led lights in Squizzle's eyes. Haha. It would be fun to scare the day hikers :D

No comments:

Post a Comment