Hiking buddy

I did a nice training hike yesterday with my hiking friend Lee. We met because he responded to a post on the PCT-L, the mega list serve for all things Pacific Crest Trail. I was selling a pack and he wanted to buy a pack so that is how we made contact. He lives in the same general area as I so we have managed to go on a few hikes together in Nicene Marks, one of the local state parks here in Santa Cruz County. We seem to hike at about the same pace and he has good snacks to boot!

Yesterdays hike was around 11 miles, which took about 5.5 hours, including lots of breaks. If I were at my projected pace right now I would be hiking 13 mile days, soon to go up to 15 miles on training hikes. It looks like I won't meet my projected training goals so I fear 11 miles will be my maximum. I hope this won't cause me trouble once on the trail... I won't be as fit as I had planned for but it will be as it is. My plan was to hold myself to 10 mile days for the first three weeks anyway - hopefully this will be enough!

I'm sort of torn...

When thinking about the plan for this blog I am torn between image heavy posting with light word content or image 'lite' with more wordy content. I don't really think of myself as a writer, though I can toss words together. I tend more towards a Zen idea of writing. Generally, I am of the "less is more" school (is this really a school?) thus I get suspicious of 'wordiness', especially when I am writing the words. Some people are remarkable skilled with words but I don't have the confidence to toss them about, willy nilly. I worry about such things. 

Having said all that, I guess I'll just jump in here. I am knee deep in preparations for my PCT hike. I did a 12 mile hike today, which was a bit taxing, but I managed it in 5 hours. With a #20 pound pack. Dodging poison oak and bike riders.... don't get me started on that last part. Grrrrrr. The sun was warm, the air filled with spring. I didn't see too many critters, other than winged ones, but there were lots of undergrowth rumblings. Fortunately no wild pigs to run from... they are kind of scary.

You know what is really scary? Trying to plan for a 5-6 month hike. Pigs? Pah! Nothing compared to trying to manage the 30+ resupply packages I have to deal with. Bring on the Mountain Lions and nutty Republicans... easier than what I have before me. Well, maybe not that, but you get the idea.  The whole thing is hard enough to make my brain twirl, and that ain't good.

poison oak, yikes

So, this pretty plant. Nice and oily. The bane of people who are susceptible to it's special properties. I try mightily to keep myself  away from this plant but no matter what, I seem to break out in blisters. I am, apparently, a delicate flower...

I have poodle dog bush (also bad) to look forward to in the burned out areas in the LA mountains.... Yikes! 

Fun with phones

Wow.
This pretty remarkable. Here I sit, phone in hand, tentatively thumbing my way through my thoughts. It looks like this method will work! The only thing that would make this easier would be if I could use the keyboard in landscape mode. I guess I'll just have make my thumbs more pointy.

Sorry about that. I was just trying to see if the camera transfer would work. And it did!

I think I am closer to deciding which blog to focus on for this long hike. I managed to buy and download the newest Mac software, OSX Lion. The reason for this is that I found out I could sync my iPhone to my computer via iCloud. What that means is that when I take a photo/video on my phone, that software doo-hicky, thing-a-mabob magically floats the image over the, I don't know what, and puts it into my computer... no matter where I am or how far. Who knew? What this means for my trip is that I will be able to keep my phone/camera from getting too full of images without having to physically be on my computer. WOW!

I still have to figure out how to shrink my images but I did find an app, Ever Clipper Plus, that will do the job, at least on the still images. Those videos? Well I don't know if this is possible but I'll still try to find an answer. Too bad I'm not interested in computer problems.... this has been, and continues to be, a hell-ride for me. But, I guess it can be solved. Thanks to those who emailed me to make suggestions!

Wow. How cool is that. I was able to send a photo, nothing exciting as you can see, but still I sent it directly from my phone to this blog. It just might work after all!!!

Electronic Hell

I have been in great turmoil lately, trying to decide what kind of journal I want to use for my upcoming PCT hike. I started with Postholer.com and would like to use their set-up but I can't seem to get photos to upload onto the website. I could use a second application to get my photos smaller but that adds yet another layer of complication to the picture. Plus, I can't put any videos onto Postholer and I would like to be able to do that. The best thing about Postholers site is that it is a well known site and lots of people will easily find it and hopefully follow the blog.

Another option is to use this blog as my trail journal. I am familier with this site so it easier for me to manage. I have been able to put videos and images on here in the past, though they have been made on a camera with much smaller image sizes.  If I had lots of computer experience and knew the ins and outs of the beasts it probably wouldn't seem so daunting, but I don't and it does. There you have it.

Part of the difficulty is that my newly purchased, for this trip, super expensive iPhone 4S will not allow me to make the adjustments necessary to shrink my images to the correct size for emailing to either site. So here I have this wonderful camera phone with lots of capacity but no way to upload it to journal sites.

Anyone got any ideas?

I'm about 5 minutes away from pulling out my crummy little 4 megapixal camera (that uses AA batteries), some paper and a pencil and calling it done. HELP!

Foods and prep

Well, that 7th grade cooking class I took has faded from my memory. I have to look up the details of measurement conversions. Thus, the note on my cabinet.... who can remember such things?

Also, it is really fun to plan for 5 months of exercise related foods. For the first time in many years I have given myself free rein to eat candy. Wow. Costco = lots'a stuff.

I'm afraid to tally up the costs of this adventure.............. and I ain't even half way done with the spending!

"The Herd"

It looks like my projected hiking schedule puts me right smack dab in the middle of the group of people hiking the PCT, aka "The Herd". Fortunately I will be leaving earlier than most so I won't be in the middle of the pack the whole time. This particular schedule will have me finishing the trail on 9/28, though hopefully I'll finish the day before, 9/27/12. I hope to cross the Canadian border on my 61st birthday. Wouldn't that be cool?

Below you see the schedule put together by a guy named Halfmile. He analyzes the data from each year then puts together schedules for 4 month, 4.5 month and 5 month hikes. I show the 5 month plan. Unfortunately I had difficulty with the formatting so not all the columns line up correctly but you get the idea.

Most Hikers- 5 month hike duration [151 days]

Campo                                         PCT                          Segment                    Total                           MPD     

                                                      Mile                           Days                           Days                           Avg

Campo                                         0

Agua Dulce                                454                             33                               33                               13.8

Kennedy Meadows                  703                             16                               49                               15.6

Sonora Pass                               1018                          25                               74                               12.6

Ashland                                      1720                          33                               107                             21.3         

Cascade Locks                          2155                          19                               126                             22.9

Manning Park                             2664                          25                               151                             20.4