Journal Entries

I attended my first #hikenovascotia Summit this weekend, (Apr 28-30) near Tatamagouche in North Cumberland county https://www.cumberlandcounty.ns.ca/explore-cumberland.html - interesting presentations about “all things hiking” - in our province, Canada and the world. My hiking destination bucket list is longer, I’ve a new appreciation for trail-making and maintenance, my portfolio about gear and safety knowledge is expanding, and my hiking friendships base is rippling wider and wider! What really excited me is that a couple longer, several-day hiking trails are initiatives in the works! Seven of us (and visitors who loved to play games!) shared a large AirB&B house . Like most active people who wholeheartedly engage with others so-minded - the few hours we spent inside this house was an experience in laughter, unlimited delicious (mostly) healthy food, deepening friendships - and a beautiful ocean view. @janicerand, @yvonnekerr, @lynnmorrison, @nancymarieveinot .....https://www.airbnb.ca/rooms/13362046. Great weekend, gifted with fine hiking weather, and kudos to https://www.hikenovascotia.ca for job well done. I hope to attend in 2018 at Cape Breton.

"How do you train for hiking 2650 miles on the Pacific Crest Trail?" A lot of people have asked me this, including many of my colleagues in the fitness industry.

Many of my fitness expert friends were all too eager to give me some (rather opinionated, not to mention unsolicited) advice on all the stuff I should be doing in the gym to prepare to hike from Mexico to Canada ... farmer's walks, stepmill with a weighted vest on, walking lunges for an hour a day, core training, core training and more core training, yoga (including on the trail), and a lot more... (nevermind they had never hiked a day in their lives, let alone thru-hiked).

Others, including highly skilled and knowledgable trainers, had no idea how you'd prepare for a trek like this. They never had a client who was trying to get ready for something like this.

I think the answer is simple. You follow the same two primary principles of conditioning that apply to any sports training or fitness endeavor:

1. Specificity
2. Progression.

If I'm going to have to hike 20 to 30 miles a day carrying 20 to 30 pounds on my back over rough and steep terrain to make it through this 2650 mile trail, the best way to train is not to do a bunch of "functional" stuff in a gym, the best way to train is to go hike 20-30 miles a day carrying 20 to 30 pounds on my back through rough and steep terrain, right? That's the principle of specificity, isn't it?

In fact, the ultimate (specific) way to train would be to go hike on the Pacific Crest Trail itself, with the same pack I'll be hiking it with, in the same conditions I'll be hiking in (including desert heat and or snow). But since I live on the east coast, the next best thing is the Appalachian trail, so that's exactly what I've been doing.

In the past month and a half, I've section hiked almost all of the NY and NJ part of the Appalachian trail (pictured: when your hike starts with "Agony Grind" you know it's going to be a good one!)

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm the biggest advocate of resistance training ("pumping iron") you will ever meet! I started lifting weights in my parent's garage when I was 14 years old and have never missed over a week of planned workouts in the 34 years since! (including 28 bodybuilding competitions between 1989 and 2005).

I believe strength training and other work you do in the gym is only going to help a hiker, not only to perform better but also to avoid injury. But I don't think any specific exercises you do in the gym will be a substitute for time on the trail. The best way to train for hiking is hiking.

Principle two would suggest: Don't try to start with 20-30 miles a day with a 20-30 pound pack or you are going to be hurting, or even cause a serious injury (possibly one that is hike-ending). I've been applying this training principle by progressively building up the distance, packweight and elevation gain.

In the past week I finally built up to "26 with 26" - 26 miles with total pack weight of 26 lbs (combined with over 4000 feet elevation gain/loss). That puts me right on schedule because my goal for the Pacific Crest Trail is a "marathon a day" and the pct sure isn't level (490,000 feet of total gain and loss, according to the most recent data from the pcta.org website)

As I write this, it's Just 3 weeks until I start my 2650 mile hike from the Mexican Border to Canada, and thanks to my training I feel 100% prepared physically to cover the distance and elevation. The only thing I haven't trained for is the desert heat and the snow.

