Day 66: dramatic views :)

Saturday 6/23/12
Miles 810-826 (16 miles)
Elevation 8,589'

Of all the days hiking thus far, today has produced the most dramatic views. Wow. Just wow <3 The descent from Mather Pass was incredible. It was almost like in levels: first you come down the steep part of the mountain, then you go around this huge lake (I took a pic of that), then you drop straight down again along a series of switchbacks and you're next to a raging amazing looking river which is what the lake empties out into (I took a pic of this), and there are tons of waterfalls! Then, you drop into this incredible valley where you are flanked on both sides by sheer walls of rock that rise a couple thousand feet above you. And in front of us was another huge mountain. It was absolutely amazing. I felt like I was in a gigantic fortress. :)

By the way, is there a fire somewhere nearby? The last few days it's been really hazy in the afternoons, and I've been smelling smoke. I hope we're not walking into a raging forest fire. O.o. But there are tons of JMT hikers going southbound that we pass everyday and they don't have anything negative to report so I think we're ok. :)

I made a video of Mather pass. Thats the pass we went over today. I think it is the last of the 12,000'+ passes. All the upcoming ones are not that high in elevation. Hopefully I can upload it at the same time I upload this.

I also made a video of our campsite. It was such a cool spot. I got a pic of it. A sweet little site by a river, and no bugs! That was amazing! We camped at under 9,000' which is bug heaven. Somehow we camped at a spot were there were tons of pine needles and pinecones and not a lot of grass, hence no bugs yay!!

We're amongst a pretty awesome clump of people right now. Gecko and Faceplant are just ahead of us. And Panama Red, Maddog, Mismatch, Spatula, Pitstop are just behind us. We all seem to be going a similar pace because we've been in that order for the last 3 days. Lol. Whoo hoo! The new casual club. I have a pic of panama red by a bush with socks on it. When I walked by that huge lake I took a pic of, the 5 of them were at the end of the lake doing laundry. They had all their socks on the bushes to dry, and I said, "hey it looks like a Hiker Trash Xmas tree!" lol. So I took a pic. Two of those guys had fishing piles with them. I wonder if they caught anything.

Tomorrow we go up Muir Pass. It is rumored to be a longass pass where you think you're at the top but you're not. Lol. I guess we'll find out huh? It's a 10 mile ascent just to get to the top. Yowza!

Campfire time!! Goodnight :)

Day 65: beautiful trail, and my most painful day ever

Friday 6/22/12
Miles 792-810 (18 miles)
Elevation 10,736'

Gosh today was some of the most beautiful hiking ever! It was also my most painful day of hiking ever. Go figure. Lol. In the morning we passed by some really pretty lakes which i took pics of. Actually, there are lots and lots of lakes we pass by. Some are more visually outstanding than others. :) Around noon we came across a cool suspension bridge! I took lots of pics of it. It was neat to come across that. I definitely didn't expect to see something like that in the middle of the trail. Lol. Also, we hit 800 miles!! Yippee!!! :D

After the bridge the trail followed a gushing river. It was so incredibly cool! I took lots of pics of that too. There was also a waterfall which was rad. The crazy thing is, the water level is low this year since there was such little snow. I can only imagine how much more loud and powerful that river gets in a regular snowfall year.

Today we went up and over Pinchot Pass. The 8 miles of uphill getting to the pass was absolute hell for me. My stomach was in so much pain. I have no idea why. I wonder if it's from drinking bad water. My stomach was yucky yesterday too, but not as bad. I don't think it's bad water though, as that is usually followed by diarrhea, which I didn't have. Maybe it was the combination of all the weird food I ate. Who knows. But oh man, that was the most painful 8 miles of the whole trip for me. And it hurt the most when I was going uphill. I pretty much had no use of my abdominals, and every time I had to step up or over something it felt like my insides were ripping apart. Ugh. That sucked so much. :( it wasn't as bad when the trail wasn't so steep. The trail became more gradual of an incline 3 miles from the top, so at least it hurt less then. All I could think about was getting up to the top of Pinchot Pass. When I got to the approach to the pass, I checked my GPS. It said I was 1/2 mile from the top. Yay!! I figured I could crawl up there if I had to. Lol.

