2 PCT - Idyllwild to Big Bear

5/3/14

VOCABULARY

After talking with my Mom, I realized that many readers don't recognize certain trail vocabulary ... I will try and explain things better in future blogs.

Trail Angel

A person who helps in any way, small or big. For example, I have hitched with trail angels, stayed in their homes, etc. It is anyone who helps out of the kindness of their heart, just for that sake, without expecting anything in return. When I spend the night at these places, I always leave a donation of $20. They usually provide laundry, shower, food, etc. We have stayed at a few Trail Angel's homes along the way. I mentioned Monty earlier, near Warner Springs, as well as Mike's Place. This is Ziggy and the Bear 

 I climbed over and down the mountain in the background This day. These are just some pictures of Ziggy and the Bear's place... To give you an idea of how wonderful people can be.

 Carpet everywhere so you don't need to wear shoes. They provided salad for dinner and ice cream for dessert. When I arrived, I received a bucket with Epsom salt to soak my feet. Then used the bucket to wash my clothes and took a shower powered by solar energy. They took our picture and logged us into a network of all the amazing hikers who come through

 Ewok is in the center playing his steel drum. His drum weighs an additional 15lbs. At first I thought he was crazy for carrying all that weight, but after listening, I'm happy he's strong enough to do so. His music is magical.

Trail Magic

Some Trail Angels put out water caches, places for trash, soda, candy, you name it. These are unexpected luxuries that surprise you on the trail. They usually occur exactly when you need them. Somehow, the trail provides. This is a great example of Trail Magic just before reaching Big Bear.

 Doc chillin' in the tree instead of the couch.. That's my Boy!!

 Inside the dumpster where you think trash would be

 We found BUBBLES!!!!

So far this is the best trail magic that I have seen

Zero Days

A day where no hiking is done. I'm finding it difficult to have a true zero day. It's usually filled with going to the post office, grocery store, hitching, figuring out the bus, soaking my feet and writing this blog. I'm slowly figuring out the right rhythm.

Nero Days

A day where some hiking is involved, but you also get your in town chores out of the way. I have had a lot of these

Trail Names

Eventually everyone out here will get one. I rarely know people's "real" names. Trail names are just so much easier to remember. I am Snake Charmer and Brian Johnson is Doc.

Hiker Box

Usually a box or place that you can put gear that you don't need or can't carry. Some people survive totally off of hiker boxes. It is a very inexpensive way to hike the PCT as long as you are open to anything.

IDYLLWILD

My first priority was getting new footwear. I tried to go lightweight on my feet, but found it didn't offer enough support or cushion. I found some great Montrails and threw my old pair in the hiker box

Just some art that I found that I liked. There were large trees everywhere, thus a lot of wood sculptures around 

Our friend's, Allen and janel from Ohio and The Flash and Liz from Canada, planning to leave the next day. Check out that old school phone!!!

My buddy, Justin Buchanan, is in charge of sending me supplies I might need. We had a few cold nights and I was craving my down pants. I wore them a lot in Vail, CO this winter, so there were some holes. This is me using patching material and seam sealer. Just worked better with them on!

Leaving Idyllwild and making our way to Big Bear. There are down trees all over, blocking the trail

There were a few different ways out of Idyllwild to hook back up with the PCT. Since we had hitched from the Paradise Cafe due to fire closure, we figured we should start from the southern most point of the PCT. We took the South Ridge trail up. It was steep, but beautiful, and had a fire lookout up top.  Views from the lookout

A walk along the ridge

1st Snow

We walked along this ridge

I felt like one spark and the whole forest would be up in flames

Along the trail

Fire closure. The fire came very close to Idyllwild

A tree I really liked. It looked like it had dreadlocks 

Another tree across the trail.. These trees are giants!

Ridge where the fire look out was on

We were in Idyllwild for 3 much needed nights. I soaked my feet in Epsom salt a lot!! I would say my feet are feeling around 65%. I have an open blister on the outside of my left heel the size of my thumb. I think I'm doing a good job dressing it. After 9 miles uphill today, no dirt or irritation. In Big Bear now, and it's finally healed. Now I have new ones to worry about.

Brian thinks he might have a parasite, but has been taking ginger and is feeling better. I can't imagine having to deal with something like that on the trail. He has been a trooper, I'm quite impressed.

I have never realized how much I dislike wind. It has been windy while, both, hiking and sleeping. It is noisy and uncomfortable.. but so is the sound of traffic, I guess. Luckily tonight we are pitched at a saddle with full coverage. Only a small amount of wind is getting through to me and I hear it blowing all around me. I'm just trying to pretend it's crashing ocean waves.

Camp

Camp Sunset.
The ridge on this last picture is what we climbed up out of Idyllwild. It's where the Fire Lookout is. We followed the ridge line to the left and came up to the saddle we are sleeping on. 

It is beautiful hiking here. I think we're camped around 8-9,000ft. The black, red and white king snake lives up here and looking to see one of those in the next couple of days. I did not see one, but another hiker did. 

My bag feels super heavy and I think I might have brought too much food. I'm writing the blog off my journal notes and turns out that I did not bring too much. In fact, a few extra snacks would have been nice

5/4/14

BAD DAY

Today didn't go as expected. I slept awful.. Must have woke up every half hour. I woke up feeling like "why am I doing this?!?! I told Doc to go ahead and that I would meet up tonight. When I hit the trail, I felt good!

It was gorgeous out and the ridge line I walked along had epic views. I talked and walked with a fellow hiker named Black Swan. My sunglasses got extremely tangled and decided to put them in my pocket. 3 miles in, I realized they weren't there anymore. I pressed on to the next water source (4-5 miles from camp). 2 hiker sisters saw them and moved them to the side of the trail to not be stepped on. They couldn't remember how far back, but thought around 2 miles. After filtering my water, I left my gear behind and set out to run the trail and find my glasses. I ended up running all the way back to camp. I did not find my sunglasses and was not happy about it!