Maybe even more important than the purely physical readiness is that being out on the trails for shakedown hikes has given me the chance to test out all my gear including shoes, socks, pack, shelter, sleeping system and everything else I have to carry with me. Plus I've experienced, cold, heat, rain, mud, rocks, climbing, descending and what it feels like to trudge through these conditions from sunrise to sunset.

By the way, go ahead and tell me it's not going to happen because I'm going to be too tired, (like everyone else on the hiker forums and facebook groups has told me), but I still plan to lift during this trek. I might be the only person who has ever done it... but that will be the subject of another post...

May 1st- Day 10- 5.5 miles from Warner Springs Community Center at mile 109.5 to Agua Caliente Creek at mile 115

The sun is bright but it's still cool enough to lie in my sleeping bag, my eyes tight to block out the light. I can't hear anyone packing up near me; it's hard to get out of towns early. A group of guys is sitting at the picnic table, talking loudly and audibly about guy things (later, Colleen will joke about waking up early in the middle of a big camp and talking loudly about menstruation).

Blah. I have to force myself, one step at a time, out of my sleeping bag. First, uncinch the drawstring that holds my hood tight around my face, then unzip it, then get out. The first thing I do each morning is stuff my sleeping bag into the bottom of my backpack so I'm not tempted to get back in.

I stumble to the bathrooms and brush my teeth, then wander around aimlessly listening to conversations. Karma is up and I say hello. Then it's 7:25 which is an acceptable time to start walking to the post office. The walk is long and the low sun hits my face so I have to walk with one eye shut.

Once I'm there I sit and talk with a guy who's a Triple Crowner (has hiked all three of America's popular long trails, so the AT, PCT, and CDT). I don't remember his name, but he's hiking a section up to Cajon Pass between jobs and he did both the CDT and AT and AZT in one summer.

I get my package at the desk, and am about to walk off before I realize I should have two. I text my mom to get the tracking number. Apparently it was in San Diego last night, so it's probably just come in and needs to be sorted. I go to get some breakfast to wait. I join Karma and Colleen and Rachel and order an avocado-feta-Tomato-spinach omelette with hash browns. Yum.

Back at the post office, I get my second package with my new tent in it, and go to sit out front and open my first package, which is my food. There are notes from home, and a picture of my puppy Wren, and locks of her and Zephyr's hair. The top of the box is filled with cookies and salmon jerky and delicious things that my parents packed. Underneath it is all of the random food-things that I threw in before I left. Condiment packages and other food-things that look gross and unappetizing.

We're just about to try and walk back when Chris and Kelsey, who we hiked around a few days ago, drive up. Kelsey has an insanely long beard that flops around as he talks, and Chris is a doctor and carries an enormous medical kit. They spent the weekend off-trail with one of their girlfriends, and offer us a ride in the back of their hitch-on trailer back to the community center. We climb in. Driving is so much faster than walking!

I putter around camp some more, doing who-knows-what, it seems important at the time. Sorting food, dropping off things in the hiker box and picking up crumpled bags of salt and vinegar chips to bring back. Charging my electronics, setting up my mom's Fly Creek UL 2 tent for the first time. I feel bummed about sending back my tarptent and I go to the gear shop twice to get advice from Pillsbury, the owner, about which tent I should take. I don't get it, I hated my protrail so much just a while ago, but now I'm super attached to it. What. When it comes time to throw away all of the notes that my family sent me, I can't bear to throw away the puppy hair for some reason and decide to carry it with me. I'm sitting with Colleen and Karma and laugh-cry about it, my eyes watering while I'm doubled over with laughter. Really I think I'm just crying.

Towns are really hard to get out of. Colleen and I catch a ride back to the post office and I send my tarptent home, as well as a bunch of other things. We get a ride back in a truck bed. The wind is pressing into my face. Colleen is just sitting there, grinning and clutching the side. "Wait, are we past the community center?" I say. The hills rush past, golden and empty of buildings. Suddenly, the car brakes, we slide forward in the truck bed and clutch the sides of the truck bed. The truck makes a 3-point turn, and we're rushing back the way we came. The community center comes into view as the car brakes again, and we're pulling into the parking lot.

We hop out, and the driver apologizes. "We almost forgot you were there."

More procrastinating and slow packing-up. I reach escape velocity, buckling down my backpack top and heading off. I weigh my pack at the gear trailer. 25 pounds with food and almost 2 liters of water. Then off!! We all plan to meet at a campsite by a creek 5 miles in. It's hot out, the trail threading through an obstacle course, under a highway overpass, through tight winding hills. I'm already just as sweaty and gross as when I came into Warner Springs yesterday.

We come into camp and I help Tarantino set up his new tarptent protrail. Everyone's been telling him it's a bad tent, including me, but I feel bad that we're giving him a scare about his new piece of gear. I tell him it's a definite upgrade from the 5 pound tent he was carrying before.

We sit around in the sand in a circle and cook our dinners. Frogs are croaking in the creek. I make a ramen bomb, rice ramen mixed with mashed potatoes, and it is delicious. It gets dark and finally we pull ourselves away to go to sleep.

April 30th- Day 9- 8.4 miles from Montezuma Valley Road/Barrel Springs at mile 101.1 to Warner Springs Community Center at mile 109.5

I slept with my earphones in last night and my sleeping scrunched as right as possible around my face. The sounds of hikers waking up and the sunlight are muffled. I un-cinch my hood to a surprise. "I love my tent!" I announce.

"What made you love your tent overnight?" Colleen says.

"Look at it. It's collapsed."

"Oh, I was wondering what made you change your mind..." she says.

"No, it turned into a rainbow tent and gave me cupcakes and apologized for everything it's done."

I stay in my sleeping bag for a while before trying to move. It's only 9 ish miles to Warner Springs today, so there's no rush. Finally I wiggle out and pull everything out after me. Stupid tent.

I decide to make some more instant mashed potatoes for breakfast, since they were so good last night. They're Betty Crocker brand today vs. Idahoan last night. They fill up the pot to the top and I still need to add more water, and there's no room to stir. It's cold on top and hot on the bottom, and super bland. I decide to try and "polenta it" to make it taste better. I sacrifice a lemon pepper tuna packet, chili cheese Fritos, and a packet of barbecue sauce. It tastes even worse. I can't believe I've polenta'd a second meal. I can't eat it and decide to pack it out. I announce that if I do this a third time I'll have to take the trail name of Polenta.

I'm about to head off when Twerk starts another stretching/dancing/twerking circle, so I drop my pack to join. Scissors comes up and takes a video. Then across the road and through rolling hills of brown and purple cheatgrass. I can see everyone hiking before and behind me, stretched out. We stop and start. At a break everyone finds out I have no clue who a guy named Will Smith is, and they tease me about it until I decide to leave. They weren't trying to be mean but it still stings a bit and makes me pissed for half an hour. Will Smith's movies are probably all really stupid and lame anyway. Or so I tell myself.

I stop at Eagle Rock and I take a picture. There is an enormous group of day hikers taking pictures and I feel like a tourist on my own trail, and a bit overwhelmed. I almost skipped when I saw the mass of bodies, even though dayhikers are nice and smell like laundry detergent.

Then it's just two miles down to Warner. This is the first time I've really seen day-hikers. We pass a big group of Boy Scouts out backpacking, they look like cute little mini versions of ourselves, half our height and marching in a bouncy line.

I'm just getting over being mad about Will Smith when I start the final descent through trees. So many day-hikers, and horses, and horse poop. I step through a final gate and hike to the Community Center. I walk up a porch and into the building, and sign in at a table. My hands are dirty and I'm conscious of the fact that I smudge dirt on the white paper as I write.

I set my pack out in an empty spot out back, under an enormous oak tree. There are tents everywhere, clustered by the base of the tree in the shade. It's in a field of golden mowed grass that's rough and smells like straw. I can imagine a pumpkin patch here in the fall. Then I go get some loaner clothes- it's a walk-in closet full of hand-me downs. I find brown pants and a big red T-shirt that says "I'm not lazy, I just enjoy doing nothing." Then I go to the washing area, where I get in a stall and pour pitchers of water over myself from a Home Depot bucket, and then wash my clothes. Rachel looks amazing in her loaner clothes, like a model with white Bermuda jeans and a red shirt- Twerk wants to give her the trail name Ralph Lauren. Colleen has a Little House on the Prairie dress. Karma has a turquoise dress and her hair up in a towel and looks like the woman sidekick to Gru in the Despicable Me 3 trailer.

Then we all head off along golf course trails the mile to the restaurant. It's a blasphemous amount of walking. Soon we'll be too lazy and just hitch everywhere. Nirvana the Seattle-ite is dying in the midday heat and I write his last request in case he expires. He gives his cat to his mom.

Then we're in the restaurant, conscious of our awkward loaner clothes as we walk past tables of golfers in pastel polo tees. I drink two glasses of lemonade. I fantasized about lemonade on the mile's walk here. Then delicious fish tacos. We sit there, stunned and lethargic after our food consumption. We head out to the gas station and I get some ice cream. We go out to the parking lot and stop to smell all the big roses planted there. The chocolate dip from my ice cream bar falls off onto the asphalt and I pick it back up and eat it without blinking. Hiker trash is real.

Then back to the community center. I buy a double wall charger from the mobile gear shop, 2 Foot Adventures, which is in an airstream. The owner and I (her trail name is Pillsbury) follow each other on Instagram and she takes a picture of me. Kathleen is here recovering from blisters, and Colleen's dad is here with fruit and pizza and Gatorade magic. I hang around and talk to people, unable to keep up with all of the new names. It's only in towns when I truly realize how many hikers there are.

I've set up my tent but it keeps on falling. Stupid tent. Why won't it stay up? Someone suggests that it's the stakes, but it's a little late now. I feel bad giving up, but I'll have my UL Fly Creek tent tomorrow. It's not much heavier than my Protrail. I'm cowboy camping tonight.

The sun is setting slowly. I sit with everyone else under the shade awning on picnic tables and eat a slice of veggie pizza. It smells like weed smoke and beer, and I'm falling asleep so I go to my sleeping bag. Everyone talks late into the night. It still smells like weed over here as well as laundry detergent from my loaner clothes, and I listen as another group of hikers make their plans to get to Idyllwild. Everyone else here seems to be going for 20 mile days and then they're crashing and burning, getting off trail or zeroing for several days because injuries and blisters. I think I'm going to stay with my Trail family for a while longer and doing 15s.

The moon is finally here, a crescent moon lying on its back. The light bores into my eyelids. I rummage around for my headphones to quiet the noise, pull my hat over my eyes, and try to sleep.

April 29th- Day 8- 15.8 miles from campsites at mile 85.3 to before Montezuma Valley Road at mile 101.1

I wake up naturally at 6. It was warm tonight and I always sleep better in my tent, even though I stayed up late last night writing. I talk with Karma and Colleen in my sleeping bag until finally we muster the heart to unzip our sleeping bags and get up. I eat random things out of my food bag and once we're up we pack up super quickly. At first I was at a loss to how to pack my things efficiently since I don't have to pack around a bear can anymore. Now it's natural.