The descent down the other side was quite amazing. And my stomach didn't hurt anymore yay!! :) More scenic lakes. I took some pics. We made camp 2 miles down the pass. Originally we wanted to do a 20 mile day but we were both tired. That 8 miles of stomach pain seriously sucked the life out of me. It was so gnarly.

We found an amazing campsite with a super cool view. I took a pic of it. Its the one of the meadow with the trees in the background and the mountain on the left that looks like a pyramid. Oh, if anyone is curious, we don't camp at established campsites. And by established campsite, I mean guarantee flat-ish places to pitch a tent, usually a water source nearby, and sometimes a bearbox. There are some here and there, but we generally try to avoid them, because there are usually other people there, and they tend to have higher bear activity. Plus, i like to camp at 10,700'+ because the mosquitos aren't too bad at that elevation, so you can still camp by water and not get eaten alive. So we just wander around until we find a cool spot to pitch the tent :) the moon was pretty amazing. I took a pic of that too.
Brrr it's cold! Nap time :) goodnight!

Day 64: must...get back...on trail...

Thursday 6/21/12
Miles 789-792 (11 miles, including the Kearsarge pass trail that connects onion valley campground to the pct)
Elevation 10,800'

Sometimes its really hard to get back on the trail. Lol. The trail angels Bristlecone and Überbitch made coffee and pancakes. I look a pic of them. They've been camping there for about 2 weeks now, helping out thru-hikers. Thanks guys!! <3 We also ate the cinnamon roll and bananas we got last night. Ooo it was so yummy. :)

Happy Hike Naked Day! Yes, June 21st is national hike naked day. Surprisingly enough I didn't see that many naked hikers. :(. I guess it's a lot more popular on the AT (appalachian trail) than the pct. I only saw a couple people hiking naked, and both were going southbound so they were probably JMTers (John Muir Trail). The pct and JMT are the same trail at this point, so we've been seeing about 10-20 JMT hikers each day since mt.whitney (JMT hikers generally go southbound, their trail ends on Whitney). Oh, if you're curious, no I did not hike naked. Lol. That would be some gnarly chaffing! O.o. Kyle didn't either. Or, at least he wasn't naked the times I saw him. He walks a lot faster than I do so he's always ahead of me; I run into him when he stops to take breaks.

We didn't leave camp til 10am! It's ok though, because we went over 2 passes today, that is hard work! That is pretty much what the sierras consist of. Going up and down several thousand feet of elevation each day, over various passes. Lol. Kearsarge Pass was a 2,000' climb to 11,000', then a slight descent, then up to Glen Pass which is around 12,000' I think.

Prior to ascending Glen Pass we found Gecko and Faceplant taking a siesta by a lake. Thats them in the pic next to Kyle. I really like those two, they are on the same casual schedule as us. We all like to take the time to enjoy our surroundings :) Faceplant is from England, and he is absolutely hilarious. Whenever he talks I imagine a mix of Monty Python and the Holy Grail meets Top Gear. Lol :D. Another reason I like those two is because they like red wine as much as I do. Except they are able to consume more than I. Perhaps it is a good thing we aren't all traveling together, we'd never make any progress. Lol!! :D

So at some point today, I got the idea in my head to bike back down to Mexico with Kyle after I get to Canada. Lol. I already got my return ticket for Oct 8th out of Bellingham washington, but I'm not sure I'm gonna finish before that date. So, if I have to change the ticket anyways I might as well just fly out of San Diego... :) The only problem is I *really* want to get back to Hawaii before Halloween. I miss my stage family. :( And Halloween is one of the busiest times for us. BAH. >.< Plus I have no bike. Neither does Kyle. I was thinking, if I were to do this I'm gonna try and get sponsors. I mean, at that point I would have already walked over 2,650 miles so that would give me some serious street credibility, right? :) Besides, I plan in cycling the Continental Divide at some point in the foreseeable future, so this will be good practice. Hm. I'll think about this more in depth when I get to Oregon.

