Week 10

 Thank you everyone for your support and words of encouragement to Darrell when he decided to pull off of the trail through the high Sierras.  Even though this is a "low snow" year, the accumulation on the trail was still high enough to significantly impede his progress.  I took him back to the trail at the Old Station Trailhead, north of Lassen Volcanic National Park, 1394 miles from the starting point back at the Mexican border.  He has been making great progress in the two days he has been on the trail.  He camped at 1409 miles last night and plans to be at Burney Falls today where he plans to stock up on food to get him through the next few days.  I'm mailing a package to a wonderful trail angel in Yreka whom he has never met that he was connected with through a former workmate at Cal Portland.  We are so grateful to the kindness and hospitality of strangers who so enthusiastically are helping to make this hike possible for Darrell.

Here he is at the Trailhead where I dropped him off on Tuesday morning, May 24.  After six days off the trail, eating everything in sight trying to strengthen his body with as many calories as he could and sleeping in a nice warm bed, he was glad to be continuing his journey.

This is Mount Lassen.  He will be coming back this way and hiking past this mountain when he goes back to where I picked him up earlier.  He's hoping most of the snow will be gone by then.

This is Mount Shasta.  He will only be admiring this from a distance since the PCT does not take him too close.  Such stunning scenery.

A Trail Angel living in his RV has committed to providing food and water for the hikers along this part of the route.  He also made a TikTok video with Darrell:  https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTdW1v4Yn/?k=1 The hiker "bubble" hasn't reached this point yet; Darrell was the third one to pass through so far.  One of the downsides of skipping the snow like he did is that there are not many hikers on the trail here, so he will be journeying alone most of the time.  

We did hear from Sweetheart, the 37-year-old hiker from Germany, who stayed at our house for a few days.  He made it through the 200 miles of high Sierra hiking in 15 days.  It was very hard for him and he came close to running out of food.  He experienced lots of postholing and mentioned that at one point it took him 1.5 hours to go one mile; the snow beat him up, he said.  He told us about stream crossings on icy rocks and on logs and landing half in and half out of an icy stream, fortunately keeping his pack dry but soaking his clothes.  He also ran out of gas to cook his food, and another hiker he joined up with gave him a canister of gas he wasn't using because it was almost empty.  Sweetheart was able to use the dregs to prepare his meals and get him through to the next resupply.  

We also heard of a young woman hiking by herself who had to push the rescue button  on her  satellite gadget.  She was rescued several hours later with a broken leg.  

All this to say that I believe Darrell made the right decision to reroute.

I had fun grilling Darrell with a few questions while we traveled up north.  Here are a few questions and answers from this interview he didn't realize I would be publishing.

What has been your favorite food on the trail?  Peanut butter and jelly on flour tortillas.   And granola for breakfast with powdered milk.

What has been your least favorite food?  Instant rice with dried vegetables (not enough seasoning--even after adding dried sausage or jerky).  My note:  he also adds dried eggs and salt and olive oil packets to add calories.  We're going to try flavored mashed potato flakes to see if that's any better.  Appetizing, right? I try to throw in the dehydrated pre-packaged backpacking foods; those are generally delicious on a hike.

If you could invent a piece of equipment that you could take on your hike, what would it be?  Already invented--snow shoes would've been helpful on the snowy passes.

What part of the trip are you enjoying the least?  The drudgery of setting up the tent every night and taking it down in the morning.  It takes too long.

What different equipment would you take with you if you had to start it all over again?  I might pay the extra $400 to get a lighter tent that is easier to set up.

What is the most embarrassing thing that has happened so far? To be fair, I am not going to print this since he didn't know why I was asking all these questions.  But it was funny.

If you could take anyone with you on your hike so that they could enjoy the beauty and joy you are experiencing, who would it be?   I was surprised that I was his first choice, but he also wished he could bring his sisters if they were up to it and Anne Weirich, who is from World Vision who is facilitating all things World Vision and helping with the clean water fundraising for him.

I did ask him more questions, but I didn't write them down so I forgot both the questions and his answers.  If you have any questions you would like me to ask him, please let me know through Facebook messenger or text or email.

We've had some more donations come in recently.  He has now raised $46,778 for clean water through World Vision.  Getting closer to that $100,000 goal!  To donate:  https://www.teamworldvision.org/participant/pctwaterboy

Week 9

 This one will be a little different.  Darrell began his hike from Kennedy Meadows to Reds Meadow near Mammoth Lakes.  He had planned for a 14-day hike and had packed 15 days of food.  He was anticipating this as being the most beautiful section of the entire PCT, passing by Mount Whitney (the highest peak in the continental US),  and traversing many mountain passes, including Forester Pass which is the highest pass on the entire trail.  Since this was what is considered a light snow year, he was hoping the snow levels would be less strenuous.  Because this was the first passage without cell phone coverage along the way, we had no phone conversations but were able to communicate only via text through his satellite GPS gadget.  I'm sharing with you some of our communications as he progressed.  I hope you will get the sense of what he was feeling and what I was experiencing as I received them.  Please pardon the mushy parts and all our typos.  Please enjoy the beautiful pictures toward the end of this post.

I dropped him off on Monday, May 9, at Kennedy Meadows around noon.

I

The rangers ask for permits and date stamp them because they only have 35 days to get through a 350-mile section of the Sierras.  They also check to make sure they are carrying bear canisters.  I'm glad he got to see a bear, but it made for an extremely long day since he started his hike at noon instead of the morning.

This really got to me.  You wouldn't expect something like this to happen.  

Glissading is a way of going down a snowy peak.  It is a controlled slide on your feet or rear end.  It is meant to be a faster way down the slope than walking through the snow.  I'm not sure how that worked out for Darrell, though.

Postholing is when the snow is so soft and deep that your foot and legs sink down into the snow.  At one point he was sinking down to where his crotch was in the snow.

And this is where he asked me to meet him at the small town of Independence. He had come to the conclusion that his pace was so slow and the snowy terrain so grueling that he would not make it through the high Sierras in these conditions without running out of food and running down his body.  

He decided to come home and plan out an alternate strategy for finishing his hike.  He will be postponing completion of this section of the hike.  This week he will be skipping up to further north in California where there is little to no snow accumulation now and hiking up to just below Crater Lake.  He will then come down and finish the section he is bypassing when the snow has hopefully melted then returning to where he leaves off below Crater Lake and continuing northward to Canada.  This was a hard decision for him to make, but it was a wise one considering safety and stamina and realistic expectations of his 66-year-old body.  Because of his constant struggle and fatigue, he wasn't enjoying what, in his eyes, should have been the most breathtaking and rewarding landscape.  By coming back in more favorable conditions, he will get to experience the majesty and beauty like he had hoped he would.  We are proud of him for finding an alternate way to achieve his goal of completing the PCT in one continuous journey by October to raise funds for clean water projects around the world. 

Pictures (in no logical order and mostly unidentified!)

Ice around a rock in the creek.

The following pictures are of the trail and surroundings before he reaches the Sierras.  

It must be cold if he is hiking with his jacket on!

You can see the snowy mountains getting closer.

Looking back as he begins his ascent up into the high country.

Yup, he's arrived to the much anticipated snowy range.  You'll notice it's all above timberline.

No matter how exhausted and discouraged, still a smile!

And, we certainly don't want to forget the reason for this torturous journey.  Please consider donating to World Vision for clean water projects around the world.  Every dollar donated on his fundraising page encourages him so much and reminds him to continue to put one foot in front of the other to achieve his goal.  Please use this link:  

https://www.teamworldvision.org/participant/pctwaterboy