June 24. Wednesday, 8:15pm.
We finished day 3 in our trek to Kennedy Meadows and the High Sierras from Tehachapi. The landscape is depressingly similar to the rest of arid southern California: brown scuffy mountians, loose-sand trails where each step slides backwards an inch, 15-20 miles between water sources, etc.
The bad news is that all this, on top of blisters and injury-related discomfort, has got us close to our breaking point. We have also learned that there are only 4 other thru-hikers behind us spread out across the last 500 miles. We feel really lonely.
The good news is that yesterday we had a bright spot in our hike. We were greeted at our lunch spot by the one and only Scott Williamson! Scott and another guy named Adam are attempting to break the speed record for a PCT thru-hike. The really fun part is that the guy who holds the record did so by running with no backpack, meeting a support van at every road. Scott and Adam are trying to beat that record in an unsupported fashion, carrying a backpack and resupplying in towns just like all the rest of us. We knew Scott was coming up behind us and we were really looking forward to meeting him. He is such a down-to-earth guy. He answered all our questions and wanted to know how our hike had been going, too. We must have sat and talked with them for over an hour. They're trying to do (and have done so far) 40 miles a day! We felt vey honored to spend some time with them. They're the ones who told us about the sparse thru-hikers behind us. But they also assured us that we are so close to a real change in scenery. Things will improve drastically they said.
So we are going to try to push through to greener pastures. It's hard right now to keep going but we have to have faith that this too shall pass.
bluebird
We finished day 3 in our trek to Kennedy Meadows and the High Sierras from Tehachapi. The landscape is depressingly similar to the rest of arid southern California: brown scuffy mountians, loose-sand trails where each step slides backwards an inch, 15-20 miles between water sources, etc.
The bad news is that all this, on top of blisters and injury-related discomfort, has got us close to our breaking point. We have also learned that there are only 4 other thru-hikers behind us spread out across the last 500 miles. We feel really lonely.
The good news is that yesterday we had a bright spot in our hike. We were greeted at our lunch spot by the one and only Scott Williamson! Scott and another guy named Adam are attempting to break the speed record for a PCT thru-hike. The really fun part is that the guy who holds the record did so by running with no backpack, meeting a support van at every road. Scott and Adam are trying to beat that record in an unsupported fashion, carrying a backpack and resupplying in towns just like all the rest of us. We knew Scott was coming up behind us and we were really looking forward to meeting him. He is such a down-to-earth guy. He answered all our questions and wanted to know how our hike had been going, too. We must have sat and talked with them for over an hour. They're trying to do (and have done so far) 40 miles a day! We felt vey honored to spend some time with them. They're the ones who told us about the sparse thru-hikers behind us. But they also assured us that we are so close to a real change in scenery. Things will improve drastically they said.
So we are going to try to push through to greener pastures. It's hard right now to keep going but we have to have faith that this too shall pass.
bluebird
1 comment:
sounds like he was another trail angel...
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