Day 99: Sierra City!

Thursday 7/27/12
Miles 1183-1195 (12 miles)
Elevation 4,185'

Wow it's toasty! We're back in lower elevation. Feels like the desert again! Saw a rattlesnake today. It was doing a cool little dance. Dang, I thought I was done with those guys in the desert! I guess not. Lol. Anyhow, we got into Sierra City today. I got my new poles from Black Diamond! Yaaaay! Thank you!! My other pole fell apart 30 miles ago, I'm stoked!! :)

Also got a new tent. My mom and dad sent me their 2 person 4 season tent. It's a Stevenson Warmlite tent. Thanks mom and dad!! :). It's a cool tent, however I think it's totally impractical for thru-hiking. The poles are freakin heavy. And they're curved. They're collapsible, but still curved. Not good for thru-hiking. I wonder how long it will be before I break those poles. The tent is also frickin huge. Which is nice for a 2 person tent, but excessive. It's comfortable tho. However, in my opinion, if comfort is that big of a deal for you, you shouldn't be thru-hiking. Oh, seam sealing it was absolutely ridiculous. It took 2 of us over 2 hours to seam seal it. Holy crap. Btw, don't seam seal your tent on the trail. Make sure you do it at home. You will be pissed off if you have to seam seal on trail. Trust me. Not only that, but it probably wont be as good of a job a if you did it at home. And it won't fully dry, and you will have dirt and all kinds of crap stuck to the silicone.

Anyhow. Maybe I'll like the tent a little more later on. Bah. I'm just annoyed I have to carry tent poles. It just seems like complete dead weight. Wish they would just go up with my hiking poles like my Notch. I love that tent. It is so epic, simple, and efficient. That new tent is stuffy as hell too. Bleh.

Anyhow, the Red Moose Inn in Sierra City is absolutely amazing. Bill and Margaret are two of the coolest, kindest, and most selfless people on earth. Right up there with the Saufleys and Ziggy and the Bears, etc. Yay for epic trail angels!!! <3. Thank you soooo much for all you guys do for us hikers. You are beautiful souls and an amazing aspect of humanity. Epicness times a million <3

Day 98: just cruising... :)

Wednesday 7/25/12
Miles 1163-1183 (20 miles)
Elevation 7,000'

That hut had a cool book in it called Outhouses of Alaska. It's funny. :) I also took some pics of mine and Kyle's trail register entry. G drew that really cool dragon. I think it took him about an hour last night to do that.

The landscape and terrain is so different. If you look back at the scenery pics from a couple weeks ago, til now, it's like night and day! Before I would look in the distance and the mountains are so pointy and tall and jagged, now I look around and it's soft and rolly. The terrain is consequentially a lot more mellow too. Hence doing 20 mile days isn't too bad even in the 5 finger shoes.

Gosh I love those shoes. I don't understand how or why people want to hike in boots. They are like bricks on the feet! To each their own :)

So I got sick the day after leaving Tahoe. Not sure how or why, but I'm feeling good today finally :). Man the first few days sucked, my throat hurt so breathing also hurt. Which sucked because breathing is kind of important. I also have tons of boogers. Kyle said I should save it and when a day hiker comes by I could blow a huge snot rocket. Which is a great idea!! Except everytime I had enough boogers to shoot an epic snot rocket, there were no day hikers around. Tragic. :(. Haha!

Oh! Squizzle now has a wizard name too! He is Squizzard. I need to find a small piece of tyvek to make him a little wizard hat.

Dang there are so many day hikers. Arrrrg it's kind of annoying. Lol. After doing the PCT for a while, I think we all find day hikers and weekend hikers annoying. Lol. I thought it was just me and Kyle being self entitled pct assholes, but apparently all the other hikers have the same sentiments. Lol. It's not individuals that we don't like, it's just the idea of them, I think. If that makes any sense. I dunno, the other pct hikers are generally so cool, the only time we're run into pricks and goobers were either the day hikers, JMters, or dockers (that's what we call weekend hikers). Lol. So, since mt.whitney we've been trying to figure out ways to scare day hikers. I think that's how the wizard suit idea came about. Lol.

The hikers in the pic are Swanson, G (the two dudes we were in the hut with) and Trooper who is the tall dude. They're funny, I could hear them coming down the trail from a 1/2 mile away. PCT hikers are so fascinating :)

Day 97: epic morning, epic trail, epic hut

Tuesday 7/24/12
Miles 1156-1163 (7 miles)
Elevation 7,851'

Oh my gosh, Tom made us an AMAZING breakfast. He made us scrambled eggs and sausage. Then he made us homemade sourdough blueberry pancakes. Oh man it was yumballs! He drove us to the trail afterwards. THANKS TOM!!! <3 he is definitely one of the most fascinating trail angels I've met. Wish I coulda just hung around all day with him. Ah well. Time to put in miles. Or so we thought. Lol!

Near the trailhead, there is Donner Ski Ranch. They have a bar/cafe there at the ski lodge that they opened up in the summer, and they give PCT hikers beer. I heard about this and Tom confirmed it, so naturally we went there. We ended up staying for almost 4 hours. Oops. Lol. The bartender was really cool. She also runs the kitchen and the whole place, singlehandedly. They had one of those margarita machines, and I had li hing mui powder, so I introduced Kyle to the epicness of a li hing mui margarita. Whoop whoop! :) the bartender lived in Hawaii for a while so she knew exactly what I was doing. Lol.

We didn't get on trail til after 4. Lol. Oops. :) hence we only did 7 miles. gosh it was a pretty hike. We went to this random cabin called the Peter Grubb hut. It's such a badass cabin!! Owned and built by the Sierra club. I took pics of it. There's actually electricity in there (just lights), powered by a solar panel. There are 2 wood burning stoves too. It's a huge cabin! There are 2 rooms in there and a loft upstairs. That's where the ladder goes. There's also an outhouse.

We were there with Sam (G) and I forgot the other guy's name. They are super cool. It was a fun evening. This cabin would have been an epic place the night of the thunderstorm. Lol :)

Trivia time #3: United States lakes edition

The PCT goes right by the 2 deepest lakes in the USA. Name both the lakes

To Kyle's friends and family

Some people have asked where and how to send Kyle care packages. Here are some addresses and *specific* instructions. We're not being anal, it's just that if packages are not labeled and sent a certain and specific way, there is only about a 60% chance it will arrive; part of that depending on whether the postmaster on both ends is in a good mood or not. So here we go.

If you can send out the package by this Friday (7/27/12), send it to here, addressed exactly like so. Please send it as *priority mail* to:
PCT Hiker Kyle Dahl
General Delivery
Belden, CA 95915

If you cant get package out by friday, send it here. Next address after Belden:
PCT Hiker Kyle Dahl
General Delivery
Old Station, CA 96071

On the box, please write Kyle's last name in large ostentatious print on all sides of the box. If you're mailing Kyle a box, please let him know, because he needs to know a box is there in order to pick it up.

Also, Kyle's been wanting to get a travel-sized classical backpackers guitar. Martin Guitar Company makes a lightweight classical backpackers guitar. So if one of his friends wants to start a get-kyle-a-guitar fund, awesome. :D Kyle doesnt read my blog. So shhhh don't tell him I'm shamelessly pimping him out. LOL! :). He's a really good guitar player, incase you didn't know. It's pretty epic to hear music on the trail. There's 2 other PCTers I know of that are rocking travel guitars, Jason Phelps (AKA Hee Haw) and Kristo; Kristo has a blog, dunno about Hee haw. Yay for PCT musicians! :)

Oh. Not sure if you can mail aerosols, but at some point in the near future I'm going to shave a mohawk in his hair. I need orange or pink or some other loudass hairspray paint, so I can color his Mohawk. :D

Day 96: thunder! lightning! rain! hail! Whee!!

Monday 7/24/12
Miles 1140-1156 (16 miles)
Elevation 7,101'

Today was probably the most odd overall day of hiking. Lol. So, the whole day it was a mixture of thunder, lightning, rain, hail, and intense sunshine. Lol. Reminds me of Hawaii. :) Except we don't get hail. Except for that one time earlier this year.

Anyhow, weather was nutty. I was SO STOKED I had my umbrella. Of all the miscellaneous pieces of gear I have, my chrome dome is my fave. It saved me through the desert, and now it's saving me from precipitation. Kyle just had his rain jacket and when he was getting pelted with hail, he said it hurt. Ouch. :( Umbrella-1, Precipitation-0, HA! :D

We pretty much walked through the back side of the entire squaw valley ski area. Holy crap it is a HUGE resort! It reminded me of Wrightwood, because over there the trail also went through the top of the Mt.High ski resort. It was kinda neat.

Anyhow, at Donner pass we hitched into the town of Truckee to get more fuel. Kyle also got a pack cover. Ive had mine since day one, and today is the first time ive used it. So stoked on the lack of rain! Hiking in precipitation sucks. Lol. Ugh, washington is gonna totally suck balls...

There is an all you can eat sushi place in Truckee, too. :) for your reference, Truckee is about a 30 minute drive due west of Reno. it's not as epic as Sushi Pier tho. Oh my god if any of you are in South lake Tahoe, you *need* go to there. Seriously. Theres one in Reno too.

Anyhow. A *super awesome* trail angel picked us up in Truckee and let us crash at his epic 3 story house with his dog and cat! THANK YOU TOM!! Trail name Freeloader. Lol. Tom is so cool. Definitely one of my favorite top 3 trail Angels, next to Shepherd (SoCal), and Tom and Tori who picked us up outside of Bridgeport. Iwe dried our sleeping bags and gear at Toms house. By the way, don't dry your sleeping bags in a household dryer! Holy crap it put a couple holes in Kyle's bag and melted some of the fabric. WTF?!? We've dried the bags so many times at laundomats with no problems. It was set on low heat! Both our bags were in there. Mine didn't get holes in it, Kyle's did. F**k that really really frickin sucks. Uuuuuugh... >:(

Anyhow, Tom is so unbelievably COOL. I dunno how to describe him. I could have easily sat there all day and had conversations with him. He is such a character!! Lol. Thanks so much Tom!

The section of trail from Sonora Pass to Donner Pass is probably my favorite chunk of the PCT overall, thus far. The only reason Yosemite isn't #1 is because of the mosquitos. Scenery-wise it is my favorite tho. But yeah, good lord this past section of trail is incredible!!!! <3

Anyhow, Sierra City here we come! :)

Day 95: dancing feet, wheeee! :)

Sunday 7/22/12
Miles 1120.5-1140 (19.5 miles)
Elevation 7,500'

Dang, today's 20 miles was so much more epic than yesterday's 20 miles. The terrain was a lot softer and comfy. We made pretty good time. And the feet felt a lot better.

At Barker Pass, there was an epic anonymous trail angel. We were running very low on fuel, and this person had a bucket sitting on his car by the trailhead filled with heet, denatured alcohol, duct tape, ziploc bags, a large trash bag for trash, and other random things hikers need. Thank you so much, mysterious trail angel that drives a light blue Prius with Nevada plates!! Wish you were there so we could thank you in person! We left a thank-you note though.

So, this evening, in the tent, Kyle saw flashes of light outside. And like idiots, we didn't really think anything of it. (Kyle commented, "am I on drugs or something? I keep seeing flashes of light...) around 1am, a thunder and lightning storm just let loose right above us. Holy fricking crap!! It was loud. Lol. It was intermittently just pouring rain too. Damn I am so glad the rain was not continuous. In Hawaii, when there is a thunder and lightning storm, there is also a shitload of rain; as in, parts of the island get flooded. So glad it's not like that out here. Damn. Yeah, my solo tent doesn't work so well in the rain with 2 people in it. Because the way it's shaped, when there's 2 people under it, the groundsheet and sleeping pad corners are sticking out the sides. Since I'm only using the tarp portion of the tent, the water was dripping onto the sleeping pads and both our bags got kinda damp before we were able to rearrange stuff to keep it under the vestibules. Damn. :/ This was the 3rd time I got rain on the trail, Kyle's 1st. My bag got way more wet the first time I got rained on (because I was cowboy camping, which is no-tent) so I wasnt really worried. But yeah, we're switching to a real 2-person tent at our next resupply stop, since im sure NorCal/OR/WA will have more precipitation...

Anyhow. I was stoked we were in a valley and not on top of a ridge. That would be a crappy place to be camping during a lightning storm. I was also super grateful the rain was intermittent and not continuous. Whew! :)