Then off we go. Sometimes Karma is in front and sometimes I am, with Colleen taking caboose, slow but steady. I'm still really jumpy from my rattlesnake encounter last night. Everything is a snake- a curved shadow, a twig on the side of the trail, anything patterned white and black or bulbous or S-shaped. Cliffs by the side of the trail are now scary, and bushes by the side of the trail are evil snake traps. Several times I jump back at what I think is a rattlesnake. I don't feel confident or safe on the trail now, it sucks, and I'm frustrated.

Karma catches up with me and it feels great to have someone hike in front of me. I trail right behind her, and we talk about our favorite books and book series, and LOTR character trail names (Bombadil is both awesome and would be a great trail name. Why is everyone named after Aragorn and Frodo and Bilbo on the trail? Where are all of the Treebeards and Quickbeams?). The miles are going by quick and having someone hike in front of me eases my anxiety about rattlesnakes. I had no idea my first encounter would leave me so traumatized. We see plenty of other snakes slithering for cover.

We reach the Third Gate Water Cache junction, and hike down. There is a giant mound of crushed plastic water jugs in a structure of plastic webbing, and three pallets under some tall bushes. There are only maybe 8 jugs left. I take only a liter and hang around taking to people. We met a girl named Alfalfa because she's sprouting alfalfa on-trail. Just as I'm about to leave Nirvana pulls up! Apparently everyone was camped less than a mile behind us. I pass Tarantino, Mousetrap, Twerk, and Rachel as I head back out. I catch back up to Karma as she's building one of her trail notes with pebbles on the trail and then we hike together for the rest of the day. The trail winds along the side of the hills in chaparral and we keep checking our Guthook's app to see how far we are from the 100 mile point. 4 miles... 2 miles... We're cruising in between snack and water and shade breaks.

Karma makes an excited sound as we round a bend, and we see a big "100" marked on the side of the trail with rocks. We take pictures, then head off. The hundred mile mark unfortunately wasn't graced with shade or sitting rocks.

We descend the last mile to our campsite, the vegetation turning greener and less desert-y as we go. When we get there, the hikers already there point us to the road where there's some people doing trail magic. Glow In The Dark and 3-Guy offer us cold drinks and fruit and I take a lemon-lime soda. They've hiked sections and their daughter is somewhere between here and Julian, they're hoping to surprise her and her boyfriend.

I go back and claim a spot with my tent. It's a pain in the butt to set up, the stakes falling out of the loose sandy ground several times and collapsing the tent before I get it up for good. I love it so much when it's set up, incredibly spacious, but it needs a huge tentsite and it's just not worth struggling with it every night when I'm tired. I shouldn't be having to cowboy camp just because I get too frustrated with trying to get it up in the loose soil and wind here in the desert. I'm getting into Warner Springs tomorrow, Sunday, and will be able to pick up my packages the day after. One has food and the other has my mom's Big Agnes Fly Creek tent. I'm excited to see what special things my family has added.

I sit in a circle in the dirt with the other hikers and eat food from my food bag. We go around and do Rose-Bud-Thorn, where we say something great about our day, a low point, and what we're looking forward to. I mention hiking with Karma today, looking forward to Warner Springs, and my rattlesnake trauma. We make plans to see Guardians of the Galaxy 2 at the theater in Idyllwild. I cook instant mashed potatoes and then a hiker named Whizkid, who knows a lot of cool trivia facts, gives me her already-cooked Mountain House dinner of beans and rice and quinoa. I mix it all together with my potatoes and it's incredible. Colleen, Rachel, Nirvana and Twerk all roll into camp, with a bunch of other people: Tarantino and Mousetrap and Jesus, who is currently being called Baby Jesus by the group in an attempt to make the trail name stick. I'm not sure if he's happy with all of that or not.

Colleen and Karma and I go off together to find someplace to pee, announcing it in exaggerated valley-girl accents as our special girl expedition, pee rags swinging at our hips. Then we settle into our tents. No rush tomorrow to get into Warner Springs! People are still hiking into camp and somewhere a big group of hikers are talking and laughing, even though it's 9:17, past hiker midnight.