I ended up meeting some nice thru-hikers when I got back to the watering hole. Moxa and Ewok were both from Denver. Moxa got her name because she had been healing people with moxa along the trail; not sure how Ewok got his name. Ewok is carrying a 15lb steel drum 

Moxa and Ewok

Moxa helping to heal Ewok's ankle

Ewok jamming

It was a neat gathering near water.  It helped me to forget about losing my sunglasses and I began appreciating the trail again.

I hiked 5 more hard miles with a full 6.5 litres of water and set up camp. My food spilled all over the pot and got messy everywhere. What a hard day!!

I heard word from a few hikers, just before going to bed, that sunglasses were found by a hiker with dreadlocks. I got up early to try and intercept, but met no such person. My emotions, on an endless roller coaster, I set out to find this dreadlock wanderer. With no idea how or where to find him, I thought my best bet to be at Ziggy and the Bear, 21 miles away.

 Check out these beautiful marble steps miles away from anything!

I bet we are climbing over these mountains to get to big bear!! We did. I refer to these later as the Mountain Steps. We went up and down mountains climbing in elevation. It was gnarly!!

This is looking back on where we had already come. I was 3 miles from that summit

Below is the beauty descending from Pine to desert

 SNAKE!!!

Starting the Journey

Today is the day.. I don't have much time right now, but I'm swimming with emotions of doubt, excitement, wonder and fear. I didn't get much sleep and looking forward to my siesta around noon to escape the heat. No pictures yet, but I shaved off all my hair with #1 clippers on the side and a nice #2 mohawk strip. Thank you Brian Johnson for your great barber skills!

Looking forward to sharing some great stories and pictures with you in a week!!

Help me

Please visit my First Giving page and donate whatever you can. I have one month left to reach my goal of $1,000. Click HERE to give back.

WIlderness First Responder

 At the beginning of the summer, I decided to extend my backcountry resume.  The local community college was offering a Wilderness First Responder (WFR - also known as a "Woofer" around these parts) course and I thought it necessary for both skills and confidence, as I often set out into the wilderness solo. I also couldn't pass up the opportunity to kick off the summer camping and an outdoor classroom at the Big Bend Campground in Moab, UT.

The 80 hour course lasted 8 days along the Colorado River. It was a crash course, for sure, but I never had trouble paying attention in a classroom such as this

Instructor Jeremy Deem

Along with becoming a certified Wilderness First Responder, I also received my CPR certificate. Apparently most of these classes are taught in a traditional classroom setting, which doesn't seem right! Along with homework, tests and pages of notes, the scenarios were what secured our newly acquired knowledge. We did countless scenarios per day and would switch off between Patient and WFR. My favorite was when we found a victim (full body dummy) floating in the river. "He" was unresponsive so we had to treat him as if there was a spine injury. We used a walkie talkie to communicate with a "rescue team" while the other instructor spoke on behalf of our victim (when he was breathing or not, gasping, etc). Our team worked together to build a backboard out of rope tarp and blanket, while also making a makeshift neck brace. We carried our patient a couple hundred yards (those dummies are heavy!!) to a mock helicopter landing site with a wind sock and all! We were critiqued on our performance and overall did very well. I unfortunately don't have pictures from this scenario 

Some anatomy

Here are some great pictures of camp

 Colorado River is a couple hundred feet past the bathroom shack and before the bluff

 Golden Time for the giant thimble

Sunsets were amazing

Full moon from inside the tent

As if this isn't beautiful enough, Moab's Arches was only 10 miles up the road and a great place to check out mind blowing rock formations and an even better sunset

 You can see some people below

Sometimes I see objects and animals in the nature when I'm out exploring. I thought that this rock looked like a fish with a long snout. It even has an eye and mouth... Do you see it? I originally saw a swimming turtle, but the swordfish is more believable

What do you see here? This is a window through the rock with a rock mountain in the distance.

From the angle of my shot and the light coming through, I saw a fish swimming and I even tried to time the clouds to look like an eye!

 Climbed up some rocks for a different perspective

Despite obvious distraction, learning DID occur. For our Final, we participated in a group scenario followed by a written test. For our scenario, we hiked back into the canyon and found 2 injured "people." One showed signs of going into anaphylactic shock while the other had bones protruding from the arm and a broken femur. After determining an allergic reaction had occurred and taking the necessary precautions, we administered the epinephrin pen and monitored vitals. The other patient required making a splint out of part of a metal chair and figuring out how to move him out. We decided to build a "chair" with parallel hiking poles between two of our strongest men with backpacks. It took teamwork combined with heated disagreements, but we eventually made it out safely.

Back brace made out of common camping material

I clashed opinions with another member in our group. He said the design was fine and we should make moves quickly. I insisted that we needed to revise our design. He had about 80 lbs on me and got right in my face. I stood my ground until someone stepped in. I was worried that the argument would affect mine or the groups grade performance, but I was actually highlighted positively in review. Our instructor, Jeremy Deem, said in emergency situations, emotions run hot. That its still important to think  clearly. There will most likely be other people who think their opinion is best and, most likely, you, as the WFR, will have had the most training. Taking charge and not backing down is crucial. He was proud that I didn't back down when I knew something was wrong... Even when everyone else there didn't agree with me. Our design was flawed and I potentially avoided a hazardous situation. It felt good to stand out as a leader and build my confidence for dealing with real emergencies in the backcountry.

I'll leave you with a few pictures of the wonderful people of Moab..

This lady told me this was the best insect repellent.. Still have to look into it. I don't think she knew I was taking a picture