Siesta!

We are sitting at the Sunrise Trailhead where, thanks to trail angels there is 3 gallons of clean water. We stopped at 11:00 when the temperature in the sun was 113.5 degrees. Here in the shade of the Pit Toilet building it is 68.5 degrees. We will stay here until 2:00 or 3:00 when we will head out to look for a campsite around the Rodriguez Spur Truck Trail.

This morning after realizing the sun screen on my legs just wasn't cutting it, I borrowed a trick from our friend Jason (Stretch/Sarong) and attached the groundcloth of our tent around my backpack to drape over my legs. The shade it provides helps cool me down and reduces the risk of sunburn.

First two full hiking days

We started off strong with two 20 mile plus days. Our first two days have been similar routines in that we have done 15 to 16 miles before lunch, taken 4 hour breaks and then finished with another 6 to 8 miles.

The sun is relentless, I am glad to have a huge goofy looking hat. Despite the sun, the high desert scenery is spectacular. I am seeing a lot of new plants and animals, and learning a lot about how to stay comfortable in our new environment.

Today we had to do a long road walk around a helicopter crash site. We could see the clean up effort from the re-route. The exposed repetitive pavement walk took a toll on us and we revived ourselves with ice cream from the general store in Mt. Laguna.

Now we are just below Garnet Peak at mile 49 and it is well past bedtime.

Very happy to be out here...

Mail!

Hello Everyone!

This post is all about how we would love to hear from you during our hike.  Here are the places along our hike where we can receive mail and packages.   We will have to go these post offices anyway to pick up our food, but we also love to get news from home!   Here are some instructions on how packages and mail can reach us:  

-Letters can be mailed First Class (that is normal, regular mail)

-Boxes must be mailed via Priority Mail throught the US Post Office.  If you send a box via First Class or Parcel Post, we probably won't get it.  We've had the best luck with Priority Mail, for sure.

-If you do feel inclined to send a care package, food that we can snack on right away is always a big hit (cookies, chocolate, candy, etc.).  

-We don't have exact dates of when we'll get to each post office, but we've estimated a date that is on the early side.  Our arrival may very well be up to a week after the said date.

-When addressing your envelop or package write:

Anna or Garrett Cole

c/o General Delivery

City, Zipcode

- Also write on the envelope or package: "Hold for PCT Thru-hiker.  ETA: (date listed below)."   This memo can go in a corner somwhere visible but not in the way.  If you're mailing a box it's also helpful to write "COLE" in big letters on other sides of the box so it's easily identified in the post office.

Here are our post office stops:

Warner Springs, CA (this post office is tiny, so if you do send something please keep it small!)

92086

ETA 5/15

Belden, CA  

95915

ETA 7/12

Castella, CA

96017

ETA 7/22

Ashland, OR

97520

ETA 8/1

Cascade Locks, OR

97014

ETA 8/21

Just a couple more days until we ship out.  We are now at my parents' house in Ashland, VA getting our last things together.  Next post should be from the trail!

Anna

One Week to Go!

That's it... this time next week we'll be in the Southern California high desert staying shaded from the sun and hydrated.

Everyone we know seems to ask, "Are you excited?" The short answer is "Yes, of course." But honestly, it's probably going to be a challenging experience on many different levels. For a long trip that is this challenging, for me to be excited is a little out of character and would be overzealous. I'm looking forward to getting started without a doubt. I can't wait to see what living in a desert for a month feels like, or climbing snow covered passes in the High Sierra's, or walking past giant trees, hot springs, lava fields, and experiencing the rest of what the American West along the Pacific Crest Trail has to offer.

Looking back at the past year and a half, living in Newark, DE has been better than we expected. Anna is days away from completing her Masters work in Historic Preservation of Architecture. I was able to work at a job I enjoyed much of the time. We made a few good friends. For myself the two best parts of living here have been picking up the habbit of bike commuting, and working in a job where I got to talk to a lot of different people about recreation and outdoor sports. I would say I'm now healthier than when we came to Delaware, and any fear or anxiety of talking to people I don't know is gone.

At this point I've finished work at Eastern Mountain Sports, dropped off my car with my parents, we've completed our mail drop schedule and all boxes are set to be mailed out to cover the next 5 months worth of food, and are currently doing the "what stuff can we give away so we don't have to move it" thing. We'll be renting a UHaul to store most our belongings at Anna's Parents house in Richmond and our apartment check out is scheduled for Thursday at 2:00PM. We will spend Friday unloading the truck, Saturday worrying we forgot something, and early Sunday morning we'll fly out of Richmond to San Diego to get to California by late morning.