Oh, and I just got an idea for another tattoo I want to get. Preferably somewhere on trail. I just gotta find an epic tattoo artist. Speaking of which, for those of you on Oahu, and want to get a tattoo, check out www.jimmymackdesigns.com. He's the guy that did the pieces on my back and side. Not only is he an amazing tattoo artist, but he's an incredibly talented artist too, as well as an amazing human being. Really awesome aura. I get compliments on his work all the time. Him and his wife own the tattoo shop on the north shore next to the xcel shop and 7-11. They are such incredibly awesome people. I got a project for jimmy when I get back :)

Anyhow, Kyle and i camped on the other side of Glen Pass. It was one of the most epic campsites I've had. A grassy area next to a flowing stream. Soooo perfect! This is the first time in almost 800 miles that I got to camp on grass on trail. It was soooo nice and soft :) the Mosquitos are surprisingly not too bad either. I made a video on pitching my tent (its a Tarptent Notch). I'll post it when I get wifi. Anyhow, it's really cold, so I'm gonna stop typing so my fingers can warm up :)

Day 63: getting out of Bishop is harder than I though...

Wednesday 6/20/12
Miles 0
Elevation 9,000'

On our way out of Bishop I saw something in a storefront window. It was a "redneck wineglass". I took a pic of it. It's a mason jar with a stem in it. Lol. At home, I regularly drink wine from a tostitos salsa glass jar. Does that make me a redneck? O.o Another funny sign I took a pic of was "old fart's auto parts", which was above the doorway at Napa auto parts. Haha, I know a few people that could apply to, later in life :)

Getting out of Bishop and into Independence was tough. It took one hour for us to get a hitch! That's the longest its ever taken for me to get a hitch. And it wasn't for the lack of cars, cuz there were tons. Too many tourists. Tourists never pick up hitchikers, it's always locals. It's hilarious to see the looks on some people's faces as they drive by. We've gotten everything from a thumbs up to looks of disgust and disbelief. Lol. I'm not really sure why some people have such a negative reaction to
Hitchikers. In a lot of places I've been, that's the standard way of getting around if you don't have a mode of transportation.

Anyhow, we finally got picked up and taken to Big Pine which was halfway to Independence. While trying to get a hitch there, we met two motorcycle dudes on harleys from Portland, they were riding route 66 across the country on their bikes. I took a pic with them. They are so cool! They bought us a bottle of 5 hour energy drink, because we had a conversation about them and I mentioned I never had one before. They also gave us some beers they were carrying. Thanks guys!! :). Oh by the way, Killians Red beer tastes surprisingly good at room temperature.

By the way, thank you to all the kind strangers who pick us up hitchiking. You guys are awesome. <3 It was kinda late by the time we got into Independence. We still had a 15 mile hitch to get back to the trailhead. It was a tough one, because the trailhead is at the campground, so the only people going that way would be hikers and campers. It was getting late and we were losing hope that we'd make it up there.

Then suddenly a couple pulled over in their truck to pick us up! They were eating at a nearby restaurant and saw us, and decided to take a drive. That was sooooo epic!! Dang I thought we were gonna have to stealth camp somewhere on the edge of town that night and wait til morning!

We ended up camping at the trailhead, since it was too late to start walking. Gecko and Faceplant were there too! They went into Bishop the same day we did. Well, this way we don't feel like lazy slackers, knowing someone else is on the same schedule. Lol :)

Oh! The coolest thing that happened today: there was a guy at the campground that recognized me and Kyle from this blog! Lol!! How cool is that?? Gosh I wonder if this is what famous people deal with on a daily basis. Lol. Anyhow, him and his group of friends gave us bananas and cinnamon rolls from Schatz Bakery. Thank you!! :D

YouTube Video: What I Eat On Trail

Not very glamorous, but hey, it all fits in my bear can. :)

YouTube Video: Filtering Water

Neither of us have water filters (I left my Katydyn Hiker Pro filter at home because it was ridiculously heavy).  I was contemplating buying a Sawyer Squeeze filter, but never got around to it.  Both of us are treating with just bleach, which has worked fine.  The only time it kind of sucks is when there are lots of floating particles in the water, or if the water is very muddy.  But thats ok, dead bugs = more protein.  Haha :D

2 YouTube Videos: Mt. Whitney

I have 2 videos I took on Mt.Whitney.  The first one is of me fluttering across a really cool log crossing.  The second one is when I was at the first campground along the trail.  We ended up stopping here for a break, and this was the spot where I did laundry (pics in previous post).

Dancing Feet on a log crossing:

My thoughts on Mt.Whitney: