May 6, catching up

It's been awhile! I've actually had to resort to the old fashioned pen and paper format and wow, is it slow and painful and spell check just doesn't work on it!

May 1 found us hiking from Guzzler Cistern to Paradise Cafe (Hwy 74) a total of 12.4 miles by 3pm. Something about the enticement of hot food at the cafe gave us the drive and ambition to hoof it, even forsaking our afternoon siesta! We met Meridith as we started the day who just so happened to live in Tillamook in the early 90s! Small world! We also met Chip, Ducky, Cuddles and so many others! Cuddles was giving a cello concert at Paradise Cafe so we were excited to go hear him play. We shared a table with Lucky Winner who we found out used to live in Manzanita so again, small world!
Good News a trail angel provided a ride to the trail after dinner and then followed up with breakfast the next morning! Great day!

May 2. Didn't want to get up! It's so windy it's hard to sleep at night. But, the wind keeps us cool and comfy as we hike so it's a blessing in disguise. We leap frogged with ParaDocs and Lucky Winner all day. We also met Noah the Prophet. Our goal is Cedar Springs for a 11 mile day but once again reached our goal early so decided to push on for Fobes Ranch Junction, an additional 3 miles. What horrible miles! We ended up stopping just before reaching it (we found out the next morning) but found a great site, out of the wind, but crazy unlevel so still not a good night sleep. We asked why don't hikers ever mention rotten sections of the trail in blogs but then realized that, once you get to bed at night, you forget all about the kind of day you had. Strange...Today's total miles: 14.6

May 3. Hiked 10 hours for 11 miles. SLOW day. Lots of rugged climbing and an overall down of 2000 feet. We planned on getting water at Apache Spring but when we arrived had a report that the water was bad so skipped it making it a long day on short water. Not a good combo. Called Dad Owens for Happy Birthday wishes when we were actually able to get cell reception--pretty cool. Towards the end of our day we hit our first snow and boy were we excited! Remember I mentioned we were out of water...snow was heaven. So cold and pure and wet. We gorged ourselves on it and filled our water bottles and carried a handful to work on as we hiked on. Never tasted so good. Made our goal and felt pretty good about the day overall. Still had some lingering heart thoughts...can I, do I want to, do this for 5 months? Yes.

May 4. 13 mile day. Hiked from PCT mile 177. to 190.5 today. We took the Tahquitz Meadow alternate. It was beautiful! We leap frogged with ParaDocs again. Really enjoy these guys. Found out Lucky Winner left trail for a time but will hopefully be back later. Met lots of other new folks as they came back on trail from visiting Idyllwild. Must have been a busy town! Hear great things about it--supposed to be some town. We camped at Fuller Ridge campground by a huge rock which protected us from the winds. Not the noise, tu the pummeling at least. Tomorrow we will begin the descent down 2000 feet over 20 miles to Ziggy & the Bear's. I wasn't feeling too good. Not sure if it was the weather, stress, heat, elevation or the combo but it made me slow to go. We set a goal of 15 miles for tomorrow and planned to reach Ziggy & the Bear's May 6. We each are sporting a few new blisters and Jeff is trying BFF Lyn's needle and thread trick of "sewing" a piece of thread through the blister to keep it open. I'll try to get some photos up of it, it's pretty gnarly! I really want to push on to get that shower and meal. Yum. Food is a pretty good incentive to a hungry hiker!

We felt pretty stupid though. Our notes said we had some river crossings but what we hadn't considered was that we were at the headwaters and there would not be too much water there, so...we crossed the rivers without even realizing it! Duh...The site tonight was the most level ever but the wind was sooooo loud. I'm tired and my feet hurt.

Being out in nature is so awesome. It is ever changing, ever beautiful.

May 5. What a long day. Our goal was the Snow Creek Canyon faucet, a 15 mile day. It started out as a great day! We can conquer the trail today! I wanted to get to Ziggy & the Bear's so bad I pushed us pretty hard. After 15 grueling, rugged, WINDY miles of trail we reached our goal early so...yup, you guessed it, we decided to add 5 more to reach the ultimate goal. Didn't know that the last 5 were going to be flat, but extra windy and sandy. We had to cross Hwy 10 to get there and what a miserable long walk. The last few miles are always the hardest. Very happy to find the Hiking Fools at the destination! They are restarting tomorrow! Yahoo.

The most wonderful feeling though is to turn around and look back at the majesty of San Jacinto mountain and be able to say, "We climbed up and over and down that beautiful mountain." It's pretty awe inspiring.

May 6. Today. miles...ZERO and proud of it! We got our resupply packages (thanks mom and dad) and reorganized our packs, took much needed showers (7 days---yeah, imagine the stench), eat, eat, eat. About 40 hikers spent the night last night and all but about 8 of us stayed around today. Now, as I'm writing new hikers are drifting in. A whole new crowd. A nice treat here is a foot bath for hikers and I was soaking my feet when I asked one of the ParaDocs to look at my lose toenail. He did and quickly removed about 1/2 of it for me (Thanks Doc M!). It is incredibly windy here, we hung our hand washed clothes on the line and they were dried in less than an hour. The wind turbines indicate that the wind is a constant here. Wow. Looks like another friendly night with new hikers. We had a great visit with the famous Billy Goat. What a pleasure to chat with someone like him. Sad news...Pocahontas has returned and appears that she may be leaving trail letting Legasorus go on alone. We keep her and them in our thoughts as they make difficult decisions. We are looking forward to seeing Miriam and family at Big Bear in a few days. (Happy Birthday to Miriam by the way...) Hoping to take advantage of WiFi and video conference with the grandkids...I hope I don't cry....I hope we connect!

Yesterday Jenna, one of the hikers was bit by a scorpion! Come to find out it wasn't a poison one fortunately but it was scary!

Someone is waiting for use of the computer so I must go for now. Know we are thinking of you and missing you and loving your comments and support! We'll try to get some photos later. One step at a time! We're in a hurry so I apologize for typos.So much to say, to share so little time and place to do so...making memories.

We are loving hiking even more...
KOKO & The Bald Guy