We don't know where we'll end up after the trip, but we agree on a few main criteria for places to land: First, there has to be distinguishable seasons (that means hot or at least warm summers, and reliably snowy winters.) Second, there needs to be mountains. Anna grew up in the mountains of Kentucky, and I've been starved living in such a flat area for two years. Third, there needs to be the possibility to walk, bus, or bike to work. There's no place we want to be driving routinely. Fourth, there are jobs available (it's tough living without any income after a big trip.) We've looked around and sort of narrowed down some ideas, but can in no way say anything for sure.

All that said, there's plenty of packing and saying goodbye to do here, so I'll get to it. The next post will likely be from on trail.

Thank you to everyone who is supporting us on this trip!

Mini Adventures and New Phone

We just returned from a three day 60 mile hike on the AT in Southern VA over Anna's Spring Break. This was a section we had skipped on our thru-hike because of a knee injury and trying to get to Pearisburg in time for the ALDHA Gathering. We have decided that Spring is a very enjoyable time to hike! The weather was pleasant during the day time and a little chilly at night. We were surprised how many leaves from last fall were still on the trail as we waded through them. We met very few people along the trail surprisingly. Several early Northbounders had already beed through. the trail crossed the Blue Ridge Parkway several times and there were some nice overlooks. Our first night out there was a wind advisory. We slept in the shelter because it offered better protection. We were also afraid branches might fall on our tent.

Today, we biked our first century (100 miles) and it feels great to know we can do it before we set off and attempt to ride cross country. We rode Delaware's Route 9 Coastal Heritage Highway from Historic New Castle to the Dover Air Force Base and back. The route passed through industrial zones like around the Valero Oil Refinery, coastal marshlands, and agricultural areas. It was a perfect day for it with light wind and temperatures in the 60s. Not to mention good company, Peter, who reminds Anna and I of our friend Stretch from the AT 2006 season.

With those two excursions under our belts, I'm looking forward to my last day of work April 16th and a trip up to NY to bike around Lake Ontario (650 miles) with my college roommate Andy. I know it sounds crazy but why not give it a shot. We'll be starting from his apartment in Ithaca and riding clockwise around Lake Ontario crossing into Canada at Niagra Falls hugging the shoreline through Toronto and returning via the Thousand Islands Bridge.

By the way... This post was done on our new / used smart phone. (Thank you Anna's Grandad Blinn!) We're in the process of making sure the phone and the data plan does everything we need it to now before we get out on the trail.

Crunch Time

Time has flown by this Winter/Spring.

All the sudden I've got just a couple weeks of work left and a lot of food to box up.

Looking back, we've got most of our "gear" and a lot of food stashed in the pantry, we have guidebooks on their way, and our flight West is set. Now we just have to get everything, our apartment and belongings as well as all the adventure supplies, in order and head out.

We're looking forward to a meeting with a friend of ours (Stretch AT06/Sarong PCT08) to give us his feedback and input for our maildrop strategy on April 2nd. Then we'll be relatively set on where we're mailing food and supplies, and I'll start boxing up food. My Dad has agreed to mail our food for us which will be a HUGE help.

We're hoping to be getting a cell phone/blackberry/PDA in the coming weeks so we'll be able to keep this blog updated and communicate with family when we're in towns.

Throw into the planning mix a trip to Kentucky this weekend after spending last weekend in NYC and Boston, and a 60 mile section hike on the AT in Virginia and a possible bicycle trip with Andy around Lake Ontario (The LOL, Lake Ontario Loop), and it's a pretty busy time here. It feels like we've got a lot on our plate to take care of in six weeks. I had better go get some lunch before I have to go into work.

Can't wait to be living life on the trail.

Expensive Logistics Complete

It's been a while since the last post. A lot of small aspects of the trip have been figured out and sewn up over the last month or so.

We bought and received Yogi's Guidebooks which offer a wide variety of opinions on many aspects of the Pacific Crest Trail, and also includes a PCT Town Guide that we'll use to figure out just what towns to go into and how to navigate these towns efficiently.

Anna has started an every other day bicycle workout regiment and I am continuing to bike commute daily having driven to work only once (New Years day) since Halloween.

We ordered the complete set of a new guidebook called the PCT Atlas. They're in their second edition (full color) now and are relatively expensive, but should be a very thorough and easy way to keep track of where we are. Starting a little later in the season, we can use all the efficiency we can get to make sure we can get to Canada without trudging through too much snow.

We were given a food dehydrator for Christmas from Anna's parents and we'll pair that up with the one we're borrowing from them to do some large scale dehydration soon.

This morning I just bought airline tickets to get to San Diego for only $127 per person.

This means the official departure date for our trip is MAY 10, 2009!!! Wahoo!

So we've got the majority of logistics pretty well under control for the hike. But we still need to get permits required for the PCT, Mt. Whitney, and entry into Canada. We'll need to do a little thinking for the bicycle leg of our adventure.

Some additional expenses will be shipping bicycles, getting back to San Diego via Amtrak or otherwise, becoming Adventure Cycling Association members and buying Southern Tier route maps from them.

I can't wait to get back on the trail.